CHAPTER XLV.
THE ISHOGO, ASHANGO, AND OBONGO TRIBES.
WESTERN AFRICA — THE ISHOGO TRIBE AND ITS LOCALITY — DRESS AND ASPECT OF THE PEOPLE — THE SINGULAR HEADDRESS OF THE WOMEN — THEIR SKILL IN WEAVING — THE OUANDJAS, OR NATIVE FACTORIES — THE LOOM AND SHUTTLE — ARCHITECTURE OF THE ISHOGOS — CURIOUS DOORS — THE VILLAGE TREE — THE M’PAZA OR TWIN CEREMONY — GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE ISHOGOS — THE ASHANGO TRIBE — CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE — AN UNLUCKY SHOT AND ITS CONSEQUENCES — WAR CEREMONIES — THE TEMPLE, OR M’BUITI HOUSE, AND THE RELIGIOUS RITES PERFORMED IN IT — SUPERSTITIONS OF THE ASHANGOS — THE KENDO, OR BELL OF ROYALTY — RECEPTION OF A VISITOR — THE OBONGO TRIBE, OR BUSHMEN OF WEST AFRICA — THEIR SHORT AND STUNTED LOOK — KINDNESS OF THE ASHANGOS TOWARD THEM — THE OBONGO MARKET — DOMESTIC CUSTOMS AND FUNERAL CEREMONIES.
We are now coming among some of the negro tribes, and shall see them as they are in their normal state before their customs and mode of life have been altered by the influence of Europeans.
A little below the equator, and between 10° and 12° E. longitude, is a district inhabited by the Ishogo, a very large and remarkable tribe. The Ishogo live along a rather narrow tract of country that extends diagonally southwestward, parallel with the Rembo N’gouyai River, but divided from it by a range of hills.
The Ishogo are a fine race of men, black, with woolly hair, but not exhibiting the extreme negro development which characterizes the aborigines of the west coast. They decorate themselves in rather a singular manner. Both sexes add a ruddy tinge to their native black by rubbing themselves with a red powder obtained by scraping two pieces of bar-wood together, and they also disfigure themselves by removing the two middle teeth of the upper jaw.
Like other woolly-haired races, the Ishogo are very proud of their heads, and diminish the already scanty supply of hair with which Nature has supplied them. Eyelashes and eyebrows are unfashionable among them, and are carefully erased, while the hair of the head is dressed in the most extraordinary style. The men shave a circle round their heads, only allowing a round patch to remain on the crown. This is separated into three divisions, each of which is plaited into a lappet-like form, coming to a point at the end, and being finished off with a large bead, or perhaps a piece of polished wire. On account of the slow growth of the hair, an Ishogo cannot complete his headdress under several years.
The women begin by making a sort of frame of grass cloth, and fixing it to the head, at the top or at the back, as their taste may direct. They then work the woolly hair into it, and, when that part of the process is completed, shave away all the hair that is not required for the purpose. When the headdress is complete, it stands some eight or ten inches from the head, and consequently a term of years elapses before this odd ornament reaches perfection. In fact, a complete headdress is never seen on any one under five-and-twenty.
The “chignon,” if we may apply such a term to the headdress, has four partings, one in front, one behind, and one at each side. Of course this elaborate ornament cannot be dressed by the owners, and, as a general rule, it is intrusted to professional hands, several women in every town making hair-dressing a regular business. After being arranged, the head is not touched for several months, when the structure is taken to pieces, and elaborately rebuilt, the fresh growth of hair being woven into it. The operation of taking down and rebuilding one of these towers is a very long and tedious one, and occupies a full day.
Four modes of arranging the tower, if it may be called so, prevail among the Ishogo. The ordinary plan is to raise it perpendicularly from the top of the head, so that at a distance it looks exactly as if the woman were carrying a cylindrical basket on her head. Sometimes, when the base of the tower is placed half way between the top of the head and the neck, the direction is diagonal, and, when the hair at the back of the head is retained, the tower projects backward and horizontally. These are the usual fashions; but some of the women wear, in addition to the tower, a tuft of hair, which is allowed to remain at each side of the head, and is trained into a ball just above the ear.
