Note 997 — Chapter XIII · —Island Peoples

The checks to population practiced on islands are either preventive or positive. The extreme measure to restrict marriage is found among the wretched Budumas who inhabit the small, marshy islands of Lake Chad. Tribal custom allows only the chiefs and headmen to have wives. A brass crescent inserted in the ear of a boy indicates the favored one among a chief's sons destined to carry on his race. For his brothers this is made physically impossible; they become big, dull, timid creatures contributing by their fishing to the support of the thinly populated villages. The natives of the Shari River delta on the southern shore of Lake Chad use Buduma as a term of contempt for a man.997