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32 At the Back of the Black Man's Mind By R. E. Dennett
property. But where the father of a family has been neglected by his relations, he
sometimes takes his revenge on them by dividing his property among his children while
he is yet alive. The mother has no property of her own, but is the guardian of that of her
children, and should they die this goes to her family.
Both the father and mother watch over the interests of their children, and can punish
them.
The mother alone has the right to pawn her child, but she must first consult the father,
so that he may have the chance of giving her goods to save the pledging. The father
cannot pledge his child. The brother can pawn his sister, or the uncle his niece, the
mother being dead. But the father being alive the uncle must go first to him to give him
the chance of helping him out of the difficulty by means of a loan of goods. If the uncle is
what they call a bad man, the father will call witnesses to see the cloth that he is lending
the uncle who would pawn his child, he takes up a kernel of the palm nut in their
presence and drops it into his box; which being interpreted means that he has bought
his daughter. Until this debt is paid to the father the uncle cannot raise the wind on that
child again. A person is never free from being pawned in this way.
Parental authority is really never lost, for the father has always the right to ransom the
child, who never ceases to look to him as its father. But as the child often settles down in
the village of its pawnee and becomes the parent of children, the amount needed to
ransom it increases in proportion to the child's offspring. The debtor has to pay double
the amount he borrowed and so much for every child. Even then the child may elect to
remain where it is.
A child or children bereft of all family ties may be adopted by one of the father's friends,
who calls it or them (Muana bika wali) the child my friend left. Under this kind of
artificial parentage the adoptor can neither sell nor pawn this child, nor has he any hold
on its earnings; it is a work of love and honour, but he looks to the gratitude of the child
to make it up to him in some way or other.
Section IV.-Of Guardianship, of Emancipation, and Prohibition.
The French law recognises four kinds of guardianship:
1 That of the survivors of the fathers and mothers.
2. That by will conferred by the fathers or mothers dying last.
3. That of the next of kin.
4. That which is disposed of by a meeting of the family.
The Bavili recognise six forms of guardianship, in order:
1 The grandfather. Xinkaka xi andi.
2. The father's family. Xitata.
3. The mother's father. Xinkaka xibuta.
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