MARITAL JEALOUSY 115 



Ndembo into which both sexes are admitted. Children 

 young people and middle-aged men are all to be found 

 in the vela, or home, where the mysteries are conducted. 

 Some pass through the mysteries more than once. 

 When it is decided to initiate a number of persons in a 

 district the vela is built outside the town. Those who 

 desire to be admitted feign sudden death. After 

 awhile the sight of these cases " induces a form of 

 hysteria among the natives, who fall and are actually 

 carried off in a state of catalepsy." They are all brought 

 to the vela, where they remain for a term varying 

 from three months to three years. The details of the 

 rites do not concern us, except that no clothes are 

 worn, for " there is no shame in ndembo" " Both 

 sexes live together, and the grossest immoralities are 

 practised. In this respect however," says a missionary, 

 " some districts are worse' than others, but the King 

 of Congo, long before we went out to him, had pro- 

 hibited the custom in the town of San Salvador as too 

 vile to be permitted. For the same reason it was not 

 allowed in some other towns. These were, however, 

 but a few exceptions ; the vile and senseless custom was 

 almost universal." When the novices return fully 

 initiated, they are supposed to have actually died and 

 undergone resurrection. 1 Mr. Herbert Ward describes 

 a rite which he calls N' Kimba or Fua Kongo, but which 

 appears to be similar to, if not identical with, that just 

 referred to. According to him it is a sort of magical 

 rite to increase the fertility of the women. " When 

 the elders of a village consider that the women are 

 not bearing the usual proportion of children they 

 proclaim an ' N'Kimba.' The charm-doctors and 

 1 Bentley, Pioneering, i. 283. 



