320 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



corporal punishment on his adulterous wife, or even 

 send her back to her family and obtain repayment of 

 the bride-price. He may also institute a palaver 

 against the adulterer for damages, which may be 

 settled if he so please by an exchange of wives. The 

 patria potestas vests in the eldest male of the highest 

 generation living, and devolves with the property on 

 his next brother at his death. When there are no 

 brothers the eldest son inherits. 1 In the foregoing 

 cases the marriage rites are of the most restricted 

 character. On the other hand, among the Andoni of 

 Southern Nigeria (if I am right in thinking them 

 patrilineal) an elaborate ceremony is performed. Two 

 stout sticks of a certain wood called odiri, about four 

 feet long, are supplied by the Juju priests from the 

 sacred grove. They are sharpened at the end and 

 first laid on the ground in a corner of the bridegroom's 

 house by the priests. The bride and bridegroom are 

 then made to place their feet on them. The priest kills a 

 goat and sprinkles its blood on their feet and on the 

 sticks. The stakes are then driven by their sharpened 

 ends into the ground in the corner of the house, and there 

 they remain until they fall to pieces. From that 

 moment the wife and all the children she may bear, by 

 whomsoever begotten, are the husband's property. 

 The marriage is indissoluble. Even if she leave her 

 husband and have children by chiefs or kings they must 

 be delivered up to him on his demand. When she dies 

 she cannot be buried save by him ; any other person 

 undertaking this important function would incur heavy 

 punishment; before the days of British rule it was death. 2 



1 Clozel, 507, 511, 512, 515. 



2 Journ. Afr. Soc. iv. 414 ; Leonard, 414. 



