Note 225.1 — RITUAL AND BELIEF

Let us turn to the Baganda, a Bantu people on the highest pitch of civilization to which any branch of the race had attained prior to the coming of the white man. There we find that jumping over a woman, or stepping over her legs, is regarded as “equivalent to, or instead of, having sexual connection with her.” “For a woman to sit with her legs straight in front of her, or apart, was looked upon as unbecoming; and for any man to step over her legs was equivalent to having intercourse with her. The mere fact of stepping over a wife, or over some of her clothing, was a method frequently followed to end a taboo which necessitated intercourse” (scil., to end it).225.1 The act is performed on a variety of ceremonial occasions when coition would be inconvenient. To mention only one, the king had an officer of the court, a relative of his own, called the Kauzumu, whose duty it was to fulfil certain rites and taboos for him, and thus to save him from inconvenience. Among others, it was said that in former times it was his duty to take the women who were to become the king’s wives for one night to his bed. To the latest period of national independence, when one of the king’s wives died and her clan sent another in her place, the Kauzumu jumped over her before presenting her to the king.225.2 By this act the taboo was removed, the danger, whatever it was, was diverted from the king to the Kauzumu. We may safely infer that the act of stepping over the legs of the surviving spouse in the Congo region is a symbolic coition. It is performed by one who belongs to the class of prospective spouses, though probably after the performance of such a ceremony not the one who would actually wed the survivor; for its object, if I am right, is to take on the shoulders of the performer the consequences which would otherwise light on the new consort.226.1