164 
MARRIAGES. 
very early age ; they are sometimes contracted at seven or 
eight years old. From the moment when a marriage is 
agreed upon, the father of the boy is obliged, if he has a 
daughter of his own, to exchange her for the girl who is pro- 
mised to his son ; if he has none, application is made to the 
lad's relations, who never refuse to comply with the demand. 
When the young people are once engaged in the manner 
I have mentioned, they live in the same house, and are 
brought up together, with the knowledge that they are de- 
signed for one another ; from that time the lad brings his in- 
tended every morning a large calabash full of palm-wine, 
with which his parents supply him till he is capable of making 
the wine himself. 
The children naturally live very happily together, and 
the marriage is not celebrated till the girl is eleven or twelve 
years old. Great rejoicings are made on the occasion, and 
an ox is killed to regale the guests, who are always very 
numerous. 
From the time that the children come together to the 
celebration of the marriage, the lad furnishes the relations of 
his future wife with two calabashes of palm-wine every day, 
one in the morning, the other at night. 
The girl, who on such occasions is given in exchange to 
be useful to the parents who have lost their daughter, leaves 
them when she is to be betrothed to go and live with her 
future husband ; the adoption is, in fact, only as a compensa- 
tion for services. Men are not obliged to find substitutes : 
like the Landamas, they have many wives; but they marry 
them after considerable intervals. 
The Bagos also offer sacrifices at the birth of a child and 
at the death of a relation. When the head of a family dies, it 
is very common to burn every thing that is in the house. The 
goods are packed in boxes, and, before they are thrown into 
the fire, the virtues of the deceased are enumerated, with some 
such addition as the following : "See how industrious he has 
