TRIBAL CUSTOMS 91 
for superstitious reasons certain trails, villages or people should be avoided; 
why there should be certain seasons for collecting fruit from forest trees and 
herbs, certain seasons for planting, why certain land should not be used for 
farms. It seems unfortunate that they are taught nothing valuable about the 
care of children at birth. Umbilical hernia, for example, is one of the most com- 
mon pathological conditions observed in Liberia. Nevertheless, it is said that it 
would be very difficult for a girl in Liberia to obtain a husband who had not first 
gone through her initiation at the bush school, and in the Vai language a girl 
who has not been initiated is called a “gboroa,”’ that is, an ignoramus or idiot. 
Toward the end of the term the girls are sometimes put through what is 
called a fattening period so as to make them more attractive to their future 
husbands. At the end of the term a great reception and procession is held when 
the families of the girls and their future husbands go to meet them. Following 
a great procession there is again dancing and feasting. 
To take a girl out of the bush school at some time before the special and 
general ceremonies means to marry her. The bridegroom then makes a present 
to the femba and numerous other presents to the girl herself and to her parents. 
The ‘‘femba”’ then washes the girl’s body and rubs it with fat and chalk, dresses 
her in a special costume, and leads her to the house that the bridegroom is sup- 
posed to have built for her. If any dissatisfaction arises with the girl on the first 
night, she can be returned to her parents, and the bride price, already paid, re- 
claimed. 
On leaving the bush, the girls always go through some form of ceremony; 
sometimes their faces and bodies are rubbed with chalk, and they are usually 
dressed in a special costume of grass, or in the case of some tribes, of cloth em- 
broidered with beads and adorned with silver ornaments. Presents are aiso 
given to them by their prospective husbands and families. After several weeks’ 
feasting, the girls are officially married. 
In some parts of the country, the payments for the girls in the bundu school 
include a hamper of clean rice, a fowl, a jar of palm oil, a handkerchief and a 
bottle of local rum made from cane. For the betrothed girls who are initiated, 
there are extra bush charges of rice, fowls, dried fish and one kasankra (cane) of 
salt. In some instances the girls are kept at the expense of their future husbands. 
In the poro or boys’ school, eight leaves of tobacco are paid at the outer gate of 
the sacred enclosure before entrance. Other payments of tobacco are demanded 
before the instruction is completed, as well as gifts of rice, chickens, and goats 
for the various officials, and sometimes money, particularly in the form of twisted 
iron bands. 
In some of the more modern of the schools, — the Sembe of the Temne, 
Mendi, and Vai tribes, — the girls are taught cooking, washing, the respect owed 
to husbands, the laws affecting women, farming, the preparation of palm wine, 
fishing, spinning, and other domestic duties. 
Beliefs. Among the tribes in the interior death is considered unnatural, par- 
ticularly if sudden, and is always supposed to be due to the machinations of some 
spirit. There is also more or less belief in existence after death. The spirit is 
