§ 1. Seclusion of Girls at Puberty in Africa

[Girls at puberty forbidden to touch the ground and to see the sun; seclusion of girls at puberty among the A-Kamba; seclusion of girls at puberty among the Baganda.]

Now it is remarkable that the foregoing two rules—not to touch the ground and not to see the sun—are observed either separately or conjointly by girls at puberty in many parts of the world. Thus amongst the negroes of Loango girls at puberty are confined in separate huts, and they may not touch the ground with any part of their bare body. 64 Among the Zulus and kindred tribes of South Africa, when the first signs of puberty shew themselves "while a girl is walking, gathering wood, or working in the field, she runs to the river and hides herself among the reeds for the day, so as not to be seen by men. She covers her head carefully with her blanket that the sun may not shine on it and shrivel her up into a withered skeleton, as would result from exposure to the sun's beams. After dark she returns to her home and is secluded" in a hut for some time. 65 During her seclusion, which lasts for about a fortnight, neither she nor the girls who wait upon her may drink any milk, lest the cattle should die. And should she be overtaken by the first flow while she is in the fields, she must, after hiding in the bush, scrupulously avoid all pathways in returning home. 66 A reason for this avoidance is assigned by the A-Kamba of British East Africa, whose girls under similar circumstances observe the same rule. "A girl's first menstruation is a very critical period of her life according to A-Kamba beliefs. If this condition appears when she is away from the village, say at work in the fields, she returns at once to her village, but is careful to walk through the grass and not on a path, for if she followed a path and a stranger accidentally trod on a spot of blood and then cohabited with a member of the opposite sex before the girl was better again, it is believed that she would never bear a child." She remains at home till the symptoms have ceased, and during this time she may be fed by none but her mother. When the flux is over, her father and mother are bound to cohabit with each other, else it is believed that the girl would be barren all her life. 67 Similarly, among the Baganda, when a girl menstruated for the first time she was secluded and not allowed to handle food; and at the end of her seclusion the kinsman with whom she was staying (for among the Baganda young people did not reside with their parents) was obliged to jump over his wife, which with the Baganda is regarded as equivalent to having intercourse with her. Should the girl happen to be living near her parents at the moment when she attained to puberty, she was expected on her recovery to inform them of the fact, whereupon her father jumped over her mother. Were this custom omitted, the Baganda, like the A-Kamba, thought that the girl would never have children or that they would die in infancy. 68 Thus the pretence of sexual intercourse between the parents or other relatives of the girl was a magical ceremony to ensure her fertility. It is significant that among the Baganda the first menstruation was often called a marriage, and the girl was spoken of as a bride. 69 These terms so applied point to a belief like that of the Siamese, that a girl's first menstruation results from her defloration by one of a host of aerial spirits, and that the wound thus inflicted is repeated afterwards every month by the same ghostly agency. 70 For a like reason, probably, the Baganda imagine that a woman who does not menstruate exerts a malign influence on gardens and makes them barren 71 if she works in them. For not being herself fertilized by a spirit, how can she fertilize the garden?

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes of the Tanganyika plateau.]

