If The Criminal Has Bolted Into The
Forest And Cannot Be Found, His Village Is Made Responsible, And Has
To
Pay a fine in goats, sheep and tobacco to the value of 16 pounds.
Theft is extremely rare and offences
Against the moral code also,
the Bubis having an extremely high standard in this matter, even the
little children having each a separate sleeping hut. In old days
adultery was punished by cutting off the offender's hand. I have
myself seen women in Fernando Po who have had a hand cut off at the
wrist, but I believe those were slave women who had suffered for
theft. Slaves the Bubis do have, but their condition is the mild,
poor relation or retainer form of slavery you find in Calabar, and
differs from the Dualla form, for the slaves live in the same
villages as their masters, while among the Duallas, as among most
Bantu slave-holding tribes, the slaves are excluded from the
master's village and have separate villages of their own. For
marriage ceremonies I refer you to Mr. Hutchinson. Burial customs
are exceedingly quaint in the southern and eastern districts, where
the bodies are buried in the forest with their heads just sticking
out of the ground. In other districts the body is also buried in
the forest, but is completely covered and an erection of stones put
up to mark the place.
Little is known of all West African fetish, still less of that of
these strange people.
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