202 
BOOTCHUANA 
permission is also accompanied with a flogging. 
After this they are allowed to taste another part 
of the animal, accompanied with a beating, and 
so on, till they have tasted every part of it, that 
they may afterwards be able to say, when eating 
any part of an animal, " the knowledge of this 
part cost us a flogging." No boy dare cry 
during the chastisement: Mateebe's eldest son 
having cried under one of those severe floggings, 
it was for some time thought doubtful whether 
on that account he could succeed his father as 
king. They have no stated period fixed for the 
ceremony; sometimes oc curing only once in two 
or three years, and perhaps depending on the num- 
ber of boys at twelve or more years of age, who 
have not been circumcised. Some ceremony is 
also performed with respect to the females, before 
which they cannot marry. There are two months 
in the year, at the cow-calving time, which is 
generally about the month of October, when none 
but the uncircumcised are permitted to use the 
milk of cows that have calved. 
Flogging, at the period of circumcision, is not 
entirely confined to the boys, for the men also 
flog each other, and on this occasion are divided 
Can these ceremonies be traced to the Mosaic Ritual ? " The 
breast of the peace-offering was to be Aaron's and his sons." — 
Lev. vii. 30, 31. 
