Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/238

216 was 4 ft. deep. As he had no heirs all his goods and property, except enough to pay his funeral expenses, were heaped upon the body. A native brickmaker and bricklayer had an order for 3000 bricks to build a vault and floor the grave. The flooring is intended to avert the sinking of the body into the earth, which is thought to have happened when the earth sinks on a grave.

Makitu, chief of the district around Wathen, died and was buried in 1898. His coffin rested on three pieces of ivory cut from a tusk which he had saved for years for this purpose. One loaded gun was buried with him, so that, when he arrived in the "spirit forest," he could shoot the spirit of the ndoki (witch) who had brought him to his death. They intended to bury two women and one man alive in his grave, but this was prevented by missionaries; it is still uncertain, nevertheless, whether one woman, who was missed about the time of the funeral, was not actually buried with the corpse. As regards ivory put in a grave, it is the native belief that only the evuvu, or shell, is left of it. If any person removed the ivory and succeeded in selling it, he would be alleged to be a witch, since he was able to convert the evuvu into real ivory. Similarly, if a person took a plate or a bottle from a grave and was able to use it, this would be regarded as an undeniable proof that he was a witch. Such a thief would in the old days have been killed, and his or her blood poured on the grave to appease the robbed and wrathful spirit.

Compensation to family for deaths.—A man living at Nkondo, a village near Wathen, was very ill, near to death in fact, and did not desire to leave his property (trade goods, guns, gunpowder, etc.) to his relatives. So he made up his mind to burn down the house containing the goods. He waited for an opportunity, and one night, when five persons,—three adults and two children,—were sleeping in the house, he locked the door, set fire to the structure, and rolled himself in his blankets to await death. Only one man escaped. The family of the two children demanded, and received, compensation for their death from the suicide's family.

Sacrifices on graves.—In olden times slaves were killed, and their blood poured on the grave of their master. In the early days of the Congo Free State, an officer arrived and stopped for