The dress of the Ishogo is “grass cloth” of their own manufacture. They are celebrated for the soft and close texture of this cloth, which is, however, not made from grass, but from the cuticle of young palm leaves, stripped off dexterously by the fingers. M. du Chaillu gives the following account of the weavers:—
“In walking down the main street of Mokenga a number of ouandjas, or houses without walls, are seen, each containing four or five looms, with the weavers seated before them, weaving the cloth. In the middle of the ouandja a wood fire is seen burning, and the weavers, as you pass by, are sure to be seen smoking their pipes, and chatting to one another whilst going on with their work. The weavers are all men, and it is men also who stitch the ‘bongos’ together to make ‘denguis’ or robes of them. The stitches are not very close together, nor is the thread very fine, but the work is very neat and regular, and the needles are of their own manufacture. The bongos are very often striped, and sometimes made even in check patterns. This is done by their dyeing some of the threads of the warp, or of the warp and woof, with various simple colors. The dyes are all made of decoctions of different kinds of wood, except for black, when a kind of iron ore is used. The bongos are employed as money in this part of Africa.”
Two of the words in this passage need explanation. The loom of the Ishogo is made as follows:—A bar of wood, about two feet in length, is suspended horizontally from the roof of the weaving hut, and over this bar are passed the threads which constitute the warp, their other ends being fastened to a corresponding bar below, which is fixed tightly down by a couple of forked sticks thrust into the ground. The alternate threads of the warp are divided by two slight rods, the ends of which are held in the fingers of the left hand, which cross them alternately, while the woof is interlaced by means of a sword-shaped shuttle, which also serves to strike it down and lay it regularly.
In consequence of this form of loom it is only possible to weave pieces of cloth of a limited length, and, as these cloths are used as currency, they are all made of the same length. Each of these pieces is called a “bongo,” and when two are sewed together they become “denguis.”
The women are only allowed to wear two of these pieces of cloth, the size of the wearer not being taken into consideration. One is hung at each side, and the edges are joined before and behind, so that a large and fat woman presents a very absurd appearance, the pieces of cloth being too short to meet properly.
The Ishogos seldom go armed, and although they have spears, and bows and arrows, they do not carry them except when actually required. It is thought etiquette, however, for them to take their swords with them when they go to visit another village. They are a quiet and peaceful people, and although they have at hand the means of intoxicating themselves, they are remarkable for their sobriety, in which virtue they present a pleasing contrast to their noisy, quarrelsome, and intemperate neighbors, the Apono tribe.
The villages of the Ishogo tribe are often very large, containing two hundred or more huts. Each hut is, on an average, twenty-two feet in length, and ten or twelve feet in width, and is divided by partitions into three compartments. The mud Avails are not quite five feet in height, and the top of the roof is about nine feet from the ground. The doors are placed in the middle of the central compartment, and are very small, only a little more than two feet and a half in height, and are not hung on hinges, but turn in the middle on a couple of pivots, one at the top and the other at the bottom. Perhaps one reason for this diminutive size is, that the natives have no saws, and their only method of making a door is by felling the trunk of a tree, cutting it into the proper length, and laboriously chipping away the wood at each side. The doors are decorated with various devices, complicated and even elegant patterns being painted on them in red, black, and white, &c. Most of the houses have the outer surface of the walls covered with the bark of trees.
The furniture of these huts is scarcely equal to the excellence of the architecture. Hanging from the roof are a quantity of calabashes, which contain water, palm wine, and oil, and are accompanied by plenty of cotton bags and cooking vessels. A well-furnished hut has also a number of plates and dishes, made either from reeds or from the rind of a plant called “astang,” divided into strips, and against the avails are stored the bundles of palm fibres from which the bongos are woven. Tobacco is also stored within the hut, and is completely enveloped in leaves.
(1.) THE CEREMONY OF M’PAZA.
(See page 479.)
(2.) OBONGO MARKET.
(See page 482.)
The usual form of a village is a single street, of great length, and sometimes exceedingly wide. The street of one village was fully a hundred yards in width, and was kept so neatly that not a single weed was to be seen in it,—a really remarkable fact when we remember the exceeding rapidity with which vegetation grows in this country. Each village has at least one “palaver-house,” while many have several. The “palaver-house” is more of a shed than a house, and consists chiefly of a roof and the posts which support it. In this house the men meet daily, to smoke, to hold trials, to receive strangers, and to indulge in that interminable gossip of which a relic still exists in the “discoursing” of Ireland.
