Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/48

36 Besides the rules of hlonipa in speech, there are certain rules of action which apply more especially to young wives. A son's wife must never appear before her father-in-law with uncovered breast, or without the bead fillet which seems to be a kind of symbolic substitute for a veil—at any rate the woman who wears one on her head is supposed to be "covered" as far as the interests of propriety demand. In coming out of the kraal gateway, she must always turn her skin petticoat (isikaka) round, front to back; but, should her father-in-law be seated by the gate, she must turn it so that the front comes to one side. She must never enter the cattle-kraal: this prohibition is sometimes held to apply to all women—but this is not universally the case; at any rate Mr. Gumede tells me that it is only the sons' wives who are under the tabu. If she requires fresh cow-dung (ubulongwe) for smearing the floor of her hut, she stands at the doorway and calls one of the children to fetch it for her; if no child is handy, she calls one of the women who have the right to enter—i.e. her husband's mother, or one of his sisters—and, if they are not within reach, she sends her husband. Another prohibition applies to the isilili of the father-in-law—i.e. the recess on the right side of the hut which serves as his sleeping-place. (His wife has a corresponding recess on the left side, each being separated from the main apartment by three posts.) This may be approached by his own wife only. Even after his death, should the hut be occupied by the son's wife, she must not set foot in this recess. How long this prohibition holds, there is no information, but as huts do not last an unlimited time and are rarely, if ever, re-erected on exactly the same spot, the question has no practical bearing.

People are apt to fancy that, where clothing is scanty, rules of propriety are absent, whereas anthropologists are aware that they are more numerous and perhaps more stringent in primitive than in civilized society. To Euro-