Note 81.2 — PSYCHE’S TASK

The custom of avoiding the mother-in-law among other than the Bantu tribes of Africa. Thus far our examples of ceremonial avoidance between mother-in-law and son-in-law have been drawn from Bantu tribes. But in Africa the custom, though apparently most prevalent and most strongly marked among peoples of the great Bantu stock, is not confined to them. Among the Masai of British East Africa, “mothers-in-law and their sons-in-law must avoid one another as much as possible; and if a son-in-law enters his mother-in-law’s hut she must retire into the inner compartment and sit on the bed, whilst he remains in the outer compartment; they may then talk. Own brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law must also avoid one another, though this rule does not apply to half-brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.”81.2 So, too, among the Bogos, a tribe on the outskirts of Abyssinia, a man never sees the face of his mother-in-law and never pronounces her name; the two take care not to meet.81.3 Among the Donaglas a husband after marriage “lives in his wife’s house for a year, without being allowed to see his mother-in-law, with whom he enters into relations only on the birth of his first son.”81.4 In Darfur, when a youth has been betrothed to a girl, however intimate he may have been with her parents before, he ceases to see them until the ceremony has taken place, and even avoids them in the street. They, on their part, hide their faces, if they happen to meet him unexpectedly.81.5