An old historian of Madagascar informs us that “while the men are at the wars, and until their return, the women and girls cease not day and night to dance, and neither lie down nor take food in their own houses. And although they are very voluptuously inclined, they would not for anything in the world have an intrigue with another man while their husband is at the war, believing firmly that if that happened, their husband would be either killed or wounded. They believe that by dancing they impart strength, courage, and good fortune to their husbands; accordingly during such times they give themselves no rest, and this custom they observe very religiously.”​[439] Similarly a traveller of the seventeenth century writes that in Madagascar “when the man is in battle or under march, the wife continually dances and sings, and will not sleep or eat in her own house, nor admit of the use of any other man, unless she be desirous to be rid of her own; for they entertain this opinion among them, that if they suffer themselves to be overcome in an _intestin war_ at home, their husbands must suffer for it, being ingaged in a _forreign expedition_; but, on the contrary, if they behave themselves chastely, and dance lustily, that then their husbands, by some certain sympathetical operation, will be able to vanquish all their combatants.”​[440] We have seen that among hunters in various parts of the world the infidelity of the wife at home is believed to have a disastrous effect on her absent husband. In the Babar Archipelago, and among the Wagogo of East Africa, when the men are at the wars the women at home are bound to chastity, and in the Babar Archipelago they must fast besides.​[441] Under similar circumstances in the islands of Leti, Moa, and Lakor the women and children are forbidden to remain inside of the houses and to twine thread or weave.​[442] {p132} [Sidenote: Telepathy in war among the natives of West Africa. Telepathy in war among the American Indians. Telepathy in war among the Kafirs of the Hindoo Koosh.]