Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/61

Rh and would now disregard the prohibition, but unfortunately they are afraid to sell it in any quantity for fear the State authorities should hear of it and impose a tax on the article, and their last state would be worse than their first.

Besides selling ivory and rubber to the white trader, slaves were also sold. Those sold as slaves were the inveterate thieves, the men who committed adultery and could not pay the fine for such a crime, the rascals and rowdy blackguards, and bankrupt debtors, or a bankrupt family would sell one or more of its members to clear itself of debt. A creditor not strong enough to enforce payment would transfer his credit to a stronger man (for not more than the debt owed), and the new creditor would send early one morning, and as the debtor stepped from his house he would be caught, tied, and carried away for sale. Sometimes these debts were not legitimate ones in the sense of being a business transaction between a debtor and creditor for, say, 1000 brass rods and interest, (equal £2 and interest), but a mean advantage would be taken of a temporary difficulty, such as, for example, a man one day wanting ten brass rods (5d.) to finish a transaction. He would borrow the rods, and the lender might hate the man, and sell him within a day or so as a slave, or he might transfer the debt to an enemy with like evil results,—slavery for life for the sake of ten brass rods. It has been done for even two brass rods.

Those who were proved by the ordeal to be guilty of witchcraft and those who were murderers could not be sold as slaves, nor could they be redeemed at any price by their families, but had to be killed. They had taken a life and must pay a life.

The ordinary cloth of former times was mbadi. It was a native-made woven cloth. The threads were gathered from the leaves of the new fronds of palm trees. The leaves were stripped from the mid-rib of the new