NAMES OF BECHUANA TRIBES. 15 



me, and, attacking Mebalwe, bit his thigh. Another man, whose 

 life I had saved before, after he had been tossed by a buffalo, 

 attempted to spear the lion while he was biting Mebalwe. He 

 left Mebalwe and caught this man by the shoulder, but at that 

 moment the bullets he had received took effect, and he fell down 

 dead. The whole was the work of a few moments, and must have 

 been his paroxysms of dying rage. In order to take out the charm 

 from him, the Bakatla on the following day made a huge bonfire 

 over the carcass, which was declared to be that of the largest lion 

 they had ever seen. Besides crunching the bone into splinters, 

 he left eleven teeth wounds on the upper part of my arm. 



A wound from this animal's tooth resembles a gun-shot wound ; 

 it is generally followed by a great deal of sloughing and discharge, 

 and pains are felt in the part periodically ever afterward. I had 

 on a tartan jacket on the occasion, and I believe that it wiped 

 off all the virus from the teeth that pierced the flesh, for my two 

 companions in this affray have both suffered from the peculiar 

 pains, while I have escaped with only the inconvenience of a false 

 joint in my limb. The man whose shoulder was wounded showed 

 me his wound actually burst forth afresh on the same month of 

 the following year. This curious point deserves the attention of 

 inquirers. 



The different Bechuana tribes are named after certain animals, 

 showing probably that in former times they were addicted to 

 animal-worship like the ancient Egyptians. The term Bakatla 

 means " they of the monkey ;" Bakuena, " they of the alligator ;"' 

 Batlapi, "they of the fish:" each tribe having a superstitious 

 dread of the animal after which it is called. They also use the 

 word "bina," to dance, in reference to the custom of thus naming 

 themselves, so that, when you wish to ascertain what tribe they 

 belong to, you say, " What do you dance ?" It would seem as 

 if that had been a part of the worship of old. A tribe never eats 

 the animal which is its namesake, using the term "ila," hate or 

 dread, in reference to killing it. We find traces of many ancient 

 tribes in the country in individual members of those now extinct, 

 a3 the Batau, " they of the lion ;" the Banoga, " they of the ser- 

 pent ;" though no such tribes now exist. The use of the personal 

 pronoun they, Ba-Ma, Wa, Va or Ova, Am-Ki, &c, prevails very 

 extensively in the names of tribes in Africa. A single individual 



