My Informant Laughed At Himself, And
Very Wisely Said, "One Has Not Got To Believe Those Things Here, One
Has In Apollonia."
To the surf and its spirits the sea-board-dwelling Tschwis bring
women who have had children and widows, both after a period of eight
days from the birth of the child, or the death of the husband.
A widow remains in the house until this period has elapsed,
neglecting her person, eating little food, and sitting on the bare
floor in the attitude of mourning. On the Gold Coast they bury very
quickly, as they are always telling you, usually on the day after
death, rarely later than the third day, even among the natives; and
the spirit, or Srah, of the dead man is supposed to hang about his
wives and his house until the ceremony of purification is carried
out. This is done, needless to say, with uproar. The relations of
each wife go to her house with musical instruments - I mean tom-toms
and that sort of thing - and they take a quantity of mint, which
grows wild in this country, with them. This mint they burn, some of
it in the house, the rest they place upon pans of live coals and
carry round the widow as she goes in their midst down to the surf,
her relatives singing aloud to the Srah of the departed husband,
telling him that now he is dead and has done with the lady he must
leave her. This singing serves to warn all the women who are not
relations to get out of the way, which of course they always
carefully do, because if they were to see the widow their own
husbands would die within the year.
When the party has arrived at the shore, they strip every rag off
the widow, and throw it into the surf; and a thoughtful female
relative having brought a suit of dark blue baft with her for the
occasion, the widow is clothed in this and returns home, where a
suitable festival is held, after which she may marry again; but if
she were to marry before this ceremony, the Srah of the husband
would play the mischief with husband number two or three, and so on,
as the case might be.
In the inland Gold Coast districts the widows remain in a state of
mourning for several months, and a selection of them, a quantity of
slaves, and one or two free men are killed to escort the dead man to
Srahmandazi; and as well as these, and in order to provide him with
merchandise to keep up his house and state in the under-world,
quantities of gold dust, rolls of rich velvets, silks, satins, etc.,
are thrown into the grave.
Among the dwellers in Cameroon, when you are across the Bantu
border-line, velvets, etc., are buried with a big man or woman; but
I am told it is only done for the glorification of his living
relatives, so that the world may say, "So and so must be rich, look
what a lot of trade he threw away at that funeral of his wife," or
his father, or his son, as the case may be; but I doubt whether this
is the true explanation.
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