JANUARY 10, 1907 | NATURE 249 
review deals with the hierarchy of kings and chiefs, ; language (but not as regards the Bini tongue). For 
the laws, social organisation, marriage, birth, and | the consonant ¢ or ch (the sound of ch in « hurch) 
death customs, psychology and philosophy of the | Mr. Dennett uses the letter x. Most transcribers of 
Bavili; the remainder of the book treats with much | African tongues have agreed to adopt the single letter 
the same subjects as they have been observed by the | c to express the combination tsh or the palatal k. 
author in Benin. Finally, there is a valuable appendix 
by Bishop James Johnson on the religious beliefs and 
social laws of the Yoruba people. 
To anyone interested in the Bantu languages or in 
the social organisation of the Bantu “peoples Mr. 
Dennett’s book will be of great importance. He 
reveals to us the existence of a relatively ancient 
(though perhaps not so ancient as he imagines) semi- 
civilisation of these Luango people. It is remarkable 
how much their ideas regarding their royal families, 
their kings and chiefs, resemble the customs of 
Uganda or of the Mwato Yanvo empire in south- 
central Congoland. There are also similar ideas of 
totemism or the division of society into cliques and 
coteries, each with its emblem or ancestral crest, 
as the large Cephalophus antelope, the chimpanzee, 
pig, otter, francolin (which Mr. Dennett miscalls | 
“partridge ’’), and domestic goat. Though Mr. 
Dennett does not cite the mushroom as a totem, it 
appears to be regarded as possessing mystic qualities 
(as in Uganda). He gives a native equivalent for 
“totem ’’ as ‘“‘china’’ (which he mis-spells xina), 
plural ‘‘ bina.”’ 
hibition.’’ It is 
Bantu root kina or bina, 
being of a ceremonious or 
to dance, such 
religious nature, 
dancing 
and often 
used to illustrate the action or the object which should | 
be avoided by the persons concerned. 
It is also interesting to notice that the 
is the same as in 
Nyanza, chi-bila, 
pronounced -bira). 
Mr. Dennett deals exhaustively with the omens of 
birds, frogs, dogs, and snakes; also the remarkable 
connection of the rainbow and its primary colours 
with certain specified serpents supposed to represent 
each colour. He describes all the sacred animals 
(and the folk-lore concerning them), 
of the four days of the week (for, as in most parts 
of negro Africa, the week contains only four days) ; 
the names of the seasons, native ideas of astronomy 
and natural history (the details about the life of the 
chimpanzee are particularly interesting). 
Somewhat similar information is given about Benin. 
Both in regard to the Bantu people of Kakongo and 
the West African negroes of Benin Mr. Dennett sup- 
ports his opinion by citations of the native languages, 
which (overlooking an exasperating orthography) are 
almost invariably correct. In some cases he does not 
seem quite to have grasped the meaning of words. 
For example, Nsambi mpungu really means the God 
of the Firmament, though this is not quite clearly 
stated by Mr. Dennett, who has not realised that 
mpungu is only a variation of the East African Bantu 
mwingu, from a root (probably originally -pingu) 
meaning the sky, the heavens, the region in which 
rain falls from the clouds. 
The reviewer cannot accept Mr. Dennett’s etymo- 
logy of the Bantu phrases he attempts to explain. 
He would read into them a philosophy which is 
altogether misleading. An acquaintance with other 
and cognate forms of speech would have shown him 
this. 
For the mass of the book, however, the reviewer 
has nothing but praise, but he must enter here an 
emphatic protest against the unreasonable ortho- 
graphy adopted in the case of the Luango or Kakongo 
NO. 1941, VOL. 75] 
the languages of 
bi-bila (in East Africa this word is 
such | 
This word he-also renders as ‘‘ pro- | 
apparently related to the widespread | 
word for | 
sacred grove or specially preserved forest in Luango 
the Victoria | 
also the names | 
Some missionary writers have made use of the letter 
x in its Portuguese interpretation for the sibilant sh. 
It is a great pity that even this should be done, for 
if x is to be used at all it might preferably be 
employed to express the combination kh, the guttural 
ch; but to transfer this needlessly for c or ch is a 
serious stumbling-block to the reader. There are 
‘At the Back of the Black Man’s 
Mavunga, a Kabenda nail-fetish. From | r 
Mind.’ 
other points (which it would be wearisome to discuss 
in detail as regards the transliteration of these Bantu 
dialects in Mr. Dennett’s book) that hinder and con- 
fuse. It is such a valuable contribution to ethnology 
that one could almost wish a second edition might be 
brought out with a revised and reasonable ortho- 
g graphy—from which, for example, such blots as 
ce Fjort’? might be removed. This is the way in 
which Mr. Dennett for many years past has chosen 
to spell the Congo word fi-ote, which means ‘‘ a black 
man.’ 