Among the Amambwe, Winamwanga, Alungu, and other tribes of the great plateau to the west of Lake Tanganyika, "when a young girl knows that she has attained puberty, she forthwith leaves her mother's hut, and hides herself in the long grass near the village, covering her face with a cloth and weeping bitterly. Towards sunset one of the older women—who, as directress of the ceremonies, is called nachimbusa—follows her, places a cooking-pot by the cross-roads, and boils therein a concoction of various herbs, with which she anoints the neophyte. At nightfall the girl is carried on the old woman's back to her mother's hut. When the customary period of a few days has elapsed, she is allowed to cook again, after first whitewashing the floor of the hut. But, by the following month, the preparations for her initiation are complete. The novice must remain in her hut throughout the whole period of initiation, and is carefully guarded by the old women, who accompany her whenever she leaves her quarters, veiling her head with a native cloth. The ceremonies last for at least one month." During this period of seclusion, drumming and songs are kept up within the mother's hut by the village women, and no male, except, it is said, the father of twins, is allowed to enter. The directress of the rites and the older women instruct the young girl as to the elementary facts of life, the duties of marriage, and the rules of conduct, decorum, and hospitality to be observed by a married woman. Amongst other things the damsel must submit to a series of tests such as leaping over fences, thrusting her head into a collar made of thorns, and so on. The lessons which she receives are illustrated by mud figures of animals and of the common objects of domestic life. Moreover, the directress of studies embellishes the walls of the hut with rude pictures, each with its special significance and song, which must be understood and learned by the girl. 72 In the foregoing account the rule that a damsel at puberty may neither see the sun nor touch the ground seems implied by the statement that on the first discovery of her condition she hides in long grass and is carried home after sunset on the back of an old woman.

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes of British Central Africa.]

Among the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Central Angoniland, in British Central Africa, when a young girl finds that she has become a woman, she stands silent by the pathway leading to the village, her face wrapt in her calico. An old woman, finding her there, takes her off to a stream to bathe; after that the girl is secluded for six days in the old woman's hut. She eats her porridge out of an old basket and her relish, in which no salt is put, from a potsherd. The basket is afterwards thrown away. On the seventh day the aged matrons gather together, go with the girl to a stream, and throw her into the water. In returning they sing songs, and the old woman, who directs the proceedings, carries the maiden on her back. Then they spread a mat and fetch her husband and set the two down on the mat and shave his head. When it is dark, the old women escort the girl to her husband's hut. There the ndiwo relish is cooking on the fire. During the night the woman rises and puts some salt in the pot. Next morning, before dawn, while all is dark and the villagers have not yet opened their doors, the young married woman goes off and gives some of the relish to her mother and to the old woman who was mistress of the ceremony. This relish she sets down at the doors of their houses and goes away. And in the morning, when the sun has risen and all is light in the village, the two women open their doors, and there they find the relish with the salt in it; and they take of it and rub it on their feet and under their arm-pits; and if there are little children in the house, they eat of it. And if the young wife has a kinsman who is absent from the village, some of the relish is put on a splinter of bamboo and kept against his return, that when he comes he, too, may rub his feet with it. But if the woman finds that her husband is impotent, she does not rise betimes and go out in the dark to lay the relish at the doors of her mother and the old woman. And in the morning, when the sun is up and all the village is light, the old women open their doors, and see no relish there, and they know what has happened, and so they go wilily to work. For they persuade the husband to consult the diviner that he may discover how to cure his impotence; and while he is closeted with the wizard, they fetch another man, who finishes the ceremony with the young wife, in order that the relish may be given out and that people may rub their feet with it. But if it happens that when a girl comes to maturity she is not yet betrothed to any man, and therefore has no husband to go to, the matrons tell her that she must go to a lover instead. And this is the custom which they call chigango. So in the evening she takes her cooking pot and relish and hies away to the quarters of the young bachelors, and they very civilly sleep somewhere else that night. And in the morning the girl goes back to the kuka hut. 73

[Abstinence from salt associated with a rule of chastity in many tribes.]

