The first to “bleed” a field with his pick possesses it (48). Soldiers going to war charm themselves before and after the expedition (14, &c.). An invalid is removed from the village to a field (19). At funerals there is an offering of cattle, and the deceased is introduced to his father, grandfather, and others. In cases where the spirit of a deceased friend enters an invalid, this spirit gets a sacrifice: sometimes the particular animal wanted by the spirit is named. The dead may be changed into elephants, buck, lions, snakes, &c. Hence offerings are given to such animals. Mr. Thomas carefully distinguishes two classes of professional men that are often put together: one is the class of diviners, each of whom is trained by an older diviner. The other class is the common _izinyanga_, and includes self-taught physicians and those doctors that are priests as well as physicians (I). Witchcraft is carried on and punished in ways similar to what we have described (107), and yet with important points of difference. Their traditions on cosmology state that when men came out of the earth they found the animal and vegetable kingdoms prepared for them, and that they received the opposite messages of life and death. This last statement refers to the chameleon legend common among the Bantu (_Appendix_, Tale 15). WEST CENTRAL AFRICA. _Merolla_ (1682) says:—“The people ate serpents. They had an oath by which a person’s limbs were bound tighter or looser to force out the truth. [In § 104, we saw this principle applied to the head]. They did not approve of marrying in _facie ecclesiæ_, for they must be satisfied before marriage whether their wife will have children, and whether she will prove diligent in her work and obedient. When the fault proceeds from the wife’s side, the present that was made by the husband is restored; when the fault is on his side, he recovers nothing (59). When the father receives the present he complains not even if it should be small—for that would look like selling his daughter; but he asks in public beforehand how much the man will give. [This is more like the Kafir custom than the Yao (48)]. Sometimes a man leaves a concubine to his kinsman (54, 43). The wife waits at table on her husband; after he is satisfied he gives the rest of the food to her, and she shares it with her children (67). Whilst children are young they are bound with superstitious cords made by the wizards (45). They are put down naked on the ground; when they can move, a bell is tied to them, to show where they have gone. The fields are planted round with stakes, which being bound with bundles of herbs by the wizards, will kill any thief (K). When they have private quarrels, they do not decide them singly, but each man gets as many friends as he can. The parties meet, begin to argue quietly, proceed to invectives, and lastly they fall to it ‘helter-skelter’. [We could give no better account of many native trials in Eastern Africa.]