752 BANTU NEGROES 



goat, or ox. The small intestine is arranged so that it falls into three 

 coils, and from the emptiness or fulness of the intestine in each coil 

 deductions favourable or unfavourable are drawn. The chief of each tribe 

 ■decides by such methods when the favourable season for planting has 

 come, and no one plants the fields until the chief and the elders of the 

 tribe have decided that the lucky period has arrived. They still believe 

 in rain-mukers, who, in dry seasons, are consulted. If hail falls, no one 

 goes to cultivate the plantations on the day following the storm. If a 

 house is struck by lightning, it is abandoned, and no one is allowed to 

 remove a single stick. 



The northern Kavirondo appear to believe in the existence of two gods 

 more important than the vague ancestral spirits whom they also propitiate. 

 These two deities are known as Aivafiua* and Ishishemi. Awafwa is the 

 chief of all the good spirits, and Ishishemi is a sort of devil. Cattle and 

 goats are often sacrificed to Awafwa, the ceremony usually taking place 

 •on the grave of some departed chief whose personal intercession may 

 induce Awafwa to bring rain or drive away sickness. The Bantu Kavi- 

 rondo plant stones in the ground near their houses, and at intervals kill 

 a goat and pour out libations of goat's blood over these stones to the 

 memory of the spirits of their ancestors. They also pay reverence to the 

 deceased by building small huts in a village and sticking the feathers 

 •of fowls on the top of the roof of the tiny hut. Some people also cut a 

 small door at the back of their own dwelling with the idea that in some 

 waj' it assists the passage in and out of good ancestral spirits. So far as 

 they reason about the matter at all, they would appear to disbelieve in 

 the continued life after death of unimportant persons. It is only chiefs or 

 head-men of importance whose spirits continue to exist after the death 

 ■of the body, and who in some way become part of the forces of nature. 



Amongst curious customs may be mentioned the importance which is 

 attached to the closing or leaving open of a door. It is considered a 

 very bad omen if a person shuts the door of a house after him, leaving 

 at the time any one behind inside the hut. In such a case a goat must 

 be sacrificed and eaten by the parties concerned to avert ill fate. If a 

 man quarrels with his wife and she goes out of the hut, and the husband 

 then shuts the door behind her, this is equivalent to divorce, and the 

 woman returns to her own peojDle at once. 



In 'making pjeace after warfare or after personal quarrels, a goat or 

 sheep is used as a sacrifice when it is people of the same tribe who have 

 fallen out. The liver of the sacrificed animal is cooked and is divided 

 between both sides, whose representatives eat the portion allotted to them. 



* "Awafwa" may simply mean "the dead," "those who are dead," and be the 

 summing up of all the ancestral spirits into one kindly, tribal god. 



