What was described by Dr. Wilson as respect for the aged among the tribes of Southern Guinea forty years ago, is true still, in a large measure, even where foreign customs and examples of foreign traders and the practices of foreign governments have broken down native etiquette and native patriarchal government. "Perhaps there is no part of the world where respect and veneration for age are carried to a greater length than among this people. For those who are in office, and who have been successful in trade or in war, or in any other way have rendered themselves distinguished among their fellow-men, this respect, in some outward forms at least, amounts almost to adoration, and proportionately so when the person has attained advanced age. All the younger members of society are early trained to show the utmost deference to age. They must never come into the presence of aged persons or pass by their dwellings without taking off their hats and assuming a crouching gait. When seated in their presence, it must always be at a 'respectful distance,'--a distance proportioned to the difference in their ages and position in society. If they come near enough to hand an aged man a lighted pipe or a glass of water, the bearer must always fall upon one knee. Aged persons must always be addressed as 'father' (rera, lale, paia) or 'mother' (ngwe, ina). Any disrespectful deportment or reproachful language toward such persons is regarded as a misdemeanor of no ordinary aggravation. A youthful person carefully avoids communicating any disagreeable intelligence to such persons, and almost always addresses them in terms of flattery and adulation. And there is nothing which a young person so much deprecates as the curse of an aged person, and especially that of a revered father." The value of the Yâkâ seems to lie in a combination of whatever powers were possessed during their life by the dead, portions of whose bodies are contained in it. But even these are of use apparently only as an actual "medicine," the efficiency of the medicine depending on the spirits of the family dead being associated with those portions of their bodies. This efficiency is called into action by prayer, and by the incantations of the doctor. "In some cases all the bones of a beloved father or mother, having been dried, are kept in a wooden chest, for which a small house is provided, where the son or daughter goes statedly to hold communication with their spirits. They do not pretend to have any audible responses from them, but it is a relief to their minds in their more serious moods to go and pour out all the sorrows of their hearts in the ear of a revered parent.