Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/324

 maternal family. Has this savage mode of filiation been formerly in use there? It is possible; but the short regency of the king's sister is a very insufficient proof of it. In eastern Africa, among the Vouazegouras, and also among the Bangalas of Cassanga, the uncle has the indefeasible right to sell his nephews, and in so doing he has the strong approval of public opinion. "Why," say they, "should a man remain in need while his brothers and sisters have children?" Yet this relates to tribes long under Arab influence. In the same region, the Vouamrimas generally consider the son of their sister as their heir, in preference to their own children. Among the Bazes and the Bareas, succession is also in the maternal line, and the heirs are, in the first degree, the eldest son of the eldest sister; and in the second degree, the second son of the same sister, etc. In southern Africa the children belong to the maternal uncle, who also has the right to sell them. It is the same among the Basuto Kaffirs. With these last, as a Kaffir chief informed me, it is again the nephew who succeeds to the throne. The Makololo Kaffirs, however, seem to be in process of adopting paternal filiation; or at least they combine it with maternal filiation, by compelling the husband, as Livingstone informs us, to redeem his children by the payment of a tax, without which they would belong to the maternal grandfather.

In short, there is no uniform rule among the Kaffirs, for Levaillant has seen a tribe with whom the inheritance was transmitted at a man's death to his wife and male children, to the exclusion of the daughters, which is again a transitional régime.

In some districts of central Africa, among populations that are half-civilised, and more or less converted to Mahometanism, matriarchal customs still persist. On the Niger, at Wowow and at Boussa, it is the grandmother who grants or refuses to her grand-daughter the permission to marry. The curious privilege that, according to Laing, the