There is also a temple, or M’buiti house, in which a kind of religious service is held, and which always contains a large wooden idol, which the people hold in great reverence. The proceedings within this edifice will be presently described.
In the middle of every Ishogo and Ashango village there is a single large tree, belonging to the genus Ficus. When the site of a village is first laid out, a sapling of this tree is planted, the prosperity of the future village being connected with it. If it should live and flourish, the new village will be prosperous; but, if it should die, the place is abandoned and a new site chosen. Some of the villages are distinguished by having two heads of the gorilla, one male and the other female, stuck on poles under the sacred tree, and M. du Chaillu learned afterward that certain charms were buried at the root of the same tree.
Among the Ishogos there is a very remarkable custom connected with the birth of twins. In many parts of the world twins are destroyed as soon as born, but in this country they are permitted to live, though under restrictions which tell much more severely on the mother than on her offspring. The Ishogo have a vague kind of a notion that no woman ought to produce more than a single infant at a time, and that nature desires to correct the mistake by killing one of the children before it is able to take care of itself. After that time—i. e. when the children are about six years old—the balance of the births and deaths is supposed to be equalized, and no further precautions need be taken.
Therefore, as soon as twins are born, the house is marked off in some way so as to distinguish it. In one instance, mentioned by M. du Chaillu, two long poles were planted at each side of the door, a piece of cloth was hung over the entrance, and a row of white pegs driven into the ground just in front of the threshold. These marks are intended to warn strangers from entering the hut, as, if any one except the children and their parents do so, the delinquent is seized and sold into slavery. The twins themselves are not allowed to play with the other children, and even the very utensils and cooking pots of the hut cannot be used.
In consequence of this curious law, there is nothing, next to being childless, which the women dread so much as having twins born to them, and nothing annoys an Ishogo woman so much as telling her that she is sure to have twins. Perhaps the most irritating restriction is that which forbids the woman to talk. She is allowed to go into the forest for firewood, and to perform such necessary household tasks, as otherwise she and her children must starve. But she is strictly forbidden to speak a word to any one who does not belong to her own family—a prohibition annoying enough to any one, but doubly so in Africa, where perpetual talk is almost one of the necessaries of life.
At the expiration of the sixth year, a ceremony takes place by which all parties are released from their long confinement, and allowed to enter the society of their fellows. At daybreak proclamation is made in the street, and two women, namely, the mother and a friend, take their stand at the door of the hut, having previously whitened their legs and faces. They next march slowly down the village, beating a drum in time to the step, and singing an appropriate song. A general dance and feast then takes place, and lasts throughout the night, and, after the ceremony is over, all restrictions are removed. This rite is called “M’paza,” a word which both signifies twins and the ceremony by which they and their mother are set free from their imprisonment. It is illustrated on the 478th page.
As in other parts of Africa, the natives have a way of keeping up their dancing and drumming and singing all night, partly on account of the coolness, and partly because they are horribly superstitious, and have an idea that evil spirits might hurt them under cover of the night, if they were not frightened away by the fires and noise.
One of these dances is called M’muirri, on account of the loud reverberating sound produced by their lips. It is properly a war-dance, and is performed by men alone. They form in line, and advance and retreat simultaneously, stamping so as to mark the time, beating their breasts, yelling, and making the reverberating sound which has been already mentioned. Their throats being apparently of brass and their lungs of leather, the Ishogo villagers keep up this horrid uproar throughout the night, without a moment’s cessation, and those who are for the moment tired of singing, and do not own a drum, contribute their share to the general noise by clapping two pieces of wood together.
With all their faults, the Ishogos are a pleasant set of people, and M. du Chaillu, who lived with them, and was accompanied by Ishogos in his expedition, says that they are the gentlest and kindest-hearted negroes that he ever met. After his retreat from Ashango-land, which will next be mentioned, the Ishogos received him with even more than usual hospitality, arranged his journey westward, and the whole population of the villages turned out of their houses and accompanied him a little distance on his way.
ASHANGO.
Eastward of the Ishogos is a people called the Ashango. They speak a different dialect from the Ishogo, and call themselves a different race, but their manners and customs are so similar to those of the Ishogos that a very brief account of them is all that is needed.
