PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 95 



washes, and after certain ceremonies is received as a 

 woman. 1 Ordinary girls among the Barotse pass 

 through comparatively simple ceremonies of purifica- 

 tion, and are initiated into the mysteries of adult life 

 by certain old women. But the case of a daughter of 

 the royal house is by no means so simple. She is 

 required to spend three months not merely in retire- 

 ment but in the darkness of a hut alone. She is 

 forbidden to speak to the stave-girls who attend her. 

 From her seclusion she issues so transformed with the 

 fat which is the result of good feeding and complete 

 inaction that she is hardly recognised. She is taken 

 by night to the river and bathed in the presence of all 

 the women of the village. The next day she appears 

 in public decked with ornaments and paint and 

 tattooed around the eyes, a woman and ready for 

 marriage. 2 Among the Bavili in French Congo the 

 girl on attaining maturity is caught and forced into 

 what is called "the paint-house." There she is kept, 

 painted red and carefully fed and treated until she is 

 considered ready for marriage, when she is washed 

 and led to her husband. 3 Among the Bashilange on 

 the rivers Lulua and Kassai in south-west Africa a 

 girl is shut up for from four to six days in a hut. 

 When she is let out again her whole body is rubbed 

 with powdered tukula wood and castor oil and her 

 face is painted red. The occasion is one of great 

 rejoicing ; and she is carried on a man's shoulders 

 through the village. 4 Among the natives of Loango 

 girls at puberty are confined in separate huts. The 



1 /. A. I. xx. 1 1 6. 2 Beguin, 112. 



3 Dennett, 20. 



4 Mittheil. der Afrik. Gesellsch. in Deutschland, iv. 259. 



