that is, before they had been painted red and secluded for a season in token that they had attained to the age of puberty. The people were incensed and endeavoured to punish or even kill the three girls; and the English writer who has recorded the case has thought it worth while to add that on the very morning when the culprits were brought before the magistrate rain fell.[55.1] Amongst the Bavili of Loango, who are divided into totemic clans, no man is allowed to marry a woman of his mother’s clan; and God is {56} believed to punish a breach of this marriage law by withholding the rains in their due season.[56.1] Similar notions of the blighting influence of sexual crime appear to be entertained by the Nandi of British East Africa; for we are told that when a warrior has got a girl with child, she “is punished by being put in Coventry, none of her girl friends being allowed to speak to or look at her until after the child is born and buried. [Sidenote: Sexual purity required of those who handle corn or enter a granary.] She is also regarded with contempt for the rest of her life and may never look inside a granary for fear of spoiling the corn.”[56.2] Among the Basutos in like manner “while the corn is exposed to view, all defiled persons are carefully kept from it. If the aid of a man in this state is necessary for carrying home the harvest, he remains at some distance while the sacks are filled, and only approaches to place them upon the draught oxen. He withdraws as soon as the load is deposited at the dwelling, and under no pretext can he assist in pouring the corn into the basket in which it is preserved.”[56.3] The nature of the defilement which thus disqualifies a man from handling the corn is not mentioned, but we may conjecture that unchastity would fall under this general head. For amongst the Basutos after a child is born a fresh fire has to be kindled in the dwelling by the friction of wood, and this must be done by a young man of chaste habits; it is believed that an untimely death awaits him who should dare to discharge this holy office after having lost his innocence.[56.4] In Morocco whoever enters a granary must first remove his slippers and must be sexually clean. Were an unclean person to enter, the people believe not only that the grain would lose its blessed influence (_baraka_), but that he himself would fall ill. A Berber told Dr. Westermarck {57} that he had suffered from painful boils through entering a granary in a state of uncleanness.[57.1] The same rule applies in Morocco to a vegetable garden. Only the sexually clean may enter it, otherwise both the vegetables and the person entering would be the worse for it.[57.2]