In Some Tribes,
A Case Of Twins Renders One Of Them Liable To Death; And An Ox, Which,
While Lying In The Pen, Beats The Ground With Its Tail, Is Treated
In The Same Way.
It is thought to be calling death to visit the tribe.
When I was coming through Londa, my men carried a great number of fowls,
of a larger breed than any they had at home.
If one crowed before midnight,
it had been guilty of "tlolo", and was killed. The men often carried them
sitting on their guns, and, if one began to crow in a forest, the owner
would give it a beating, by way of teaching it not to be guilty of crowing
at unseasonable hours.
The women here are in the habit of piercing the upper lip,
and gradually enlarging the orifice until they can insert a shell.
The lip then appears drawn out beyond the perpendicular of the nose,
and gives them a most ungainly aspect. Sekwebu remarked,
"These women want to make their mouths like those of ducks;"
and, indeed, it does appear as if they had the idea that female beauty of lip
had been attained by the `Ornithorhynchus paradoxus' alone.
This custom prevails throughout the country of the Maravi,
and no one could see it without confessing that fashion had never led women
to a freak more mad. We had rains now every day, and considerable cloudiness,
but the sun often burst through with scorching intensity.
All call out against it then, saying, "O the sun!
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