Note 65.3 — PSYCHE’S TASK

Fornication, adultery, and incest severely punished by other African tribes. Among the Basoga, who border on the Baganda to the east, when a man got a virgin with child, the guilty couple used to be dragged off to the River Ntakwe; there stones were tied to their ankles and legs, and, along with a sacrificial sheep, they were thrown into the water and drowned. However, this rigorous penalty was abolished and a fine substituted before the country came under British rule.65.3 Among the Kavirondo, who border on the Basoga to the east, “until quite recently adultery on the part of a wife was punished with death, and death equally was meted out to young men and girls who were found guilty of fornication. It was thought a shameful thing if a girl was not found to be a virgin on her wedding day.”66.1 Among the Nandi, who border on the Kavirondo to the north-east, “incest, intercourse with a step-mother, step-daughter, cousin or other near relation, is punished by what is known as injoket. A crowd of people assemble outside the house of the culprit, who is dragged out, and the punishment is inflicted by the women, all of whom, both young and old, strip for the occasion. The man is flogged, his houses and crops destroyed, and some of his stock confiscated.”66.2 Among the Barea, a tribe on the borders of Abyssinia, when a single woman, whether maid or widow, is found with child, she is strangled by her father or brother, and the same punishment is inflicted on her seducer; the child of their unlawful union is stabbed. This custom is rigorously carried out, except when the seducer is a noble and his paramour a vassal; in that case both are spared, but the infant is killed.66.3 Among the Beni Amer, another tribe of the same region, an unmarried girl found pregnant is put to death by her own brother, whatever her rank, and the seducer is killed by his own brother; the child also is slain. But the law is not so severe on a widow or divorced wife who is detected in a slip; her seducer has only to pay a fine; but the child is buried alive. The Beni Amer will not suffer a bastard to live.66.4 Among the Anyanja of British Central Africa adultery was punished by drowning and shooting. If one of the culprits was a chief’s wife, she was tied to her paramour, and the pair were then thrown into a river to drown or left in the open space of the village to die of hunger and exposure. A man who had committed a rape was bound, weighted with stones, and cast into the lake.66.5 Among the Awemba of Northern Rhodesia, when a husband detected his wife in the act of adultery, he killed both her and her partner in guilt. For such execution he might not be indicted for murder or manslaughter. He would merely return the blood-stained spear to the woman’s father, who by his words in the marriage ceremony, “You shall spear the man who lusts after your wife,” was estopped from taking vengeance for the death of his daughter. If the husband spared the erring couple and the wife was again taken in adultery, the villagers themselves decreed the punishment. The unfaithful wife and her lover were dragged outside the village and impaled on sharp stakes amid the taunts and jeers of the bystanders, who only desisted from their mockery when death had stilled the writhing agony of the sufferers.67.1 “The Hottentots,” says an old writer, “allow not marriages between first or second cousins. They have a traditionary law, which ordains, that both man and woman, so near to each other in blood, who shall be convicted of joining together either in marriage or fornication, shall be cudgel’d to death. This law, they say, has prevail’d through all the generations of ’em; and that they execute it at once, upon a conviction, without any regard to wealth, power or affinity.”67.2