CEREMONY OF CIRCUMCISION. ' 135 



besi practise circumcision (boguera), but the rites observed 

 are carefully concealed. The initiated alone can approach, 

 but in this town I was once a .spectator of the second part 

 of the ceremony of the circumcision, called " secnu." 

 Just at the dawn of day, a row of boys of nearly fourteen 

 years of age stood naked in the kotla, each having a pair 

 of sandals as a shield on his hands. Facing them stood 

 the men of the town in a similar state of nudity, all armed 

 with long thin wands, of a tough, strong, supple bush called 

 moretloa {Grewia flava), and engaged in a dance named 

 " koha," in which questions are put to the boys, as " Will 

 you guard the chief well ? " " Will you herd the cattle 

 well ? " and while the latter give an affirmative response, 

 the men rush forward to them, and each aims a full-weight 

 blow at the back of one of the boys ; shielding himself 

 with the sandals above his head, he causes the supple 

 wand to descend and bend into his back, and every stroke 

 inflicted thus makes the blood squirt out of a wound a 

 foot or eighteen inches long. At the end of the dance, 

 the boys' backs are seamed with wounds and weals, the 

 scars of which remain through life. This is intended to 

 harden the young soldiers, and prepare them for the rank 

 of men. After this ceremony, and after kilHng a rhino- 

 ceros, they may marry a wife. 



In the " koha " the same respect is shown to age as in 

 many other of their customs. A younger man, rushing 

 from the ranks to exercise his wand on the backs of the 

 youths, may be himself the object of chastisement by the 

 older, and, on the occasion referred to, Sekomi received 

 a severe cut on the leg from one of his grey-haired people. 

 On my joking with some of the young men on their want 

 of courage, notwithstanding all the beatings of which they 

 bore marks, and hinting that our soldiers were brave 

 without suffering so much, one rose up and said, " Ask 

 him if, when he and I were compelled by a lion to stop 

 and make a fire, I did not lie down and sleep as well as 

 himself." In other parts a challenge to try a race would 

 have been given, and you may frequently see grown men 

 adopting that means of testing superiority, like so many 

 children. 



The sechu is practised by three tribes only. Boguera 

 is observed by all the Bechuanas and Caffres, but 

 not by the negro tribes beyond 20 south. The " bo- 

 guera " is a civil rather than a religious rite. All the boys 



