Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/249

Rh children are put into a sack, with an egg and a stick of sugar-cane, and hung on a limb to starve. Murders are avenged in blood by the friends of the victim, or the crime is brought before the chief and punished with a fine, of which the relatives receive a part. In case this is not acceptable to them, they proceed to exercise justice according to their own views.

Thefts are punished by death or fine. If the thief is not found, a curse is issued against him, by, for instance, burning a dog alive and invoking a similar fate upon the guilty man. Ordeals are employed for the detection of thefts—as the ordeal of water; or a hen's head is cut off, and notice is taken of the person toward whom the decapitated fowl flies. The resumption of friendly relations after disagreement is sealed by the imprecation of a terrible curse upon the party who shall renew the quarrel. The parties and their friends in succession take in hand a palm-leaf which is supposed to represent the person upon whom the curse is destined to fall, present it before the ancestral figures, and say, "If any malice is left in N. N.'s heart, if he seeks to do harm to the other, then twist his neck, O image of my father, image of my grandfather!"

When a child is born, the father and mother must refrain from doing anything that can possibly suggest evil, lest it fall upon the child. They must not slay any beast, they must not eat of a pig that has died (to which otherwise they are not averse), they must not pass by where a man or an animal has been killed, or make an idol or a water-trough, or blow a bellows, or burn a field, or heat iron, or take a knife in hand, etc. In any such cases, the child is supposed to acquire some of the unpleasant qualities associated with the obnoxious object or act, in a symbolical if not real sense.

In time the child is introduced to the ancestral gods, and a name is given him, which usually has some particular significance, and often relates to some fact in the family history. Daughters are not welcome, and are liable to be given such names as "The no use," or "It doesn't taste well." But many of the unpleasant names that are heard are such as are given as nicknames "for luck"; for, when a child is called by his true name, the evil spirits may learn it and bring harm to him. Circumcision is customary, in connection with which offerings are made for the child's health, and to inform the ancestral gods that the rite has been performed.

The price of brides varies according to their station, and is shared by the girl's relatives, the chief, and the people of the village; but the village people's share gets divided into too small sums to be reckoned in money, and is paid out in little