BETWEEN ANGOLA AND TEE ZAMBESI. 
497 
and none might say by whose hand. The other troop, 
in pursuit of human game, seize the first poor wretch, 
man or woman, who falls in their way, and hurrying 
the victim off to the jungle, cut off the head, which they 
bring back with great care, abandoning the body where 
it fell. On arriving at the Libata, they wait for the 
troop on the hunt for the antelope, as it is always much 
easier to find and kill a man than to find and kill any 
particular animal. Having put the two heads into one 
basket, the medicine-man appears and begins to perform 
the proper remedies to enable the new Sova to assume 
the reins of government, and his tomfoolery being at 
an end, he declares that the sovereign may enter the 
lornbe. Attended by the Macotas, the Sova enters 
accordingly, in the midst of loud acclamations and a 
great expenditure of gunpowder. 
The first step taken by the Sova on attaining to 
power, is to select from among his women the one he 
chooses to make his wife, who is styled Inaculo; the 
others still continue to reside in the Lombe but not 
within the precincts of the royal residence. Polygamy, 
however, is an established institution of the Bilie 
country, as it is of all South Central Africa. 
Crimes in the Bilie are always tried in first instance 
by the parties injured or offended, and it is only if the 
convicted criminal refuses to submit to the payment of 
the fine imposed, that the matter, and then only in 
rare cases, is brought before the Sova. As a rule, 
sentence is passed and carried out by the injured 
parties themselves. The word which strikes most 
terror in the Bilie is muccino, a word that does not 
merely express a crime committed, but an idea that 
embraces both the crime and the payment of a fine. 
All crimes among these people are expiated by money, 
that is to say, the payment of a fine ; and there are 
no intermediate penalties between a fine and death. 
When a wealthy person upon whom a mucano is 
pending, refuses to pay, the party injured, if he be 
powerful, makes a seizure of some of the other’s 
property, for a far higher value than the amount of 
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