102 THROUGH ANGOLA 



together to elect their new Chief, around whose 

 neck the collar of chiefship was placed by the 

 eldest noble, who, presenting the Chief with a cup 

 of poison, summoned him to swear upon it an 

 oath of just leadership to his people. 



There is much in all this that resembles our 

 own funeral and coronation ceremonies. 



Douville described the Lemba tribe, who in- 

 habited the country near the Cunhinga River, as 

 inordinately superstitious, and under the influence 

 of their witch doctors. They sacrificed human 

 victims to their superstition and lust of blood, 

 and reverenced spirits, especially those of light- 

 ning and of health. 



On the death of a man, his principal wife stood 

 near the corpse, while she sang the song of the 

 dead ; though should the body be that of the 

 wife, the husband stood silent. At midnight an 

 animal was sacrificed, and its blood placed in a 

 vessel near the corpse as an offering to the gods. 

 This blood was then partaken of by the relatives 

 as a sacrament. The night then ended in re- 

 joicing, the dead man being asked to intercede for 

 his relatives in the other world, and procure them 

 houses and wives in a Negro heaven of shady 

 forests and limpid streams. 



On the second day, the dead man's fetish 

 images were placed round his body with food and 

 wine, and the spirits called on to witness the 

 completeness of the sacrifice. 



At midnight another animal was sacrificed 

 to the spirits ; and on the third night, when from 

 the advancing putrefaction of the corpse it was 



