PYGMIES AND FOREST NEGROES 553 



As regards the union of the sexes, it would appear as though among 

 the Lendu there was a certain freedom of intercourse among the young 

 men and young women before marriage. When a young man is satisfied 

 that a girl with whom he has had intercourse would suit him as a wife, 

 he makes a formal demand for her, accompanying it by a gift of hoes and 

 goats to the girl's father. The latter almost invariably consents, and the 

 marriage then takes place amidst much drinking of beer and eating of 

 flesh. The young couple, once the bride has been brought to the home 

 of the husband's parents, must remain in their hut and its adjoining 

 courtyard for a period of a month. After the married pair have entered 

 into their house, before the husband consummates the marriage he must 

 first sacrifice a fowl to the ancestor spirit of the village. 



At a birth no men are allowed to go near the hut where the woman is 

 about to be delivered except the husband and, perhaps, the witch doctor, 

 and only then if there is likely to be a difficulty in the parturition. These 

 are not allowed to help in the delivery unless there are complications, 

 but the witch doctor makes a sacrifice of fowls and anoints the woman's 

 forehead with the blood. The woman is usually delivered in a kneeling 

 position, with the body bowed horizontally. After birth the child is washed 

 with warm water and laid on large fresh green leaves by the side of the 

 mother. Should it be silent after birth and not cry, it is taken as a bad 

 sign. It is laid between two sheets of bark-cloth and a bell is rung over it 

 until the child utters its first cry. During ten days the mother and child 

 must remain quiet in the house, and during this period the woman is 

 forbidden by custom to set her hair in order. Also during these ten days 

 no live brands or glowing charcoal must be taken out of the house or into 

 it. On the tenth day the woman makes some kind of a toilet and seats 

 herself in the doorway with the child on her knee, so that its naming may 

 take place. At this juncture the father, accompanied by the men of the 

 village and by the grandparents, if there are any, comes up to the woman, 

 and, if the child is a boy, places a little bow and arrows and a knife in his 

 hand. While he is doing this, the grandfather, if the child be a boy, gives 

 it a name. If it is a girl, it is named by the mother's mother, the name 

 of a boy being given in like manner by the father's father. Names are 

 generally chosen to illustrate some peculiarity or characteristic of the 

 child or of its parents. Feasting in the form of a friendly meal on the 

 part of acquaintances and relations takes place on the eleventh day after 

 the child's birth. The people invited bring most of their own provisions 

 with them already prepared, and the guests either eat in the hut where the 

 child was born or in the adjoining houses of neighbours. The day \ ;i-.->-- 

 with song and dance, and in the evening the father takes the child and 

 exhibits it to the more important guests, asking them earnestly whether 



