1840.] The Hodesum (improperly called Kolehan). 801 



these merry makings, but go through their ceremonies at separate times, 

 and at their own sacred groves.* At Mag the men and women occasion- 

 ally put on grotesque finery, and their songs and dances are wild and 

 pretty. The figures and airs are nearly all alike ; the women form 

 a circle, are staid and demure, and sing in a low humming strain, 

 while the men and drummers in the centre, in all stages of intoxi- 

 cation, twist themselves into all manner of contortions, and indulge 

 in violent and ludicrous gestures. During one ceremony, at the Mag 

 Purub, the Koles abandon their usual decent behaviour to women, and 

 both sexes go tramping through and about their villages, chanting 

 the most odiously filthy recitative* in which the youngest who can lisp 

 are allowed to join. 



But if their public Purubs are few, they make up amply by the 

 number of private sacrifices which they carry on in their own houses. 

 On account of sickness in any member of the family, or among 

 their servants, the most trifling indisposition, as well as the gravest 

 malady, has but this one remedy among them. They never attempt 

 resorting to medicine, an^ no frequency of deaths, no extent of the 

 ravages of any contagious disease, can shake their faith in the 

 one resource of offering sacrifices to the god who is supposed to be 

 chastising them with the visitation. In endeavouring to dissuade 

 them from this dangerous folly, in which the father of a family, 

 with unshaken bigotry, sees his household swept away into the grave, 

 and the whole of his live stock destroyed in vain efforts to check the 

 ravages of sickness, by sacrificing to the gods, we have as yet 

 signally failed ; although they were, by dint of constant entreaty and 

 admonition, induced to come to the Hospital at Chyebassa, and 

 although many cures were performed upon them, it has proved of no 

 eventual benefit ; the Koles now never make their appearance to seek 

 for medical aid, and the slight temporary reform that was effected 

 among them, has altogether ceased. 



The most gross superstitions still prevail among this people with 

 regard to witchcraft ; but the dreadful effects of this belief, to which 

 numbers of unfortunate persons have fallen a sacrifice, have now, 

 through fear ^i our laws, almost wholly ceased. The Koles believe 



* These sacred groves, or plantations of saul trees, are attached to every village ; 

 they call them "Saer". 



