4 -io 
BRITISH CENTRAL AFRICA 
advice is given to the boys during this initiation : they are warned against 
selfishness specially, are instructed in the way to return polite answers to their 
elders, in the traditions of the tribes, in their duties towards the community and 
chief, and often in special subjects such as the augury of favourable conditions 
of travel, methods of warfare, and religious beliefs connected with the worship 
and propitiation of ancestral spirits. 1 
As to the initiation ceremonies 2 for the girls among the Wa-yao they are 
stated to be as follows. When there are a number of girl children in a village 
or collection of villages who have reached an age of from eight to eleven years 
they are taken away to the bush by elderly women and are lodged there in 
shelters of grass and branches much as I have described in regard to the boys. 
The ceremony usually begins with the new moon and lasts for the lunar month. 
One old woman presides over the other instructresses, who is called the “ cook 
of the initiation, v and who receives a fee of about four yards of cloth for each 
girl initiated. A huge amount of corn has been pounded and flour (utandi) 
prepared beforehand ready to feed the girls during their seclusion. The 
children are instructed in household duties, in their obligations to their future 
husbands, in the principles of good behaviour (which includes injunctions 
against loud-tongued quarrelling). The marriage question is thoroughly ex¬ 
plained and warning is given that unfaithfulness to the marriage tie may result 
in death at the hands of the husband. The girls’ heads are shaved and they 
are anointed with various “ medicines ” and rubbed with oil. Miniature house 
roofs are made and each girl has to carry one on her head indicating that 
she is the support of the home. Then follows (it is said) a forcible vagince 
dilatatio 3 by mechanical means, an operation which the girls are enjoined to 
bear bravely. At the same time they are told that it must be followed by 
cohabitation with a man. This is regarded by the Yao as a necessity to render 
the girl marriageable before the age of puberty. The girls and their mothers 
believe that if after these initiation ceremonies nisi cum mare coitus fiet they 
will die or at any rate will not bear children when eventually married. Pater 
puellte virum robustum (srnpe attamen senem) legit atque ei pecuniam dat ut 
puellae virginitatem adimat. Hoc ante pubertatem fieri necesse, ne coitum 
conceptio sequatur. 
There are no such proceedings amongst the A-nyanja though Dr. Cross 
hints that something of the kind may obtain among the Wankonde. The 
A-nyanja, probably the Atonga and most of the other races west of 
Lake Nyasa hold but simple initiation ceremonies among the girls—they 
only take place after puberty is reached, and last for a day or so. The young 
maidens proceed to a cleared place outside the village where they recline 
upon dry grass. No man is allowed to approach this college of women and 
the approaches thereto are carefully guarded by matrons, while other married 
women proceed to the instruction of the girls not only in sexual matters 
but in the management of the home and all other matters concerning the 
woman’s life and work. 
Following on this initiation is a dance, of course—a dance in which both 
sexes join. Men dress themselves up in masks and skins and romp with 
the initiated girls rather roughly but with no immodesty, and after the dance 
is over the girls are taken back to their homes by the matrons who are 
careful to see that they behave themselves with propriety. 
1 Under this last head but little instruction may be given now, as so many of the Yaos affect Muham¬ 
madanism. 2 Unyago in Chi-yao. 3 Aliquando clitoride simul excisa. 
