Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/503

 Pokonio Folklore. 465

pointed at the top. The breadth at tlic bottom is about equal to the height in the centre. The thatch is cut ofif, near the top, in three or more concentric ridges, which gives a pecuHar cachet to the general effect. The doorway is a narrow opening just wide and high enough to admit one person in a stooping position. There is no door, but one or more dried fronds of the wild date-palm are used to close the entrance, and lean against the house beside it when not in use. The principal interior features are the central fireplace and two bedsteads, made of palm-leaf ribs lashed together over a rough wooden framework. The husband's bedstead is high, — three feet six or so, — but the wife's only one foot or under, in case of the babies rolling off, for the smallest children share it with their mother. As boys and girls grow older, they are drafted off to the youth's house and the maids' house respectively. Polygamists have a hut for each wife and her children.

The genealogies I have collected seem to show that poly- gamy is, comparatively speaking, not very frequent. Most men have one wife, occasionally one has two, but three are rare. Probably, as the old jest has it, matrimony is a matter of money, i.e. of inability to raise the bride-price a second time. Girls are often bespoken in infancy, or even (con- ditionally) before birth, and one sometimes hears it said, — " So-and-so has a wife, but she is not grown up yet." The arrangement is not always rigidly carried out. It would be surprising if it were among so good-natured a people as the Pokomo, who certainly do not err in the direction of severity towards their children. If, on reaching years of discretion, the girl finds that she does not like the destined suitor or prefers another, the matter can always be arranged by returning to the former the payments he has already made on account. If there is another young man, he, of course, has to do the paying.

The dress of the non-mission Wapokomo consists chiefly of one or more pieces of cotton cloth, beads, and a mixture of