238 Seveit Years in Central Africa, 
One morning I shot a hyena in my yard. The chief sent up 
one of his executioners to cut off its nose and the tip of its tail, 
and to extract a little bit of brain from the skull. The man 
informed me that these parts were very serviceable to elephant 
hunters, as securing for them the cunning, tact, and power to 
become invisible, which the hyena is supposed to possess. I 
suppose that the brain would represent the cunning, the nose the 
tact, and the tip of the tail the vanishing quality. The stomach 
of the hyena is valued by the Ovimbundu as a cure for 
apoplexy. Many have a superstious dread of the horned night 
owl. Its cry is considered an evil omen, which can only be 
counteracted effectually by possessing a whistle made out of the 
windpipe of the same bird. Jackals are also very much disliked. 
The weird cry of one of these animals will arouse the people of a 
whole village, who will rush out and call upon the spirit-possessed 
animal to be quiet and leave them, or to come into the village 
and they will feed and satisfy it. When travelling they are 
careful to notice the direction this animal may take. Should its 
cry come from the direction in which they are going they will not 
venture a step further until certain divinations have been per- 
formed, that they may learn the nature of the calamity about to 
befall them. 
TRADE CASTES. 
Not many traces of caste are to be found in Africa. There is, of 
course, an aristocracy of mighty men, and the richer members of 
society rule over the poorer, but some trade castes exist in the 
Garenganze country. The copper mines are wrought and the 
copper smelted out of the malachite ore by certain families. This 
business is handed down from father to son, and the instructions 
of forefathers are followed with the greatest accuracy. At one 
place the copper is cast in the form of a capital H, and the 
angles of this figure are perfect. At other mines it is cast in the 
form of a Maltese cross, the mould being made in the sand by 
the workers, with their fingers; and out of twenty casts from 
such moulds scarcely a fourth or an eighth of an inch difference 
is discernible. 
The malachite from which the copper is extracted is found in 
large quantities on the tops of certain bare, rugged hills. In 
their search for it the natives dig little round shafts, seldom 
