Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/271

Rh significance in it as regards the retention or loss of "medicine."

That the custom of lifting dancers off the ground is far spread may be seen from the custom of a tribe on the upper Mubangi River in Belgian Congo. (A. H. Savage Landor, Across Widest Africa.) Between the dances the girls are carried on the shoulders of the spectators or of specially appointed persons amongst them, usually standing upright. As there is no rest in such a position, such a motive cannot apply. It may therefore be so that they can be seen by everybody, and be done with the idea of honouring them.

Among the Nkundo on the Juapa River there is a dancing girl who is called a Kanga. She must not be touched or washed immediately before the dance, I gather, but palm oil and the red dye of the camwood tree are rubbed all over her. In some way she is sacred, and apparently a touch from an unauthorised person is held to be sure to spoil her dancing.

Though not an example of a similar nature I may mention a case of protection being accorded to a male dancer. In passing through the native part of the town of Lusaimbo on the Sankuru River (the inhabitants of which are largely Baluba, but many tribes are mixed there) I met accidentally an important dancer in his dancing dress, which, especially the headdress, was of very superior manufacture. I wanted to photograph him, but in a moment a woman was interposed. Judging by the proximity of the woman when required, and by her taking her place without any hesitation, I am inclined to think that the procedure was a customary and frequent one so as to ward off any noxious influence. Incidentally I was much struck with this dancer in the few moments I saw him, he seemed of a very special type, although his face was absolutely expressionless.

On the whole it does not seem to be widely and generally