Thk Fate of timj. Widows Amon«;st tiik Ba-i{ON<;a. 307 



nection established in the uiitivt' mind between death and Ijirth, l)e- 

 tween the great acts of life ? Tt may be so. My native infoiinants do 

 not know. They think rathei- that the bereaved woman, haviiiij been 

 deprivcnl of her natural prot<.'ctor, loses all sense of shame and shows 

 that nothing is any more sacred for her. Those impure manifestations 

 would be manifestations of grief I 



The hut having become a grave by the removal of its crown, a 

 smaller one is built in front of -it for the first wife. 



Every near relative has his hair cut. The women shave their 

 heads entirely. Men and also women not very nearly related only 

 cut a line in the temporal region. This shaving is a sign of respect 

 for the deceased. It is also intended to avoid the mayiha, viz., the 

 disagreeable sensation of the hair rising on the head under the 

 impression of fear or of grief. 



The tirst wife has, moreover, to perform various acts of purification 

 in connnon with the two grave-diggers. These consist in three steam 

 baths {hungula) taken according to the native fashion : A inat is 

 placed standing so as to form a circular wall. Another one is put on 

 top of it. In that little house a fire is lighted, an earthen pot filled 

 with water and with various drugs put on the fire, and the person 

 undergoing treatment enters into it and exposes herself to the steam, 

 heat and smoke ; she coughs and perspires heavih'. These steam baths 

 are three in number — one the first day, one the third day, one the fifth 

 da3\ The two last ones must be "enjoyed" twice! They are dis- 

 tinctl}'^ a medical treatment, being administered by a regular nanya 

 (native doctor). The first is the most powerful. For it the physician 

 keeps his most active drugs. Bits of roots and branches are poured 

 into the water, and pills, called timhida, are thrown into the fire. These 

 pills are made of fat mixed with pulverised medicines. It is considered 

 so awful that the jar is thrown away on the grave and must not be 

 used any more. The widow undergoes the first bath in her old cl(jthing, 

 which afterwards is also thrown away ; she then wears the malopa, a 

 kind of deep blue cottonade, which the Ronga have been using as 

 mourning garments for many generations. 



Let us here point to a very significant fact. The laws of purifica- 

 tion of the wives of a deceased husband are much heavier when they 

 apply to his first or great wife than when they apply to the others. 

 The first wife alone has to undergo the inguinal incision, the purifica- 

 tion by the cock's dung, the crossing of the hut with lamentations. 

 And in the following days she alone has to sleep in a totally new hut. 

 (The others only move their actual hut inside of the circle of the village, 

 ■ as it would be dangerous for them to sleep on the very ground where 

 they used to meet with the deceased.) Moreover, the great wife, though 

 she has not touched the corpse any more than her companions, must 

 go thi-ough the same steam baths as the gra\'e-diggers. To this fact 

 I may add also this striking circumstance : if a wife has died, her 

 husband, the widower, has to perform the secret rites of purification 

 only if she was his first wife. For the others he is not submitted to 

 them. What does it mean ? Magingi, one of my informants, who is a 



