Note 340 — Chapter V · LUNAR SUPERSTITIONS AND FESTIVALS

K. Weule, Native Life in East Africa, London, 1909, p. 188. On the other hand, children of the Bageshu, a Bantu people of British East Africa, are expected to take part in new-moon dances, since it is thought that they derive benefit from the moon (J. Roscoe, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1909, xxxix, 193). A Baganda mother believes that her child will grow strong and healthy, if it is shown the first new moon after its birth (idem, The Baganda, London, 1911, p. 58). Similarly, it is said that in the island of Kiriwina, the largest of the Trobriand group to the east of New Guinea, a mother always presents her child to the first new moon after its birth, in order that it may grow fast and talk soon (George Brown, Melanesians and Polynesians, London, 1910, p. 37).