Chap. XIV. CEREMONY OF THE MPAZA. 273 



The custom altogether is a very strange one, but 

 it is by no means peeiiKar to the Ishogos, although 

 this is the first time I witnessed the doings. The 

 negroes of this part of Africa have a strange notion 

 or superstition that when twins (mpaza) are born, one 

 of them must die early ; so, in order, apparently, to 

 avoid such a calamity, the mother is confined to her 

 hut, or rather restricted in her intercourse with lier 

 neighbours, until both the children have grown up, 

 when the danger is supposed to have passed. She is 

 allowed during this time to go to the forest, but is 

 not permitted to speak to any one not belonging to 

 her iamily. During the long confinement no one 

 but the father and mother are allowed to enter the 

 hut, and the woman must remain chaste. If a 

 stranger goes in by any accident or mistake, he is 

 seized and sold into slavery. The twins themselves 

 are excluded from the society of other children, and 

 the cooking utensils, water vessels, &c., of the family 

 are tabooed to everybody else. Some of the notions 

 have a resemblance to the nonsense believed in by 

 old nurses in more civilized countries ; such as, for 

 instance, the belief that when the mother takes one 

 of the twins in her arms something dreadful will 

 happen if the father does not take the other, and so 

 forth. 



The house where the twins were born is always 

 marked in some way to distinguish it from the 

 others, in ordc-r to prevent mistakes. Here in 

 Yenguc it had two long poles on each side (^f the 

 door, at the top of which was a [)iece of cloth, and at 

 the foot of the door were a number of pegs stuck in 



