Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/502

 466 Collectanea.

him (Auta) one. When the boy had taken (it), he started travelHng in the forest. Then he went and came upon a weaver ; he had made (collected) a white cloth (shuttle of white cotton). Then he said, — " O Youth, will you not give me your knife that I may cut this white cloth?" 21 When he had given him (it) he cut the white cloth. Then he (Auta) said, — " Now pay me for my knife." So he (weaver) took all the white cloth, and gave the boy (it). The boy went on, and came upon (a place) where a girl, a maiden, had died. As for them, 22 they had no white cloth in which to take her to the grave. " O Boy, will you not give us this white cloth in which to take the corpse to the grave?" So he took (it) and gave them. So they cut it up and sewed it {i.e. the strips together), and wrapped (it) around (covered) the girl. When they were about to take her to the grave, the boy caught hold of the girl, and said, — " Pay me for my white cloth." Then they took the corpse and gave him (it), and he lifted it on to his head. 2^ He went on travelling and emerged from the forest, and went and came to a large town. Now there was a river at the gate of the town. Each day-* the chief's wives would come and get water. He, however, when he came with the dead girl, dug two holes and put her feet (in them). He stretched (the body upright), (and) she stood up. Then he took all the white cloth, and wrapped her (in it) right down to the ground. Then he went back in the shade, and waited. When the chief's wives came to draw water at the place, he said, — " For God's sake will you not give my wife (some) water that she may drink ? I gave her (some), but she refused to drink because of (her) pride."^^ Then one, the head wife of the chief, got some water in a calabash, and came and said, — "Here." Silence. She did not accept (it). Then another of the chiefs wives, when she had

21 Made in long strips about four inches in width. See Robinson's Hausaland.

''^i.e., the mourners. A white shroud {likafani) is necessarj*.

^ The usual method of carrying the dead. The corpse is usually wrapped in a very stout mat or in a specially stiffened wrapper.

^Ananan seems out of place here. It usually means "it went on," or something similar.

^^ A woman usually gets water for a man, not vice versa.