After the men leave, various customs are observed by the women. The huts just vacated by the men are carefully swept. A fire is forthwith kindled in each, so as to make everything there bright and cheery. This is done to encourage the return of the soldier and avert his remaining eternally away. With the same object, his mat is carefully shaken and rolled up, an ear of millet being put inside it. It is then stood upright at the end of the hut (the usual position in normal times is horizontal). And in such position it remains until the owner's return. If he is injured, it is taken down. Quarrelling of all kinds is studiously refrained from, as such is supposed to draw the absent ones into danger. Not only women and girls, but the whole establishment, including little children, observe the most orderly and quiet behaviour, crying infants being hushed as speedily as possible. Wives and mothers mark their faces by rubbing with a specially-prepared black paste of ashes, earth, etc. The marks are of various designs, the most general being a semi-circle over each eye, the two meeting at the top of the nose, or a 1-1/2 inch diameter circle on each cheek. The tops of their leather skirts, too, are reversed, i.e. the nap thereon is turned outwards. Occasionally bitter-apple (_solanum_) berries are rolled slowly along that side of the hut on which the warrior was in the habit of sleeping, the berry being aimed to go out by the doorway and so carry all possibilities of harm along with it. The same berries, two or three of them, may be threaded on to a cord, as also a rabbit tail, the whole being tied as a necklace round the throat to ward off evil. Other customs, not less quaint, are observed by mothers-in-law. A sprig of wild asparagus is often stuck in the thatch over the doorway of a hut to safeguard the home. The black markings on the face and the wearing of the berries represent formal suppression of ordinary personal feeling or the deliberate assumption of an ugly, callous, and unsympathetic disposition. When husbands or sons are killed, various other customs are conformed to by women. Turning to the soldiers themselves, we find that when any of the enemy are killed in battle, those responsible for the deaths proceed to rip open the deceased's stomach. This is done as it is feared the deceased's unreleased spirit will invest the one who slew him and turn him into a raving lunatic. He must also strip or, at least, partly strip the corpse of its clothing and wear it himself until, having cleansed himself in accordance with various formalities, he can resume his own.