The Eastern Congo 



of this latter, by a near relative. Boys stricken down with 

 illness are allowed to await their recovery. As to those who 

 may have left their native village when still too young to 

 be initiated, their return would not exempt them from the 

 Mamhela rites, for no exemption is admitted and neither 

 age nor marriage would justify any dispensation being 

 granted. 



On the day of the ceremonies the probationers are brought 

 together in the early hours of the morning in the village 

 square, where the initiated have been dancing for the greater 

 part of the night ; and where they have got ready a quantity 

 of twisted rods from two to two and a half metres in 

 length, from which, at one end, part of the bark has been 

 peeled off. 



At a given signal the women who happen to be in the 

 village must withdraw ; they may not, under any pretext, 

 get near the place where the initiation rites are being carried 

 out. Indiscretion on their part would mean instant death. 

 When the initiated have made sure that the women have 

 withdrawn, a second signal is given. This is the moment 

 for the initiated from the jieighbouring clans to repair to 

 the hut of the Ishumu appointed to preside over the ceremony. 

 They all carry several rods as weapons, and fall in, in two 

 files, the one behind the other. The probationers to be 

 initiated, issue from the hut of the Ishumu and join up to the 

 ranks of the initiated, who rain upon them an avalanche 

 of blows. The boys are beaten all over the body by all 

 the men present, and this is done with such brutahty that 

 it is not unfrequent for some boys to lose an eye or an ear 

 or to be made an invaUd for several years to come. However, 

 accidents or injuries resulting from flagellation are never 



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