554i 



PYGMIES AND FOREST NEGROES 



they think it resembles 

 him and if it is really 

 liis child. 



Curiously enough, the 



Lendu children are 



seldom seen running 



^^^^^^^_^ naked, in contradistinc- 



'ii/^ I'l^^'^*'^^' ^^HHHfllk 1, ^ion to all the surround- 



\x\g races, where whatever 

 degree of clothing may 

 be worn by adults, 

 children almost to the 

 age of puberty usually 

 go naked. Circumcision 

 amongst the Lendu takes 

 place at the age of 

 seven or eight years 

 without any special feast 

 or ceremony. The opera- 

 tion is never carried out 

 in the village, but in a 

 copse or wood or in high 

 grass. The part re- 

 moved is carefully buried 

 in the ground, and the 

 boy must remain away 

 from the village until 

 the wound has healed. 



As regards 6it?"ift^ cere- 

 monies,if the dead person 

 is of importance or a 

 chief, his successor — his son, or, in the absence of children, a brother — 

 conducts the ceremonies. In the dead man's hut a large grave is dug, one 

 end of which is prolonged into a tunnel under the floor of the hut. Into 

 this tunnel the corpse, which has been wound up into a sitting position 

 with many folds of bark-cloth and fresh skins, is laid on a bed of skins. 

 The grave is then filled uj), and a feast of beer and flesh takes place. 

 The hut in which the personage of importance is buried — sometimes the 

 whole village in which he dwelt — is abandoned after the burial ceremonies. 

 The common people are buried in much the same way, but without, perhaps, 

 such elaborate swathing in bark-cloth. Those who are denounced by the 

 witch doctors as unauthorised sorcerers in their lifetime, if dead or after 



306. AN MBUBA OF THE ITVKl FOKESJ', WITH OX HORN TRUMPET 



