1 82 THE SACRIFICE OF RECONCILIATION. 



fruit called sala (Strychnos), as big as a large organge, and which 

 is frequently used as a drinking vessel. Everybody meets on the 

 hubOj the square of the village, and the two enemies sit in the 

 midst, on the bare ground, and not on a mat. The offender lifts 

 the shell to his lips, takes a sip of the decoction in his mouth, 

 spits it out, making the noise of tsu. This tsu is the sacra- 

 mental syllable by means of which the Ba-Ronga call their gods 

 to the sacrifice. However, he does not pray to the spirits as is 

 done in regular offerings. He only says: " This is our impreca- 

 tion ! We have pronounced it because our hearts were sore. 

 To-day it must come to' an end. It is right that we make peace." 

 The other brother, the offended one, then takes the shell in his 

 hand, and after having gone through the same rite of the tsu 

 says : " I was justly angry because he first offended me. I have 

 been irritated myself also. But let it be ended to-day ; let us 

 eat out of the same spoon and drink out of the same S'lass and 

 be friends again." Then he breaks the shell, and if there is a 

 Banyan store in the neighbourhood, they buy two bottles of 

 Portuguese wine and drink them together ! 



In this second case, a true sacrifice has been performed and 

 the act of reconciliation bears a strongly religious character. The 

 gods have been more or less summoned as witnesses, and the 

 enemies have become friends again because they feared to be 

 punished by the spirits of their ancestors. The religious feeling 

 has certainly inspired a moral act. 



But should a man pronounce an imprecation against a stranger, 

 viz., against a man who has not the same ancestors, no such re- 

 conciliation would be possible. A man's gods have no reason what- 

 ever to interfere with people belonging to another family. The 

 religion of the Ba-Ronga is strictly a family affair. The jurisdic- 

 tion of the gods does not extend further than their direct descend- 

 ants, and the moral influence of the religious beliefs of Ancestro- 

 latry is limited, therefore, to the narrow sphere of the family. 

 This shows that we cannot expect amongst those animist tribes 

 anything like the spiritual morality of a theistic religion. 



TRANSACTIONS OF SOCIETIES. 



Chemical, Metallurgical, and Mining Society of South Africa:— 

 Saturday, December 17th: J. Moir, M.A. D.Sc, F.C.S., President, in the 

 chair. — "Notes on Matte Assay": L. J. WILMOT. The author advocated 

 the use of a matte for the removal of base metals as of the greatest value in 

 gold assaying, and in illustration described his method, with results obtained 

 in the assay of such articles as copper drillings. Details were also furnished 

 of experiments made on rich copper matte and on litharge dross carrying 

 20% of copper. 



