492 
More often no such provision is made for keeping the sexes apart. 
This youthful licentiousness never ends in marriage, and the children of this 
period, who for some reason are not numerous, are the property of the 
father. Chastity begins with marriage; conjugal infidelity, though not 
altogether unknown, is exceedingly rare. Marriages are exogamic: though 
clans sometimes intermarry, wives are preferred from a neighbouring 
village in which a similar pattern of upper cloth is worn. The choice 
lies mainly with the woman who judges by “thews and sinews” and by 
decorations. The younger men complain bitterly that the British, by 
stopping their raids and so preventing them from gaining marks of distinc¬ 
tion, have made it impossible for them to get wives. The accepted bride¬ 
groom gives, according to his means, a present to the bride’s parents. 
Having previously collected materials for a house, his friends build it 
while he observes a genna; at the close all partake of a feast of fowls and 
pigs at his expense. Widows and women who have been divorced do not 
return to their own village, but live in houses by themselves and may 
marry again. During sickness the family holds a genna ; a fowl is killed; 
the head and feet are offered to the medovi; the legs and neck are given 
to friends; the rest is eaten at home. When the medovi are satisfied the 
illness passes off. If the patient dies the clan is involved in genna for 
a day in the case of a woman, and two days in the case of a man. If a 
headman dies the whole village is implicated and the genna lasts three 
days. A feast of fowls, pigs or cattle, according to the position of the 
deceased, is then given by the relatives to the clan or the village, after 
which the body is buried. At the obsequies of a warrior the men wear 
all their decorations, and when the grave is closed warcries are raised 
and spears brandished, and the cowardly spirits who have killed their 
friend are challenged to show themselves and fight. Over graves they 
erect oblong stone tombs, those in memory of warriors are often a metre 
in height. Upon the tombs are placed the apparel, ornaments, and 
implements of the deceased—the man’s handbill and hoe, the woman’s 
loom and spindle. At the head of a man’s grave are placed his spear and 
shield—the witnesses of his prowess ; at the head of a woman’s are 
stuck the skulls of pigs and cattle—the tokens of her hospitality. While 
the other things are ultimately removed, the skulls and weapons remain till 
they decay, it being genna to remove them. A warrior’s tomb is carefully 
preserved by his immediate generation. It is marked by pillars of stone or 
wood, protected by a railing, and adorned at intervals with flowers. More 
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