Note (return) — Chapter II

Among the Caffre tribes of South Africa the period of a girl's seclusion at puberty varies with the rank of her father. If he is a rich man, it may last twelve days; if he is a chief, it may last twenty-four days.84 And when it is over, the girl rubs herself over with red earth, and strews finely powdered red earth on the ground, before she leaves the hut where she has been shut up. Finally, though she was forbidden to drink milk all the days of her separation, she washes out her mouth with milk, and is from that moment regarded as a full-grown woman.85 Afterwards, in the dusk of the evening, she carries away all the objects with which she came into contact in the hut during her seclusion and buries them secretly in a sequestered spot.86 When the girl is a chief's daughter the ceremonies at her liberation from the hut are more elaborate than usual. She is led forth from the hut by a son of her father's councillor, who, wearing the wings of a blue crane, the badge of bravery, on his head, escorts her to the cattle kraal, where cows are slaughtered and dancing takes place. Large skins full of milk are sent to the spot from neighbouring villages; and after the dances are over the girl drinks milk for the first time since the day she entered into retreat. But the first mouthful is drunk by the girl's aunt or other female relative who had charge of her during her seclusion; and a little of it is poured on the fire-place.87 Amongst the Zulus, when the girl was a princess royal, the end of her time of separation was celebrated by a sort of saturnalia: law and order were for the time being in abeyance: every man, woman, and child might appropriate any article of property: the king abstained from interfering; and if during this reign of misrule he was robbed of anything he valued he could only recover it by paying a fine.88 Among the Basutos, when girls at puberty are bathed as usual by the matrons in a river, they are hidden separately in the turns and bends of the stream, and told to cover their heads, as they will be visited by a large serpent. Their limbs are then plastered with clay, little masks of straw are put on their faces, and thus arrayed they daily follow each other in procession, singing melancholy airs, to the fields, there to learn the labours of husbandry in which a great part of their adult life will be passed.89 We may suppose, though we are not told, that the straw masks which they wear in these processions are intended to hide their faces from the gaze of men and the rays of the sun.