Ashango-land was the limit of M. du Chaillu’s second expedition, which was suddenly brought to a close by a sad accident. The people had been rather suspicious of his motives, and harassed him in his camp, so that a few shots were fired in the air by way of warning. Unfortunately, one of the guns was discharged before it was raised, and the bullet struck an unfortunate man in the head, killing him instantly. The whole village flew to arms, the war-drum sounded, and the warriors crowded to the spot, with their barbed spears, and bows and poisoned arrows.
For a moment there was a lull: the interpreter, whose hand fired the unlucky shot, explained that it was an accident, and that the price of twenty men should be paid as compensation. Beads and cloth were produced, and one of the headmen had just assented to the proposal, when a loud wailing was heard, and a woman rushed out of a hut, announcing that the favorite wife of the friendly headman had been killed by the same fatal bullet, which, after scattering the brains of the man, had passed through the thin walls of the hut, and killed the poor woman within.
After this announcement all hopes of peace were at an end; the husband naturally cried for vengeance; and, amid a shower of arrows, one of which struck the interpreter, and another nearly severed M. du Chaillu’s finger, the party retreated as they best could, refraining from firing as long as they could, but at last being forced to fire in self-defence. In order to escape as fast as they could, the porters were obliged to throw away the instruments, specimens of natural history, and photographs, so that the labor of months was lost, and scarcely anything except the journal was saved. Each village to which they came sent out its warriors against them. M. du Chaillu was dangerously wounded in the side, and had at last to throw away his best but heaviest rifle. It was only after the death of several of their number that the Ashangos perceived that they had to contend with a foe who was more than a match for them, and at last gave up the pursuit.
It was necessary, however, to conceal the fact of being wounded, for several of the tribes had an idea that their white visitor was invulnerable to spears and arrows, and it was a matter of great consequence that such a notion should be encouraged. All kinds of wild rumors circulated about him: some saying that the Ashango arrows glanced off his body without hurting him, just as the Scotch believed that the bullets were seen hopping like hail off the body of Claverhouse; while others improved on the tale, and avowed that he had changed himself into a leopard, a gorilla, or an elephant, as the case might be, and under this strange form had attacked the enemies and driven them away.
The Ashangos are even better clothed than the Ishogos, wearing denguis of considerable size, and even clothing their children, a most unusual circumstance in Central Africa. The women wear hair-towers like those of the Ishogos, but do not seem to expend so much trouble upon them. They seem to lead tolerably happy lives, and indeed to have their own way in most things.
The Ashango warriors are well armed, carrying swords, spears, and poisoned arrows. The spear and arrow-heads and swords are not made by themselves, but by the Shimba and Ashangui tribes, who seem to be the acknowledged smiths in this part of the country. The sword is carried by almost every Ashango, and when one of these weapons is bought or sold, the transaction is always carried on in private.
Before the Ashangos go out to war, they have a sort of magical ceremony, called “Cooking the War-dish.” The witch-doctor is summoned, and sets to work preparing a kind of porridge of all sorts of herbs and fetishes in an enormous pot. None but the warriors are allowed to see the preparation, and, when the mess is cooked, each warrior eats a portion. None of it is allowed to be left, and after they have all eaten, the remainder is rubbed over their bodies, until they have excited themselves to the necessary pitch of enthusiasm, when they rush out and at once proceed to the attack.
There are a number of minor ceremonies connected with food; one of which is, that the women are not allowed to eat goat flesh or fowls, the probable reason being, according to M. du Chaillu, that the men want to eat these articles themselves.
In Ashango-land, as well as among the Ishogos, the temple, or idol hut, is one of the most conspicuous buildings. Generally, the people did not like strangers to enter their temples, but in one village he succeeded in entering a temple, or M’buiti house, and seeing the strange worship which was conducted.
“This idol was kept at the end of a long, narrow, and low hut, forty or fifty feet long, and ten feet broad, and was painted in red, white, and black colors. When I entered the hut, it was full of Ashango people, ranged in order on each side, with lighted torches stuck in the ground before them. Among them were conspicuous two M’buiti men, or, as they might be called, priests, dressed in cloth of vegetable fibre, with their skins painted grotesquely in various colors, one side of the face red, the other white, and in the middle of the breast a broad, yellow stripe; the circuit of the eyes was also daubed with paint. These colors are made by boiling various kinds of wood and mixing the decoction with clay.
“The rest of the Ashangos were also streaked and daubed with various colors, and by the light of their torches they looked like a troop of devils assembled in the lower regions to celebrate some diabolical rite; around their legs were bound white leaves from the heart of the palm tree; some wore feathers, others had leaves twisted in the shape of horns behind their ears, and all had a bundle of palm leaves in their hands.
