Editorial note — INKATA

The word seems to be almost universal in the Bantu languages:—Nyanja, nkata; Luganda, enkata; Swahili, kata; Suto, khare. What is most curious is that, so far away as the Gold Coast we find an indication of ceremonial usages connected with this article. See the Journal of the African Society for July, 1908, p. 407. The Fanti word for it is ekar, which may be a merely accidental resemblance, or may point to a fundamental identity of roots in the West African and the Bantu languages.

Possibly the root idea of-kata is “something coiled or rolled up,” and this may be the only connection between the head-pad and the charm. The Baronga (Delagoa Bay) have a similar tribal talisman called mhamba, which is a set of balls, each containing the nail-parings and hair of a deceased chief, kneaded up with the dung of the cattle slaughtered at his funeral, and no doubt some kind of pitch to give it consistency. These balls are then enclosed in plaited leather thongs. The custom of thus preserving relics of dead chiefs is found elsewhere: the Cambridge Ethnological Museum possesses a set of the “regalia” of Unyoro, which would come under the same category.—Ed.