After These Six Weeks The Widow Can Come Out Of The Hut,
But As His Ghost Has Not Permanently Gone Hence, And Is Apt To
Revisit The Neighbourhood For The Next Six Months, She Has To Be
Taken Care Of During This Period.
Then, after certain ceremonies,
she is free to marry again.
So I conclude the period of mourning,
in all tribes, is that period during which the soul remains round
its old possessions, whether these tribes have a definite soul-
burial or devil-making or not.
The ideas connected with the under-world to which the ghost goes are
exceedingly interesting. The Negroes and Bantus are at one on these
subjects in one particular only, and that is that no marriages take
place there. The Tschwis say that this under-world, Srahmandazi, is
just the same as this world in all other particulars, save that it
is dimmer, a veritable shadow-land where men have not the joys of
life, but only the shadow of the joy. Hence, says the Tschwi
proverb, "One day in this world is worth a year in Srahmandazi."
The Tschwis, with their usual definiteness in this sort of detail,
know all about their Srahmandazi. Its entrance is just east of the
middle Volta, and the way down is difficult to follow, and when the
sun sets on this world it rises on Srahmandazi. The Bantus are
vague on this important and interesting point. The Benga, for
example, although holding the absence of marriage there, do not take
steps to meet the case as the Tschwis do, and kill a supply of wives
to take down with them.
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