PRACTICES TO OBTAIN CHILDREN 145 



combined with worship. Another account describes the 

 doll as made either with a gourd or with clay and 

 adorned with beads. A name is given to it, and it is 

 carried and cared for as if it were a real child. Barren 

 women perform a ceremony in connection with it, 

 lasting two or three days. First a band of women go 

 to a neighbouring village to steal a lesokwana, or 

 wooden spatula with which the Basuto women stir 

 their porridge. When this is accomplished they 

 return garlanded with green herbs, singing and invoking 

 Ntidi, the famous cripple mentioned on an earlier page, 

 to succour the barren women. The latter are then 

 scarified and scarred behind the shoulders, as in a. Zulu 

 tale the pigeons scarified the heroine on the loins 

 to render her pregnant. 1 Native beer is prepared to 

 be ready against the appointed day. When the day 

 arrives all the women of the village go to the mountain ; 

 and when Ntidi was living the barren women bore him 

 on their backs and were assisted from time to time \ by 

 their companions. They enter a cave, where they 

 remain all night singing the same song as after stealing 

 \hz lesokwana, but they remain without food until the 

 men find them. The next morning the men set out in 

 search of them. Sometimes they do not find them 

 that day ; search is then renewed on a second. When 

 the women are found, they are brought back crowned 

 with herbs as when they went to steal the lesokwana ; 

 but they refuse to enter the village until they are 

 conciliated with the present of an ox. The young 

 girls, who alone have remained at home, then bring 

 them food. The husbands of the barren women kill 

 cattle in their honour and a grand feast is held. The 

 1 Callaway, Taks, 67 



K 



