Liberia 



'^^ 



Kru people it is thought hospitable to offer a stranger-guest 

 the society of a wife when the stranger is staying in the village, 

 or the same favour might be granted ahiiost anywhere in 

 Liberia (amongst the aboriginal natives, bien entendii) upon prior 

 payment. 



But illicit adultery, so to speak, is still condemned by native 

 law. There are traces in their customs of its having been 

 punished with death at no very distant period. It is doubtful 

 whether the death penalty is ever inflicted nowadays. In the 

 Kru country, if a man surprises a lover with his wife in his own 

 or the woman's hut, custom obliges him to bow the man out : 

 the law of hospitality forbids him to strike or injure the man 

 whilst he is actually by his own hearth. But once the adulterer 

 is outside the threshold, the injured husband may proceed to 

 attack him. This means, of course, that the guilty person takes 

 to flight with all possible speed, and the husband if he can — 

 assisted by all the friends he can summon to his aid — catches 

 up with him and inflicts a severe beating. The wife also gets 

 her share of blows, and finally the two are tied together, forehead 

 to forehead, and exposed to public derision in the village square, 

 after which no doubt some present or indemnification finally 

 sets the matter right. But it is doubtful whether at the present 

 day (except perhaps in the remote interior) any tuss at all is 

 made. The matter would generally be immediately compounded 

 by the ofl^sr of a present on the part of the woman's lover. 



Amongst the Mandingo the illicit lover is rarely called 

 upon to do more than pay the equivalent of a few dollars as 

 indemnity. Should- he, however, be a man of notoriously bad 

 character, constantly caught out in his interference with other 

 men's wives, a large payment is enforced, and if he refuses to 

 comply with the demands of the husband, the chief of his 

 country or district will decree that he be sold into slavery ; 



1046 



