CURIOUS FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 839 



the ceremonial of which is performed by a band of hired mourners. 

 The finest of cattle of the wealthy land-owner are slain, not by the 

 usual method of stabbing, but by cutting off their heads, that their 

 horns may be used to adorn the grave. The flesh of the cattle is 

 given to be eaten to those who will in return join the band of mourn- 

 ers for a specified term. If the cattle are not slain all at once, but by 

 installments, the means are thereby secured of prolonging the period 

 of mourning for as long a time as the meat will hold out. It is com- 

 mon, after the head of a house has died, to remove the icerst, or fam- 

 ily residence. It is possible that this is done to get away from the 

 malaria which the sickness and death of members of the family give 

 notice has settled down upon the place ; for malarious influences have 

 been found to linger over into the year following one of extreme sick- 

 ness. The children visit the graves of their parents only rarely, and 

 then with much ceremony, to consult the oracle of their ancestors ; 

 and sometimes the oracle proclaims that the deceased desires again to 

 enjoy the lowing of his cattle, when the son repairs to the grave with 

 the herds. The Hereros are almost universally in as great terror of 

 ghosts as any child among Europeans ; and the household legends, 

 which are transmitted from generation to generation, consist for the 

 most part of stories of returned spirits. No one will venture out 

 alone in the thick darkness ; and, if one has to go at night for the 

 missionary-doctor, he will not stir out without a companion. Nothing 

 in the world, says Herr Biittner, would move them to go into an ana- 

 tomical museum, or to witness a dissection. Little as it troubles them 

 to slay a beast, they will not lay hands on a human corpse without 

 extreme compulsion. " The pictures in my anatomical atlas were an 

 object of horror to them. When, during my last few months in Da- 

 mara-Land, I was buying from the natives whatever I could get for 

 specimens, I succeeded in overcoming their dread sufficiently to induce 

 them to sell me a considerable number of magical charms ; but not 

 one of them would venture to bring me a skull, whatever price I 

 offered them. A long box in which I had packed a lot of lances and 

 bows, and which looked somewhat like a rough coffin, was a terror to 

 all the people of my house, for how did they know that I was not 

 going to fill it with the men's bones I was trying to buy ? It was 

 amusing to see how the men who afterward had to handle this box, 

 lift it upon the wagon, etc., hurried with the greatest fear, so as to 

 get it out of their hands as quickly as possible." 



