Divisions Of Time The Bubi Can Hardly Be Said To Have, But This Is A
Point Upon Which All West Africans Are Rather Weak, Particularly The
Bantu.
He has, however, a definite name for November, December, and
January - the dry season months - calling them Lobos.
The Fetish of these people, although agreeing on broad lines with
the Bantu Fetish, has many interesting points, as even my small
knowledge of it showed me, and it is a subject that would repay
further investigation; and as by fetish I always mean the governing
but underlying ideas of a man's life, we will commence with the
child. Nothing, as far as I have been able to make out, happens to
him, for fetish reasons, when he first appears on the scene. He
receives at birth, as is usual, a name which is changed for another
on his initiation into the secret society, this secret society
having also, as usual, a secret language. About the age of three or
five years the boy is decorated, under the auspices of the witch
doctor, with certain scars on the face. These scars run from the
root of the nose across the cheeks, and are sometimes carried up in
a curve on to the forehead.
Tattooing, in the true sense of the word, they do not use much, but
they paint themselves, as the mainlanders do, with a red paint made
by burning some herb and mixing the ash with clay or oil, and they
occasionally - whether for ju-ju reasons or for mere decoration I do
not know - paint a band of yellow clay round the chest; but of the
Bubi secret society I know little, nor have I been able to find any
one who knows much more.
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