“Soon after I entered, the rites began: all the men squatted down on their haunches, and set up a deafening kind of wild song. There was an orchestra of instrumental performers near the idol, consisting of three drummers with two drumsticks each, one harper, and a performer on the sounding-stick, which latter did not touch the ground, but rested on two other sticks, so that the noise was made the more resonant. The two M’buiti men, in the mean time, were dancing in a fantastical manner in the middle of the temple, putting their bodies into all sorts of strange contortions. Every time the M’buiti men opened their mouths to speak, a dead silence ensued.
“As the ceremony continued, the crowd rose and surrounded the dancing men, redoubling at the same time the volume of their songs, and, after this went on for some time, returning to their former positions. This was repeated several times. It seemed to me to be a kind of village feast.
“The M’buiti men, I ought to mention, had been sent for from a distance to officiate on the occasion, and the whole affair was similar to a rude sort of theatrical representation. The M’buiti men, like the witchcraft doctors, are important persons among these inland tribes; some have more reputation than others, but in general those who live furthest off are much esteemed. At length, wearied out with the noise, and being unable to see any meaning or any change in the performances, I returned to my hut at half past ten.”
Being exceedingly superstitious, the Ashangos generally thought that their white visitor was not a man, but a spirit, as he could perform such wonders. He had a musical box, and set it playing, to the great consternation of the people. Their awe was increased by his leaving the box where it stood, and going away into the forest. The fact that the instrument should continue to play with no one near it was still more terrible, and a crowd of people stood round in dead silence—a very convincing proof of their awe-stricken state. An accordion produced even a greater sensation, and none but the chief dared to utter a sound. Even he was very much frightened, and continued beating his “kendo,” or magic bell of office, and invoking help from the spirits of his ancestors.
This chief was a very pious man in his own fashion. He had a little temple or oratory of his own, and every morning and evening he repaired to the oratory, shut himself up, beat his bell, and invoked the spirits, and at night he always lighted a fire before beating the bell.
The “kendo” is a very remarkable badge of office. It is bell-shaped, but has a long iron handle bent in a hook-like shape, so that the “kendo” can be carried on the shoulder. Leopard’s fur is fastened to it, much to the deadening of the sound, and the whole instrument forms an emblem which is respected as much as the sceptre among ourselves. As the chief walks along, he rings the bell, which announces his presence by a sound like that of a common sheep or cow bell.
When M. du Chaillu was among the Ashango, scarcely any articles of civilized manufacture had penetrated into the country. The universal bead had reached them, and so had a few ornaments of brass. There was an article, however, which was sometimes found among them, and which was about the last that could be expected. It was the common black beer-bottle of England. These bottles have penetrated almost as far as the beads, and are exceedingly prized by the chiefs, who value no article of property more than a black bottle, which they sling to their belts, and in which they keep their plantain wine. Calabashes would, of course, answer their purpose better, being less fragile, but the black bottle is a chief’s great ambition. Mostly, the wives do as they like; but, if a wife should happen to break a bottle, she has committed an offence for which no pardon is expected.
The Ashangos have an odd custom of receiving a visitor. When they desire to do him particular honor, they meet him with some dishes of their red paint, with which he is expected to besmear himself. If a stranger approach a house, and the owner asks him to make himself red, he is quite happy, and, if the pigment should not be offered, he will go off in dudgeon at the slight.
OBONGOS, OR BUSHMEN OF ASHANGO-LAND.
Somewhere near the equatorial line, and between long. 11° and 12° E., there is a tribe of dwarfed negroes, called the Obongos, who seem to be among the very lowest of the human race, not only in stature, but in civilization.
The Obongos have no settled place of residence, their houses being simply huts made of branches, and constructed so slightly that no home interests can possibly attach to them. They are merely made of leafy boughs stuck in the ground, and are so slight that a whole village of Obongos will change its residence with scarcely a warning. The principal cause of abandonment seems to be summed up in the single word “vermin,” with which the huts swarm to such an extent that, long after they have been abandoned, no one can enter without being covered with swarms of these offensive little insects. The huts are merely made of green boughs, and the hole which serves as a door is closed with a smaller bough. They are scattered about without any order in the open space left among the trees.
