No. IX. 
SOME CUSTOMS AMONG THE INTERIOR NATIONS 
OF SOUTH AFRICA, APPARENTLY OF JEWISH 
ORIGIN. 
ALTHOUGH the following customs have been 
already mentioned in different parts of the Journal, it 
may not be amiss to recapitulate them, in order to ex- 
hibit, at one view, the reasons for supposing that they 
are derived from the Jewish nation, if, indeed, the 
people vvho first introduced them into Africa were not 
the immediate descendants of the Israelites. 
1. Circumcision, and despising the uncircumcised. 
2. Espousing or betrothing, long before marriage be 
consummated. 
3. Purification by water, and by shaving the head, to 
do away supposed or dreaded defilement, which they 
may have contracted by intercourse with strangers. 
4. Transferring impurity or infection from individuals 
to some animal which is slain, as in the case of the King 
of Lattakoo, after sickness. 
6. A brother, (or if there be no brother, the next of 
kin,) must take his brother's widow, as a wife, to raise 
up seed to his brother ; the children thus born are legally 
viewed as the children of the deceased. The acknow- 
