The San Francisco call., 1904-02-07
INSTRUCTIVE. .CTUDIEng
By INOIEDAlEN AND
kst}NIEN

as they were when married. Each
sat in turn on the burial logs, when
a haIf-inch rope was wound once
around her neck and a strong man
pulled at each end Of this rope and
slowly strangled her, the mother or
sister of the woman holding her hand
over her mouth. 1t is not a hard
death. they say, as the victim almost
invariably faints few seconds after
respiration is cut off. The wives were
buried in tiers of six, each tier cross
ways of the one preceding, and lastly
the nude body of the chief, painted
red like the women, was placed face
downward across the last tier.
The tombs are carefully concealed
and no one except the closest relatives
knows their whereabouts. I have
worked diligently to discover one Of
these sepulchers, but to no purpose.
The N'SackIaws bury their dead by
digging a perpendicular hole. from
the bottom of which they run a tun-
mel horizontally from twenty to fifty
yards. In this tunnel the bodies are
laid, and as it may run in any direc-
ton, a grave robber would have diff
ficulty in finding it. The Yaccomas
put earthen pots to eat out Of in the
graves. also bows, arrows, spears and
other personal belongings. But the
common man has very little planted
in his grave. He goes through the
world with very little, and he has very
little to take out of it. When the
burial Of a chief is comfortably over
the successor marries as many Of the
remaining wives as he sees fit. The
ceremony takes place on the family
log, where he sits with each woman in
turn while they paint one another red
with cam wood.
I tried to find out whether there was
any underlying principle in the prac-
tice Of tattooing or any general types
to which the practice conformed. but
1 could find traces Of neither. Each
chief makes his men mark his chill
dren in a particular way, and when a
chief dies the mark is sometimes
changed. There seems to be in the
custom a suggestion of the mark of
ownership. There is also the idea of
ornamentation, and the styles of tat
tooing change as do the fashions in
civilized countries.o It is an evidence
OF bravery, they think, to see deep cuts
and large self-imposed scars. Some
tribes tattoo to a great extent; others
scarcely any. Slaves are detected by
a hole in each nostril; freemen have
other tattoo markings, according to
tribal customs. The African uses no
ink; the marking is made by scars
cut time and again in the same place,
until the scar becomes embossed in
extreme cases a quarter Of an inch.
Many Of the designs look well on the
African skin.
Almost all African tribes pull out the
eyebrows; some take out all the hair
on the face. But the greatest slaves
to style are the tribes who distort the
lobes Of the ears until they look like
the handles on water pitcher. Others
distort the nose and lips with conical
wedges to such an extent as to inn
pede enunciation, thus changing the en-
tire language. Sometimes a tribe will
file aud cut the front teeth to sharp
points, giving a most savage appear
ance. Another will pull out the two
upper front teeth in infancy.
Ordeal by fire by holding red-hot iron
in the hands is said to be practiced in
the Congo. 1 have never met with it,
but ordeal by poison is common all over
the Congo. The poison used is the
same throughout the whole of Western
Africa. 1t is made from the root of
the nkasa tree, which is found only in
spots, one Of the places where it is
abundant being an island above Koan-
go. The bark Of the root is scraped
off with a knife and placed in water.
After standing a short time the water
turns red from the color Of the bark.
There is a yellow bark as well, and
some tribes prefer the one and some
the other. The liquid is then given to
the accused party.
The poison is given in different ways
among different tribes. In some tribes
when any one is accused of witchcraft.
adultery or theft, in order to find out
whether or not he is guilty, the poison
is first of all given to a chicken If
the chicken dies the accused must sub
nit TO the poison test; If the chicken
lives he is acquitted. Once when near
the villag ge of By-Barri 1 was told that
the chief Of the Yaccomas was about to
administer the poison, in order to find
out which of the two women who had
been suspected Of witchcraft was re-
sponsible for his swollen foot. l ran
to the village as fast as my legs could
carry me, but before I got there the
poison had been given. found a large
crowd Of people gathered together.
They were in the form of a circle, their
attention centered upon two women,
who were jumping about in wild ex-
citement. In about ten minutes one
Of them began to vomit, and soon re-
covered The other was thrown into
convulsions, and lay prone upon the
ground until death ended her agony.
The medicine man was going through
a lot OF mumbo jumbo, and through 1t
all could hear him asserting thar the
poison never failed to find out the
guilty. The woman who vomited I'D
the poison was received back by her
friends with great rejoicing. The
relatives Of the dead woman were the
loudest in heaping maledictions on her
r,ame- 1t was evident that all the
people had the most implicit faith in
the accuracy Of the test. But Justice
surely riscarries in those cases where