If the deceased was a very important person, the kwedi is interrupted on the fifth day, for the selection of his successor as chief or king. This ceremony is called "ampenda" (glories). The successor is placed on the vacant seat or "throne"; and songs are sung in his praise. But first, a herald is sent to the forest, or wherever the burial was made, to call the dead to come and dispute his right to the throne, if he be not really dead. The herald stands and calls on the dead by name, "Such an one!" This he does slowly once, twice, thrice, until five times. He returns, and reports to the waiting assembly, "He is really dead. I called five times, and he did not answer." Then, this herald, standing in the street before all the people, praises the dead for all his good deeds, and blames for some of his bad ones. He turns to the chosen successor sitting on the throne, and asks pardon for the candor he is about to exercise: "To-morrow I will bow to you and take off my hat, but to-day I will tell the whole truth about you." Turning to the crowd, he says, "The man who is gone was good, and he has given us this new man. We hope that he too will be good. You all help me now to tell him his bad points." Then, addressing the new chief, he specifies, "You have a bad habit of so and so." And the crowd responds affirmatively, "Bad! cease it!" After this, when the herald has ended his own list of rebukes, any one else may call him aside and tell him of any other evil of which he knows, and ask him to direct the new king to reform it. This ceremony was particularly observed by the Mpongwe-speaking tribes of the Gabun country. In the presence of the domination by foreign governments, but little of it now exists there or in any other tribes to the north. In the improvised songs and ejaculations of the kwedi period the goodness and greatness of the dead are recounted. The praise is fulsome, exaggerated, and often preposterously untrue. Some declare their hopelessness of ever again seeing any joy. Supplications are shrieked by others for the departed to come back and reanimate the dead body. By most the wailing is a song in moans. Men tear their garments; women dishevel their hair; all take off their ornaments, and disfigure their faces with ashes or clay. The female relatives reduce their clothing to a minimum of decency. In all tribes formerly, and in some interior tribes still, the wives are made naked, and compelled to remain so for months, especially if they were known not to have been as submissive as is expected in the slavery of savage African marriage.