268 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



If we turn to the forest lands and more richly 

 watered provinces of the west of Africa we find among 

 various tribes a similar condition of infantile morality. 

 The children of the Bambala indulge in sexual inter- 

 course from a very early age. The boys begin when 

 about ten years old, the girls at six or seven, long 

 before menstruation. Virginity, it need hardly be said, 

 is not deemed of the slightest importance, and sexual 

 excess is noted by observers as having an evil effect 

 upon the mental and physical characters of the race. 1 

 The Bayaka, on the other hand, a neighbouring people 

 consider virginity essential in a bride, and she can be 

 repudiated if she be not found a maiden. At the same 

 time we are told that " females are permitted to have 

 intercourse at a very early age, even before menstrua- 

 tion ; males after circumcision." This can only mean 

 that the stricter morals of the Bayaka regard virginity 

 as a more indispensable qualification of a bride than 

 maturity. 2 On the Lower Congo there used to be in 

 most towns bachelors' houses where the young men of 

 the place slept. Girls under puberty had free ingress 

 to these houses at night, and were even encouraged 

 by their parents to go thither, "as it showed that 

 they had proper desires and would eventually bear 

 children." 3 Among the Bashilanga the bride is be- 

 spoken early, and her wedding is frequently celebrated 

 on the same day as the festival following her first 

 menstruation. But already ere this she has had 

 sexual intercourse : it is usually begun shortly before 

 maturity. 4 The Shekiani girls are married at seven or 



1 Torday and Joyce, /. A. I. xxxv. 410, 420. 



* Id.J. A. L xxxvi. 45, SL 3 J- H. Weeks, F. L. xix. 418. 



4 Mittheil. Afrik. Gesell. iv. 260, from the report of Pogge. There 



