THK ORDEAI,. 405 



A woman was accused by a brother-in-law of being the 

 cause of his sickness while we were at Cassange. She 

 offered to take the ordeal, as she had the idea that it 

 would but prove her conscious innocence. Captain Neves 

 refused his consent to her going, and tnus saved her life, 

 which would have been sacrificed, for the poison is very 

 virulent. When a strong stomach rejects it, the accuser 

 reiterates his charge ; the dose is repeated, and the 

 person dies. Hundreds perish thus every year in the 

 valley of Cassange. 



The same superstitious ideas being prevalent through 

 the whole of the country north of the Zambesi, seems to 

 indicate that the people must originally have been one. 

 All believe that the souls of the departed still mingle 

 among the living, and partake in some way of the food 

 they consume. In sickness, sacrifices of fowls and goats 

 are made to appease the spirits. It is imagined that they 

 wish to take the living away from earth and all its enjoy- 

 ments. When one man has killed another, a sacrifice is 

 made, as if to lay the spirit of the victim. A sect is 

 reported to exist, who kill men in order to take their 

 hearts and offer them to the Barimo. 



The chieftainship is elective from certain families. 

 Among the Bangalas of the Cassange valley, the chief is 

 chosen from three families in rotation. A chief's brother 

 inherits in preference to his son. The sons of a sister 

 belong to her brother ; and he often sells his nephews to 

 pay his debts. By this and other unnatural customs, 

 more than by war, is the slave-market supplied. 



The prejudices in favour of these practices are very 

 deeply rooted in the native mind. Kven at I^oanda they 

 retire out of the city in order to perform their heathenish 

 rites without the cognizance of the authorities. Their 

 religion, if such it may be called, is one of dread. Numbers 

 of charms are employed to avert the evils with which they 

 feel themselves to be encompassed. Occasionally you meet 

 a man, more cautious or more timid than the rest, with 

 twenty or thirty charms hung round his neck. He seems 

 to act upon the principle of Proclus, in his prayer to all the 

 gods and goddesses. Among so many he surely must 

 have the right one. The disrespect which Europeans pay 

 to the objects of their fear, is to their minds only an 

 evidence of great folly. 



While here, I reproduced the last of my lost papers and 



