PATRIARCHAL REGULATION. 433 



The account given by Livingstone adds an important fact. 



&quot;The government is patriarchal, eacli man being, by virtue of 

 paternity, chief of his own children. They build their huts around 

 his . . . Near the centre of each circle of huts there is a spot called 

 a kotla, with a fireplace; here they work, eat, or sit and gossip over 

 the news of the day. A poor man attaches himself to the kotla of a 

 rich one, and is considered a child of the latter. An underchief has a 

 number of these circles around his ; and the collection of kotlas around 

 the great one in the middle of the whole, that of the principal chief, 

 constitutes the town.&quot; 



This last statement shows how the original patriarchal group 

 becomes at once both enlarged f.nd modified by addition of 

 men having no blood-relationship to its members. Every 

 where during turbulent times, it must have happened that a 

 fugitive or a &quot; kin-broken &quot; man, being in danger when liv 

 ing alone, or surrounded only by his small family-group, 

 joined a large family-group for sake of safety; and, in doing 

 this, became subordinate to its head. The result, as indicated 

 by Livingstone among South Africans, is tacitly explained 

 by Du Chaillu in his description of the West Africans. 



&quot; The patriarchal form of government was the only one known ; each 

 village had its chief, and further in the interior the villages seemed to 

 be governed by elders, each elder, with his people, having a separate 

 portion of the village to themselves. There was in each clan the 

 ifoumou, foumou, or acknowledged head of the clan (ifoumou meaning 

 the source, the father ).&quot; 



&quot;Every one is under the protection of some one. If, by death, a 

 negro is suddenly left alone, he runs great risk of being sold into 

 slavery . . . Every one must have an elder to speak his palavers for 

 him . . . Any free man, by a singular custom, called ~bola ~banda . . . can 

 place himself under the protection of the patriarch, who is thus chosen.&quot; 



This practice, joined with the practice of giving to the head 

 of the group the title &quot; father,&quot; naturally leads to the result 

 that, in subsequent generations, those of outside derivation 

 come to regard themselves as actual descendants of the 

 original head of the group. The formation of Highland 

 clans, each formed of men all having the same surnames, 

 exhibited the process among ourselves. 



