FESTIVITIES. 



89 



as he pleases : the only one who has no voice in the 

 matter is the putative father. Circumcision, an 

 old African custom extending from Egypt to the 

 Cape, and adopted from the negroid by the 

 Hebrews, is a semi-religious act performed once 

 every five or six years upon the youths en masse, 

 and accompanied by the usual eating and drink- 

 ins^, drummino? and dancinfir. A man mav 

 marrv anv number of wives : the o^enial rite, 

 however, is no tie to these fickle souls : it is 

 celebrated by jollifications, and it is broken as 

 merrilv. 



The principal festivities, if they can be so 

 called, are funerals : the object is to ' break 

 the fear' (Ussa kiwewe) of death, an event 

 which, savage-like, they regard with a nameless 

 dread, an inexpressible horror. Por a whole 

 week the relations of the deceased must abstain 

 from business, however urgent, and ruin them- 

 selves by killing cattle and broaching palm- wine 

 for the whole communitv. At these times there 

 is a laxitv of morals, which recalls to mind the 

 orgies of the classical Adonia, and refusal to 

 lavish wealth upon the obsequies of relations 

 is visited with tauntings and heavy fines. 



A characteristic of "^anvika customs is the 

 division of both sexes into distinct bodies, with 



