148 
CEREMONIES OF AFRICAN TRIBES. 
Chap. VII. 
call, and act under the cliief’s son as their commander. They 
recognise a sort of equality and partial communism ever after¬ 
wards, and address each other by the title of molekane or com¬ 
rade. In cases of offence against theff rules, as eating alone 
when any of their comrades are within call, or in cases of 
cowardice or dereliction of duty, they may strike one another, 
or any member of a younger mopato, but never any one of an 
older band; and when three or four companies have been made, 
the oldest no longer takes the field in time of war, but remains 
as a guard over the women and children. When a fugitive 
comes to a tribe, he is (hrected to the mopato analogous to 
that to wliich in Ins own tribe he belongs, and does duty as a 
member. No one of the natives knows how old he is. If asked 
liis age he answers by putting another question—“ Does a man 
remember when he was born ? ” Age is reckoned by the 
number of mepato they have seen pass tlnough the formulae 
of admission. When they see four or five mepato younger than 
themselves they are no longer obliged to bear arms. The oldest 
individual I ever met boasted he had seen eleven sets of boys 
submit to the boguera. Supposing him to have been fifteen 
when he saw his own, and fresh bands were added every six or 
seven years, he must have been about forty when he saw the 
fifth, and may have attained seventy-five or eighty years, which 
is no great age; but it seemed so to them, for he had now 
doubled the age for superannuation among them. It is an 
ingenious plan for attaching the members of the tribe to the 
chief’s family, and for imparting a discipline which renders the 
tribe easy of command. On their retmm to the town from attend¬ 
ance on the ceremonies of initiation, a prize is given to the lad 
who can run fastest, the article being placed where all may see 
the winner run up to snatch it. They are then considered men 
(banona, vhi), and can sit among the elders in the kotla. For¬ 
merly they were only boys (basimane, pueri). The first mis¬ 
sionaries set then: faces against the boguera, on account of its 
connection with heathenism, and the fact that the youths learned 
much evil, and became disobedient to their parents. From the 
general success of these men, it is perhaps better that younger 
missionaries should tread in theff footsteps; for so much evil 
may result from breaking down the authority on wliich, to those 
