u6 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



other active agents of the rite take up quarters in an 

 isolated forest, where they are soon joined by numbers 

 of voluntary initiates. Boys and men of any age are 

 eligible, as also girls and women who have not borne 

 a child. Full sexual licence is permitted." As in the 

 case of the ndembo death and resurrection are supposed 

 to be suffered by the candidates, but we are told that 

 the process " usually lasts five or six years." 1 These 

 are special observances of a quasi-religious character 

 and only take place at certain intervals. But Sir 

 Harry Johnston, speaking in general terms of the 

 same region, declares that chastity is unknown ; a 

 woman's honour is measured by the price she costs ; 

 and but for jealousy of the men there would be 

 promiscuous intercourse. Even this jealousy is often 

 easily laid. A trifling fine in many districts is deemed 

 sufficient penalty for adultery, though elsewhere, as 

 we have seen in a previous chapter, the punishment is 

 death. On the other hand the men are far from dis- 

 playing anything but satisfaction when a European is 

 induced to accept the loan of a wife either as an act 

 of hospitality or in consideration of some small pay- 

 ment. The testimony to the incontinence of the West 

 African native is in fact universal ; and masculine 

 jealousy is founded on nothing but the bride-price and 

 the property in the woman obtained by payment. 2 



Mr. Monteiro, writing of the Mussurongo Ambriz 

 and Mushicongo tribes, says : " The Negro knows not 

 love affection or jealousy. Male animals and birds 

 are tender and loving to their females ; . . . but in all 

 the long years I have been in Africa I have never 

 seen a Negro manifest the least tenderness for or to 

 1 J. A. I. xxiv. 288. 2 Johnston, Congo, 404. 



