On moonlight nights the drums will be brought out, reed rattles, ferret bells, and anything else that will tinkle, will be tied around the ankles, the men and women will form lines opposite each other, and for hours the dancers will jump, twist, and wriggle to and fro in the most approved fashion to the tap, tap, or boom, boom of the rhythmic drum. All distinctions are forgotten for the time being. The skilled and the unskilled, the poor and the rich, the slave and the free, are all mixed in indistinguishable confusion. It is the best dancer, be he poor and a slave, who is the cynosure of all eyes and the object of all their praises. And as the dance proceeds the dancers sing in unison some recitative song, while the onlookers keep time to song and dance by clapping their hands and swaying their bodies to and fro. The greedy man, the coward, the thief, the scamp who disregards the feelings of others and rides rough-shod over the social and communal customs, the man who is accused of witchcraft and refuses to take the ordeal, and the incestuous, are all put into the songs which are sung at these village dances; and there is no more powerful factor in influencing the native to good and evil, inciting him to reckless bravery, or deterring him from committing some foolish deed, than to put his name into an impromptu song at a village dance. The paragraph in our newspaper is read by comparatively few people, and only a small percentage of those who read it know the person mentioned; but the song is sung, night after night, by all the village—the very neighbours of the one thus held up to ridicule or honour. The village song inspires the daring deeds in time of war, it brands and shames the cowards, it considerably restrains the rascals, and maddens to the verge of suicide the fool who so badly treats his wives that they run away and leave him a cold hearth by which to sit. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VIII MARRIAGE AND CHILD BEARING Young girls betrothed—The bespoke money—Marriage money—Dressing the new wife—A large looking-glass—A woman can choose her husband—Divorce—No great desire for children—Storage for baby spirits—Treatment of twins—Snake omen—Woman’s totem—The mother-in-law—Polygamy and its results—Monogamy and its results—Better morality—More children—Purer women—Better home-life.