Very least the Fans could do, as they couldn't dance themselves, was
to sit still and admire people who could. The Fan chief in my
village quite saw it, and went and had the Fans who had gone home
early turned up and made them come and see the performance some
more; this they did for a time, and then stole off again, or slept
in their seats, and the Ncomi were highly disgusted at those brutes
of Fans, whom they regarded, they said in their way, as Philistines
of an utterly obtuse and degraded type.
The Ncomi themselves put the body into coffins. A barrel is the
usual one, but gun-cases or two trade boxes, the ends knocked out
and the cases fitted together, is another frequent form of coffin
used by them. These coffins are not buried, but are put into
special places in the forest.
Along the bank of the Ogowe you will notice here and there long
stretches of uninhabited bush. These are not all mere stretches of
swamp forest. If you land on some of these and go in a little way
you will find the forest full of mounds - or rather heaps, because
they have no mould over them - made of branches of trees and leaves;
underneath each of these heaps there are the remains of a body.
