276 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



Ganguellas when a woman dies in childbed, her 

 husband pays not only the expense of burial but also 

 compensation to her kin ; if he fail in doing so, he 

 becomes their slave. 1 The Wazaramo of the Lake 

 Region also have a custom that the parents of a 

 woman who dies in childbed demand a certain sum from 

 " the man that killed their daughter." 2 The Baganda 

 attribute death in childbed to adultery. In such a case 

 the woman's relatives fine the husband, because they 

 say they did not marry her to two men, and he has 

 allowed her adultery by negligence. The fine is two 

 women, or two cows two goats two hoes and two bark- 

 cloths. 3 The Bambala, inhabiting the Congo State 

 between the rivers Inzia and Kwilu, require a husband 

 " to abstain from his wife for about a year after child- 

 birth, during which time the child is suckled ; nor may 

 he resume intercourse without his father-in-law's 

 permission, which is granted on payment of Kutusa 

 Mwana, a present of two goats. It is believed that 

 an infraction of this rule would prove fatal to the 

 woman, and in the event of her death soon after child- 

 birth the husband is accused of being the cause and 

 heavily fined, or more often compelled to submit to 

 the poison ordeal." 4 The permission of the father-in- 

 law is an indication of the decay of strict matrilineal 

 organisation. Among the Basanga on the south-west 

 of Lake Moeru children other than those of slaves 

 belong entirely to the mother and her kin. Conse- 

 quently, if a child were " lost or devoured by wild 



1 Kohler, loc. tit. citing Serpa Pinto. 



2 Burton, Lake Regions, i. 115. 



a Rev. J. Roscoe, J. A. I. xxxii. 39. 

 Torday and Joyce,/. A. I. xxxv. 410. 