The resemblance between the Obongos and the Bosjesmans of Southern Africa is really wonderful. Like them, the Obongos are short, though not ill-shaped, much lighter in hue than their neighbors, and have short hair growing in tufts, while the Ashangos are tall, dark, and have rather long bushy hair.
Their color is pale yellow-brown, their foreheads narrow, and their cheek-bones high. The average height is about four feet seven inches, according to M. du Chaillu’s measurements, though he found one woman who was considered very tall, and who was five feet and a quarter of an inch high. The men are remarkable for having their breasts and legs covered with hair, which grows in tufts like that of the head.
This diminutive stature is not entirely owing to the small size of the whole figure, but to the shortness of the legs, which, unlike those of African races in general, are very short in proportion to the size of the body. Thus, instead of looking like ordinary but well-shaped men seen through a diminishing glass, as is the case with the Bosjesman of Southern Africa, they have a dwarfish and stunted appearance, which, added to the hairy limbs of the men, gives them a weird and elfish appearance.
The dress of the Obongos—when they have any dress at all, which is seldom the case—consists entirely of old and worn out denguis, which are given to them by the Ashangos. Indeed, the Ashangos behave very kindly to these wretched little beings, and encourage them to take up their residence near villages, so that a kind of traffic can be carried on. Degraded as these little beings seem to be, they are skilful trappers, and take great quantities of game, the supplies of which they sell to the Ashangos for plantains, iron cooking pots, and other implements. (See illustration No. 2, on p. 478.) On one occasion M. du Chaillu saw a dozen Ashango women going to the huts of the Obongos, carrying on their heads plantains which they were about to exchange for game. The men had not returned from hunting, but, on seeing that the Obongo women were suffering from hunger, and forced to live on some very unwholesome-looking nuts, they left nearly all the plantains, and came away without the game.
The woods in which they live are so filled with their traps that a stranger dares not walk in them, lest he should tumble into a pitfall which was constructed to catch the leopard, wild boar, or antelope, or have his legs caught in a trap which was laid for monkeys. There is not a path through the trees which does not contain a pitfall or two, and outside the path the monkey traps are so numerous that even by daylight it is difficult to avoid them. Being a wandering race, the Obongos never cultivate the ground, but depend for their food on the game which they take, and on the roots, berries, and nuts which they find in the woods. Animal food is coveted by them with astonishing eagerness, and a promise of goat’s flesh will bribe an Obongo when even beads fail to touch him.
The origin of the Obongos is a mystery, and no one knows whether they are the aboriginal inhabitants of the soil, or whether they came from a distance. The probability is, that they were the original inhabitants, and that the Ashangos, being a larger and more powerful race, have gradually possessed themselves of that fertile land, whose capabilities were wasted by the nomad and non-laboring Obongos.
It is strange that they should have retained their individuality throughout so long a period, in which phenomenon they present a curious resemblance to the gipsies of Europe, who have for centuries been among us, though not of us. The Obongos never marry out of their own tribe, and as they live in little communities of ten or twelve huts, it is evident that they can have but little matrimonial choice. Indeed, the Ashangos say that the ties of kinship are totally neglected, and that the Obongos permit marriages to take place between brothers and sisters. This circumstance may perhaps account for their dwarfed stature.
They are a timid people, and when M. du Chaillu visited them he could hardly catch a sight of them, as they all dashed into the wood as soon as they saw the stranger. It was with the greatest difficulty that he succeeded in intercepting several women and some children, and by presents of beads and promises of meat conciliating some of them, and inducing them to inspire confidence in their comrades. One little old woman named Misounda, who was at first very shy, became quite confident, and began to laugh at the men for running away. She said that they were as timid as the squirrel, which cried “Qué, Qué,” and squeaked in imitation of the animal, at the same time twisting her odd little body into all sorts of droll contortions, intended to represent the terror of her frightened companions.
When an Obongo dies, it is usual to take the body to a hollow tree in the forest, and drop it into the hollow, which is afterward filled to the top with earth, leaves, and branches. Sometimes, however, they employ a more careful mode of burial. They take the body to some running stream, the course of which has been previously diverted. A deep grave is dug in the bed of the stream, the body placed in it, and covered over carefully. Lastly, the stream is restored to its original course, so that all traces of the grave are soon lost. This remarkable custom is not peculiar to the Obongos, but has existed in various parts of the world from the earliest known time.