32 THE MENDEL JOURNAL 



Initiation ceremonies have often been recorded 

 by travellers, but few have understood their real 

 importance. Their true purpose is to aid the boy 

 and the girl in the fulfilment of their duties as husband 

 and wife ; in the case of boys this may seem un- 

 necessary in a country where even the smallest 

 children possess knowledge which is carefully con- 

 cealed from our own. But the girl, when she leaves 

 the " fattening house " or the bush, wherever the 

 initiation takes place, knows how to conduct her 

 life, so as to have every chance of fulfilling the expecta- 

 tions of her race. She also Jias been taught what 

 her conduct must be during the quickening of a life 

 yet forming, and how to prepare for its advent to 

 the world. Thus the life of the first-born child is 

 more likely to be preserved than among the ill- 

 informed and needlessly apprehensive young European 

 mothers. When the infant is born, it is examined 

 carefully ; if it is weak or deformed, then in one way 

 or another, it is no longer allowed to burden its own 

 life nor handicap its race in the struggle for survival. 

 This is the reason why one sees no cripples or other 

 kind of defective persons in Central or West Africa ; 

 this is the reason why man there is a 7nan, virile in 

 habit, strong and lithe in body. 



No woman has marital relations with her husband 

 during the suckling period, which lasts from three 

 to four years ; this means that an interval of four 

 or five years must elapse between the advent of the 

 first and second child. Not only can the mother, 

 therefore, bestow all the necessary care on each child. 



