166 CEREMONIES OF AFRICAN TRIBES. 



call, and act under the chiefs son as their commander. They 

 recognize a sort of equality and partial communism ever after- 

 ward, and address each other by the title of molekane or com- 

 rade. In cases of offence against their rules, as eating alone 

 when any of their comrades are within call, or in cases of 

 cowardice or dereliction of duty, they may strike one another, 

 or any member of a younger mopato, but never any one of an 

 older band ; and when three or four companies have been made, 

 the oldest no longer takes the field in time of war, but remains 

 as a guard over the women and children. When a fugitive 

 comes to a tribe, he is directed to the mopato analogous to 

 that to which in his own tribe he belongs, and does duty as a 

 member. No one of the natives knows how old he is. If asked 

 his age, he answers by putting another question, "Does a man 

 remember when he was born ?" Age is reckoned by the 

 number of mepato they have seen pass through the formulas 

 of admission. When they see four or five mepato younger than 

 themselves, they are no longer obliged to bear arms. The oldest 

 individual I ever met boasted he had seen eleven sets of boys 

 submit to the boguera. Supposing him to have been fifteen 

 when he saw his own, and fresh bands were added every six or 

 seven years, he must have been about forty when he saw the 

 fifth, and may have attained seventy-five or eighty years, which 

 is no great age; but it seemed so to them, for he had now 

 doubled the age for superannuation among them. It is an 

 ingenious plan for attaching the members of the tribe to the 

 chiefs family, and for imparting a discipline which renders the 

 tribe easy of command. On their return to the town from attend- 

 ance on the ceremonies of initiation, a prize is given to the lad 

 who can run fastest, the article being placed where all may see 

 the winner run up to snatch it. They are then considered men 

 (banona, viri), and can sit among the elders in the kotla. For- 

 merly they were only boys (basimane, pueri). The first mis- 

 sionaries set their faces against the boguera, on account of its 

 connection with heathenism, and the fact that the youths learned 

 much evil, and became disobedient to their parents. From the 

 general success of these men, it is perhaps better that younger 

 missionaries should tread in their footsteps ; for so much evil 

 may result from breaking down the authority on which, to those 



