"126 TIIF. PSVCTIIC LIFE OF THE TMOXGA TRIliE. 



poetry ( lyric, epic, satiric, and dramatic) ; then follows a most 

 interesting- and exhaustively illustrated account of the native 

 folk-lore, and this, in turn, is succeeded by a chapter on Thonga 

 music and musical instruments. Nearly a dozen pag-es of staff 

 notation sufficiently illustrate the former, and M. Junod asserts 

 that the Thonga are familiar with both major and minor modes, 

 while accidentals and the chromatic scale present no serious 

 difficulties — nor, to judg-e from some of the illustrations given, 

 do consecutive fifths. In discussing shortly, at the close of the 

 second section of this book, the problem of Native Education, 

 the author makes it a cardinal principle that such education must 

 be bi-lingual: the teaching of vernacular reading^ and writing he 

 declares to be the basis of the whole edifice, but m the ever- 

 increasing intercourse with white people he sees a need for 

 knowledge of Portuguese, English, or Dutch., and accordingly 

 he proposes a division of native primary education into three 

 -Stages : ( r ) The vernacular stage, ( 2 ) a mixed or transition 

 stage, and ( 3 ) a European stage, during the last of which one 

 or other of the three FA\vo])ea.n languages mentioned should, as 

 far as possible, be employed as the medium of instruction. In 

 that ])i;>rtion of his book wherein he describes the Psychic life 

 proper, consideration is first of all given by the author to Thonga 

 conceptions of the world and its origin, and to thei*- ideas of 

 cosmolog}', physiography, meteorology, and biology. By an 

 easy transition this passes over to the native conceptions regard- 

 ing man as embracing body and soul, and from these again to 

 the Thonga religion, which is ancestrolatry of a purely 

 spiritistic type, that is to say, idolatry and fetishism are absent. 

 The religion, though non-moral, is not immoral, and coupled 

 therewith is a conception of Heaven — a term with which is 

 associated a dim idea, not only of uninhabited locality, but also 

 of impersonal, though active power. Magic rites amongst the 

 Thonga people possess several more or less distinct phases, some 

 beneficent, others the reverse. Medical practices belong to the 

 former category ; less exclusivelv so is the treatment of 

 demoniac possession, while witchcraft is met with both in the 

 form of white and black magic, the latter being decidedly male- 

 ficent. The concluding portion of the chapter on magic is 

 concerned with divination, the object of which is to provide 

 guidance and direction in regard to the future, under perplexing 

 circumstances, by means of such expedients as presages and 

 divinatory bones. The fourth and final chapter of the book 

 deals with some of the restraints put upon the people : these are 

 the taboos and moral restraints. The origin of the taboos is 

 generally inexplicable, but when a taboo has been proclaimed 

 and then ti*ansgressed, condign punishment is' thought to be 

 averted from the transgressor by the drugs of the medicine-man'. 

 As for moral restraints, M. Junod comes to the conclusion that, 

 if Bantu religion is non-moral so also Bantu morality 

 is. non-religious, nor can a man even so much as feel 



