NATIVES OF BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 409 
ETHNOLOGY 
In regard to initiation ceremonies. These are more or less connected with 
sexual matters and with the arrival at or approach to the age of puberty on the 
part of the boy or girl. In certain characteristics they are common to the 
greater part of Pagan Tropical Africa. Customs met with on the Gold Coast 
may be recognised again in Nyasaland or among the Zulus. Yet although 
agreeing upon certain general principles there is a considerable difference in 
detail even amongst the tribes of British Central Africa. In some races, how¬ 
ever, the tribe being constantly harried by slave raids or civil wars or other 
disturbing conditions, initiation ceremonies, like other customs, may lapse and 
almost disappear. 1 It is said that the following customs are observed by the 
Wa-yao in the initiation of boys:—Like most ceremonies it begins by a dance 
which takes place in a clearing in the uninhabited woodland at or near the 
place where the youths, under the direction of their preceptors (one or more 
elderly men), have run up low shelters made of branches, bamboos and grass 
thatch. The dance with intervals for eating and sleeping lasts perhaps three 
days. It is said to be of a slightly obscene character. Usually towards 
the end of the dance the old man who is to circumcise takes the boys aside one 
by one; arrangements are then made for their circumcision and they are suddenly 
told to look at a strange figure in the sky ; whilst their gaze is thus diverted the 
act is smartly performed. “ The boys cry a great deal,” I was informed, but 
a few days’ rest in the grass hut and the application of certain astringent reme¬ 
dies soon heal the wound. Much good advice is said to be given to the boys 
by these elderly instructors, but there is also much loose talk and the boys 
are thoroughly enlightened as to sexual relations. They are given (by their 
guardian or sponsor, 2 generally, who usually sees them through the ceremonies) 
a new name and the appellation they have hitherto borne is absolutely discarded. 
It must never be again used and to call a youth who has been initiated by the 
name of his childhood is an unpardonable offence. Access to the place where 
the initiatory ceremonies are taking place is strictly forbidden to all not 
concerned therewith. The boys are armed (as on the Congo) with long sticks 
and will mercilessly beat any stranger who invades the precincts. About a 
month to six weeks usually elapse before the boys issue from their hiding-place 
and return to their homes. Their mothers prepare food for them during their 
seclusion and place it usually at the place where the public path divides from 
the trodden track leading to the “ lodge.” There is no doubt that much good 
interests of the community and require control and restriction ; but it is not a “vice.” And in this sense 
the negro is very rarely vicious after he has attained to the age of puberty. He is only more or less 
uxorious. (Here, again, to give a truthful picture it must be noted that the children are vicious, as 
they are amongst most races of mankind, the boys outrageously so. A medical missionary who was 
at work for some time on the west coast of Lake Nyasa gave me information concerning the depravity 
prevalent among the young boys in the Atonga tribe of a character not even to be expressed in obscure 
Latin. These statements might be-applied with almost equal exactitude to boys and youths in many other 
parts of Africa as almost any missionary who thoroughly understands the native character would know.) 
As regards the little girls over nearly the whole of British Central Africa chastity before puberty is 
an unknown condition. (Except perhaps among the A-nyanja'.) Before a girl is become a woman 
(that is to say before she is able to conceive) it is a matter of absolute indifference what she does and 
scarcely any girl remains a virgin after about five years of age. Even where betrothed at birth, as 
is often the case, or at a few months old, she will go to the family of her future husband when she 
is four or five years of age and although she will not formally cohabit with him till she .has reached 
the age of puberty, it constantly happens that she is deflowered by him long before that age is 
attained. 
1 There are said to be no initiation ceremonies for the boys among the A-nyanja or Atonga. 
- Often an uncle; someone chosen at the birth of the child by the father. 
