The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

168 SOUTU AND EAST .U'^EICA.The Bccliuanas are one of the finest members of the southern Bantu family.All are tall, robust, well-built, and distinguished by their graceful carriage, whichmay be partly due to the fact that in certain tribes the feeble or sickly offspringare got rid of. Albinos and the deaf and dumb are thrown to the panthers ; thoseborn blind arc strangled, and when the mother dies her infant is, in some tribes,buried alive in the same grave, because he has been dcpri\ed of his natural nurse.Circumcision is imiversally practised, although there is no fixed age for performingthe rite. Sometimes it is deferred till adolescence ;yet children born before thefather has been circxmicised would be ipso facto declared incapable of inheritingany of the paternal estate.Usually the operation is undergone between the eighthand fourteenth j'ear, and is accompanied by scourging, and occasionally even bytortures, in virtue of which the victims are regarded as equals of the men of thetribe, worthy to carry the shield and hurl the assegai.Girls also are initiated intowomanhood and taught their duties as future wives by a long probationship passedin seclusion imdcr the direction of elderly matrons. During this period they aresubjected to several severe trials of eudui-ance, the last of which is a hot iron barto be held for a few seconds without uttering a cry. After this proof they aredeclared women; they are smeared all over with grease, their hair Is saturatedwith a mixture of butter and ochre ; they are clothed and decked like brides whQeawaiting to be purchased by their future lord.Circumcision Is in no sense a religious ceremony, being merely the symbol ofentrance Into the state of manhood, with all Its attendant privileges and responsibilities.Those missionaries who first penetrated Into this region assure us thatthey sought In vain for the least Indication of a belief In the supernatural worldamongst the Bechuana peoples. The natives had neither gods nor Idols; theynever gathered together for prayer or anj' kind of public worship ; they neitherappealed in supplication to good or evil spirits, nor even betrayed any fear of thesouls of the dead. At the same time certain practices seem to be altogetherinexplicable except on the supposition that they have been inspired by the desireto conjure the forces of the unkuo^^'n world and render the unseen powers propitiousto their votaries. Thus when a tree is struck by lightning cattle areslaughtered, and similar sacrifices are made for the purpose of healing the sick orobtaining rain from above. The dead are borne to the grave through a breachmade in the wall of the cabin, and care Is taken to lay them in a crouched attitudewith the face turned due north, that Is, in the direction whence came their forefathers.Then the bystanders cast into the grave an acacia branch, portionsof ant-hills, and tufts of herbage, emblems of the himter's life In the woodlands.On the sepulchral mound are also placed the arms of the departed, together withthe seeds of alimentary plants.But of late years the fear of unwittingly supplyingthe compounders of maleficent charms with the needful skulls has Induced many ofthe tribes to bury their dead in the cabin itself, under the feet of the living.After each ceremony all those present wash their hands and feet in a largewater-trough, all the time shouting Pida ! puk ! (Rain! rain!). The wizardsalso frequently make a show of attracting the clouds and_causlng them to discharge