Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/262

 250 Mystical and Ceremonial Avoidance

Among the Baganda, before marriage the bride was in the old days kept shut up for two weeks. If she went outside she put on sandals. On the marriage day the meeting with her husband took place halfway between the two houses. The bride was escorted on foot to this point. Here the bridegroom and his party met hers. On meeting, the bride was picked up by one of the husband's friends and carried on his shoulder to the husband's house. Here she was set down and crossed the threshold herself. After marriage she stayed indoors three weeks. In this it must be noted that, as with the Mandingo, it is not the bride- groom who carries the bride but one of his friends.

Great care used to be exercised by the Baganda lest a pregnant woman come in contact with another man. She used to be told the child would die, so as to frighten her. She must not shake hands with a man, nor should even his cloth touch her in passing. So far was the non-intercourse idea extended, to say nothing of non-contact, that whilst a woman's husband was away travelling she was not allowed to speak to another man under pain of something terrible happening. No doubt this last restriction was no more than one that had its origin in male jealousy.

Another case of which I have collected only one example may be mentioned here, although it is dissimilar. It is in relation to widows, and was observed by me in Ashanti. It was in the town of Ejura. It was dusk, and the dancing after the funeral was finished for the time being. The widow, with her face whitened with clay was about to go home. She was not allowed to walk, but one of the young men present took her on his shoulders, and so she went to her house, a man on each side of her steadying her. I was told this was the widow, but there may have been a mistake, and she may have been a fetish-woman, who among other tribes are sometimes so carried.

With brides perhaps the reason may be that she is regarded as a very precious object for which much in the