Chap. IX. 
DISPOSAL OF CHIEF’S WIDOWS. 
185 
with only one wife, like Sechele.” It was of little use to urge 
that the change of heart implied a contentment with one wife 
equal to his present complacency in polygamy. Such a preference 
after the change of mind, could not now be understood by him any 
more than the real, unmistakeable pleasure of religious services 
can, by those who have not experienced what is known by the 
term the “ new heart.” I assured liim that nothing was expected 
but by his own voluntary decision. No, no; he wanted always 
to have five wives at least.” I liked the frankness of Sekeletu, 
for nothing is so wearying to the spirit as talking to those who 
agree with everytliing advanced. 
Sekeletu, according to the system of the Bechuanas, became 
possessor of his father’s wives, and adopted two of them; the 
children by these women are, however, in these cases, termed 
brothers. When an elder brother dies, the same thing occurs in 
respect of his wives; the brother next in age takes them, as 
among the Jews, and the clnldren that may be bom of those 
women he calls his brothers also. He thus raises up seed to his 
departed relative. An uncle of Sekeletu, being a younger brother 
of Sebituane, got that chieftain’s head-vdfe, or queen: there is 
always one who enjoys this title. Her hut is called the great 
house, and her children inherit the cliieftainship. If she dies, a 
new wife is selected for the same position and enjoys the same 
})rivileges, though she may happen to be a much younger woman 
than the rest. 
The majority of the wives of Sebituane were given to influen¬ 
tial under-cliiefs; and, in reference to their early casting off the 
widow’s weeds, a song was sung, the tenor of which was that the 
men alone felt the loss of their father Sebituane, the women were 
so soon supplied with new husbands that their hearts had not time 
to become sore with grief. 
The women complain, because the proportions between the 
sexes are so changed now, that they are not valued as they de¬ 
serve. The majority of the real Makololo have been cut off by 
fever. Those who remain are a mere fragment of the people 
who came to the north with Sebituane. Migrating from a very 
healthy climate in the south, they were more subject to the 
febrile diseases of the valley in which we found them, than the 
black tribes they conquered. In comparison with the Barotse, 