From the foregoing account it appears that among these tribes no sooner has a girl attained to womanhood than she is expected and indeed required to give proof of her newly acquired powers by cohabiting with a man, whether her husband or another. And the abstinence from salt during the girl's seclusion is all the more remarkable because as soon as the seclusion is over she has to use salt for a particular purpose, to which the people evidently attach very great importance, since in the event of her husband proving impotent she is even compelled, apparently, to commit adultery in order that the salted relish may be given out as usual. In this connexion it deserves to be noted that among the Wagogo of German East Africa women at their monthly periods may not sleep with their husbands and may not put salt in food. 74 A similar rule is observed by the Nyanja-speaking tribes of Central Angoniland, with whose puberty customs we are here concerned. Among them, we are told, "some superstition exists with regard to the use of salt. A woman during her monthly sickness must on no account put salt into any food she is cooking, lest she give her husband or children a disease called tsempo (chitsoko soko) but calls a child to put it in, or, as the song goes, 'Natira nichere ni bondo chifukwa n'kupanda mwana' and pours in the salt by placing it on her knee, because there is no child handy. Should a party of villagers have gone to make salt, all sexual intercourse is forbidden among the people of the village, until the people who have gone to make the salt (from grass) return. When they do come back, they must make their entry into the village at night, and no one must see them. Then one of the elders of the village sleeps with his wife. She then cooks some relish, into which she puts some of the salt. This relish is handed round to the people who went to make the salt, who rub it on their feet and under their armpits." 75 Hence it would seem that in the mind of these people abstinence from salt is somehow associated with the idea of chastity. The same association meets us in the customs of many peoples in various parts of the world. For example, ancient Hindoo ritual prescribed that for three nights after a husband had brought his bride home, the two should sleep on the ground, remain chaste, and eat no salt. 76 Among the Baganda, when a man was making a net, he had to refrain from eating salt and meat and from living with his wife; these restrictions he observed until the net took its first catch of fish. Similarly, so long as a fisherman's nets or traps were in the water, he must live apart from his wife, and neither he nor she nor their children might eat salt or meat. 77 Evidence of the same sort could be multiplied, 78 but without going into it further we may say that for some reason which is not obvious to us primitive man connects salt with the intercourse of the sexes and therefore forbids the use of that condiment in a variety of circumstances in which he deems continence necessary or desirable. As there is nothing which the savage regards as a greater bar between the sexes than the state of menstruation, he naturally prohibits the use of salt to women and girls at their monthly periods.

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes about Lake Nyassa and on the Zambesi.]

With the Awa-nkonde, a tribe at the northern end of Lake Nyassa, it is a rule that after her first menstruation a girl must be kept apart, with a few companions of her own sex, in a darkened house. The floor is covered with dry banana leaves, but no fire may be lit in the house, which is called "the house of the Awasungu," that is, "of maidens who have no hearts." 79 When a girl reaches puberty, the Wafiomi of Eastern Africa hold a festival at which they make a noise with a peculiar kind of rattle. After that the girl remains for a year in the large common hut (tembe), where she occupies a special compartment screened off from the men's quarters. She may not cut her hair or touch food, but is fed by other women. At night, however, she quits the hut and dances with young men. 80 Among the Barotse or Marotse of the upper Zambesi, "when a girl arrives at the age of puberty she is sent into the fields, where a hut is constructed far from the village. There, with two or three companions, she spends a month, returning home late and starting before dawn in order not to be seen by the men. The women of the village visit her, bringing food and honey, and singing and dancing to amuse her. At the end of a month her husband comes and fetches her. It is only after this ceremony that women have the right to smear themselves with ochre." 81 We may suspect that the chief reason why the girl during her seclusion may visit her home only by night is a fear, not so much lest she should be seen by men, as that she might be seen by the sun. Among the Wafiomi, as we have just learned, the young woman in similar circumstances is even free to dance with men, provided always that the dance is danced at night. The ceremonies among the Barotse or Marotse are somewhat more elaborate for a girl of the royal family. She is shut up for three months in a place which is kept secret from the public; only the women of her family know where it is. There she sits alone in the darkness of the hut, waited on by female slaves, who are strictly forbidden to speak and may communicate with her and with each other only by signs. During all this time, though she does nothing, she eats much, and when at last she comes forth, her appearance is quite changed, so fat has she grown. She is then led by night to the river and bathed in presence of all the women of the village. Next day she flaunts before the public in her gayest attire, her head bedecked with ornaments and her face mottled with red paint. So everybody knows what has happened. 82

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Thonga on Delagoa Bay.]

