Liberia *- 



days after the birth. The Mandingo women are delivered in 

 their own houses, and immediately the child is born the woman 

 attending to them goes out to the village and shouts to the 

 people stating whether it is a boy or a girl. Amongst the 

 Mandingo, women remain in their own houses without going 

 out for seven days after child-birth. On the eighth day they 

 go abroad, and the father of the child generally provides a 

 feast for his fellow-villagers. The baby's head is shaven, it 

 is clothed and washed, and a small cap placed upon its head, 

 in full view of the people. It may not be taken away from 

 the village for forty days after the birth, nor is the mother 

 allowed to leave the village during that time. In the Kru 

 countries the husband sends a present to his wife soon after 

 the birth, which consists of two or three pieces of new cloth 

 and one or more brass rings. Elsewhere than in the Mandingo 

 countries, the attentions of the mother to her newborn child 

 generally consist of rubbing its body all over with palm oil. 

 As a rule, however, they take great pains throughout this land 

 to keep the children clean and wholesome. 



Twins are regarded with suspicion and superstitious distrust. 

 They are thought to be unlucky, but I have not heard of 

 any instances so drastic as the customs prevailing, for example, 

 in the Efik countries of the Cross River, where the mother 

 of twins is ostracised and driven out into the bush, whilst the 

 twins themselves are destroyed. Usually when twins are born 

 in Liberia and they are boy and girl, the boy is destroyed and 

 the girl kept. This at any rate is the Kru practice ; in which 

 tribe girl-children are thought to be more valuable than boys. 

 Giving birth to twins seems to be a not uncommon event 

 in Liberia. When triplets or quadruplets are born, the natives 

 probably destroy them all, as it is thought to be a horrible 

 reversion to beast customs. Nevertheless, the fecundity of 



1050 



