Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/522

 458 Customs of the Lower Congo People.

played without drums. The observation of these rules has led to greater morality among those who observe them, and they are very numerous ; any church member breaking them is disciplined.

The small children have their make-belief games. For example, a root of cassava is tied on the back to represent a baby. It has been my experience that it is useless to give them dolls. They do not understand them and are afraid of them, and in a short time the dolls are found on the market places for sale as charms and fetishes. Small boys with sticks will march as soldiers and get up mimic fights, and with old provision tins start a band which you are glad to send into the next district. With bits of sticks, reeds, and grass they make imitation houses with mud walls. Bits of broken saucepan, old tins, and odds and ends from their parents' houses furnish them with the necessary articles for their " pretend " game of house-keeping, receiving visits from each other, and inviting one another to their " make- belief" feasts. It is a toyless land, a land where children are not catered for, but notwithstanding that the youngsters, by their boisterous laughing and loud shouting, seem to get a great amount of joy out of life. The following are the principal games I have noticed : —

I. Game played with " biti " and needle. The players divide into two sides, which we will call A and B. All of them have a musical instrument called the " biti," which is a kind of " marimba " (reed instrument). The playing side A sends out one of its men, and in his absence hides a needle, which he has to find guided by the side B play- ing an agreed-upon note simultaneously. The side B decides what the guiding note shall be. On the return of the needle-seeker, the side B begins to play the " biti." When the seeker draws near the needle the guiding note is played, and, as he recedes from it, it is left out. The seeker has not only to find the needle, but also to name the guiding note. If he finds the needle it counts as one