Among the northern clans of the Thonga tribe, in South-Eastern Africa, about Delagoa Bay, when a girl thinks that the time of her nubility is near, she chooses an adoptive mother, perhaps in a neighbouring village. When the symptoms appear, she flies away from her own village and repairs to that of her adopted mother "to weep near her." After that she is secluded with several other girls in the same condition for a month. They are shut up in a hut, and whenever they come outside they must wear a dirty greasy cloth over their faces as a veil. Every morning they are led to a pool and plunged in the water up to their necks. Initiated girls or women accompany them, singing obscene songs and driving away with sticks any man who meets them; for no man may see a girl during this time of seclusion. If he saw her, it is said that he would be struck blind. On their return from the river, the girls are again imprisoned in the hut, where they remain wet and shivering, for they may not go near the fire to warm themselves. During their seclusion they listen to lascivious songs sung by grown women and are instructed in sexual matters. At the end of the month the adoptive mother brings the girl home to her true mother and presents her with a pot of beer. 83

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Caffre tribes of South Africa.]

Among the Caffre tribes of South Africa the period of a girl's seclusion at puberty varies with the rank of her father. If he is a rich man, it may last twelve days; if he is a chief, it may last twenty-four days. 84 And when it is over, the girl rubs herself over with red earth, and strews finely powdered red earth on the ground, before she leaves the hut where she has been shut up. Finally, though she was forbidden to drink milk all the days of her separation, she washes out her mouth with milk, and is from that moment regarded as a full-grown woman. 85 Afterwards, in the dusk of the evening, she carries away all the objects with which she came into contact in the hut during her seclusion and buries them secretly in a sequestered spot. 86 When the girl is a chief's daughter the ceremonies at her liberation from the hut are more elaborate than usual. She is led forth from the hut by a son of her father's councillor, who, wearing the wings of a blue crane, the badge of bravery, on his head, escorts her to the cattle kraal, where cows are slaughtered and dancing takes place. Large skins full of milk are sent to the spot from neighbouring villages; and after the dances are over the girl drinks milk for the first time since the day she entered into retreat. But the first mouthful is drunk by the girl's aunt or other female relative who had charge of her during her seclusion; and a little of it is poured on the fire-place. 87 Amongst the Zulus, when the girl was a princess royal, the end of her time of separation was celebrated by a sort of saturnalia: law and order were for the time being in abeyance: every man, woman, and child might appropriate any article of property: the king abstained from interfering; and if during this reign of misrule he was robbed of anything he valued he could only recover it by paying a fine. 88 Among the Basutos, when girls at puberty are bathed as usual by the matrons in a river, they are hidden separately in the turns and bends of the stream, and told to cover their heads, as they will be visited by a large serpent. Their limbs are then plastered with clay, little masks of straw are put on their faces, and thus arrayed they daily follow each other in procession, singing melancholy airs, to the fields, there to learn the labours of husbandry in which a great part of their adult life will be passed. 89 We may suppose, though we are not told, that the straw masks which they wear in these processions are intended to hide their faces from the gaze of men and the rays of the sun.

[Seclusion of girls at puberty in the Lower Congo.]

Among the tribes in the lower valley of the Congo, such as the Bavili, when a girl arrives at puberty, she has to pass two or three months in seclusion in a small hut built for the purpose. The hair of her head is shaved off, and every day the whole of her body is smeared with a red paint (takulla) made from a powdered wood mixed with water. Some of her companions reside in the hut with her and prepare the paint for her use. A woman is appointed to take charge of the hut and to keep off intruders. At the end of her confinement she is taken to water by the women of her family and bathed; the paint is rubbed off her body, her arms and legs are loaded with brass rings, and she is led in solemn procession under an umbrella to her husband's house. If these ceremonies were not performed, the people believe that the girl would be barren or would give birth to monsters, that the rain would cease to fall, the earth to bear fruit, and the fishing to be successful. 90 Such serious importance do these savages ascribe to the performance of rites which to us seem so childish.