CUSTOMS OF THE LUR. 155 



at the outer corners of the eyes, where they converge to a 

 centre. 



Three cows and an ox, and also (if the suit be accepted 

 and the cows are not returned) two goats or sheep to be 

 killed at the marriage feast, are considered an equivalent for a 

 girl arrived at maturity. The expense of the marriage feast is 

 borne by the bride's father. If the wife is barren, she may be 

 put away, in which case the father has to pay back the ox and 

 one of the cows, and his divorced daughter can be sold in 

 marriage again for half the above price. Delivery, the division 

 of the navel cord, the washing of the child and anointing it 

 with butter and red clay (which is very dear here), and the 

 naming of the child are performed exactly as in Unyoro. 



The clothing is rather primitive. Chiefs wrap themselves 

 in tanned cow-hides and antelope skins, the hair having been 

 scraped off, and the lower edge of the skin is often trimmed 

 with stripes of the white mane of the Colofais guereza. When 

 able to procure it, they dress in the coarser bark cloths of 

 Unyoro. Other men are generally covered with a goat's hide 

 knotted over the shoulder, but many have only a leather cover- 

 ing in front. The women wear a short tail behind of red 

 twisted cotton threads fastened to the girdle, and a cover- 

 ing of three fingers' breadth in front. Girls are, as a rule, 

 perfectly nude. The girdles are in all cases ornamented with 

 cowries or beads and with iron rings. Necklets made of 

 banana (Musa ensete) seeds, necklaces, arm-rings and anklets of 

 iron, brass, and copper (rare), ivory arm-rings, spirally rolled 

 brass wire covering the fore-arm like a coat-of-mail, and called 

 mula, roots on strings, and finger-rings of brass wire were all 

 the ornaments I noticed. It is strange that here, as well as 

 in Uganda and Unyoro, ear-rings are very rarely worn ; in fact, 

 piercing the ears is a thing almost unknown. 



The dead are bewailed, and are buried full length in a grave 

 in the immediate neighbourhood of the huts. Stones are laid 

 upon the grave, and if the deceased was a chief, a small hut 

 is built over his place of burial, gifts of corn are laid within, 

 and a goat is slaughtered. 



Bows and smooth iron arrows are carried as weapons ; they 

 are often covered with a thick layer of poison, and carried in 



