BANTU NEGROES 



587 



and remains inside her hut and in proximity to the fire for three days 

 after the child's birth if it is a female, and four days if she has given 

 birth to a boy. When this period of rest has expired, her head is shaved 

 and her finger- and toe-nails are cut. The child's head also is shaved. 

 The mother then seats herself in the courtyard of her hut with the child on- 

 her lap. The husband and father brings friends to visit her and inspect 

 the child, much in the way already described in connection with the forest 

 Negroes. Then the husband makes his wife a present of bark-cloth, 

 and with the aid of his friends cleans out her hut and strews fresh grass 

 round the fireplace. When night comes the child is solemnly presented 

 to the ancestral spirits, or " Bachwezi." The sorcerer or priest, to whom 

 is delegated the cult of the particular " muchwezi," or spirit of the clan, to 

 which the family belongs, appears on the scene, prays aloud and intones 

 songs or hymns to the ancestral spirits, asking that the child may have 

 long life, riches, no illness, and, above all, that it may be a faithful believer 

 in the tribal and ancestral spirits. 

 He accompanies each special request 

 by spitting on the child's body and 

 pinching it all over. The priest or 

 medicine man is then presented with 

 108 kauri shells, which are said to 

 be calculated on this allowance : nine 

 for each of the child's arms, and 

 ninety for the whole of the child's 

 body. 



The Banyoro bury their dead in 

 much the same way as that already 

 related in connection with the forest 

 tribes. 



No such thing as cannibalism 

 is ever heard of amongst them, 

 unless it be occasional allegations 

 of corpse-eating on the part of 

 wizards. 



The Banyoro are divided into many 

 clans, which would appear to have 

 totems as sacred symbols or ancestral 

 emblems like the similar clans in 

 Uganda. This institution, however, 

 like so many other customs connected 

 with the Banyoro, has lately been 

 much defaced and obscured by the 



