Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 23, 1912.djvu/543

 Reviews. 5 1 9

themselves. The whole subject of the taboo of relations-in-law requires very careful reconsideration.

It is worthy of notice that the Thonga, like the Bushongo of the Congo region, have no custom of vendetta. African peoples have developed a judicial system, admirable in its way, and well adapted for the preservation of order. They therefore do not need for the punishment of murder and other serious crime the more archaic practice of revenge. Homicide by accident is usually arranged even without the interference of the Court. In case of intentional homicide the law is invoked to assess the damages payable by the family of the man-slayer, and he himself is regarded with scorn by the whole community, and in addition is required to undergo rites of purification, — not, like returning warriors, with boasting and honour, but with the contempt of his fellows.

The death customs of the Thonga are complicated and replete with instruction on savage ideas. So far as they relate to the mourning and purificatory rites of widows, they have been ex- pounded in detail in a paper read by M. Junod before the South African Association for the Advancement of Science and pub- lished in the Report for the year 1909. The particulars are not very savoury, but they are important. Since the Report in question is not accessible to all students, I regret that the author has not incorporated his paper on the subject here, but contented himself with a reference to it. He, however, givQS an outline of the rites, and sufficiently indicates their general purport. The death pollution extends more or less over the whole village. The ceremonies attending the resumption of normal relations indicate a similar direction of thought to those of the purification of widows, but are less elaborate. M. Junod goes beyond the evidence when he states that the funeral rites clearly show the intuition that " Man is immortal, and becomes a god through death.'' Whether the deceased becomes " a god " depends on the definition of that term, — one of the most difficult to define in the whole range of anthropology. But there is no proof, so far as I am aware, that the life after death is regarded by any Bantu people as immortal. Botli the itongo and the idhlozi (to give them their Zulu terminology) continue, and continue indefinitely.