[Sidenote: Traces of a similar state of things in Uganda.] A trace of a similar state of things appears to survive in Uganda, another great African monarchy. For there the queen dowager and the queen sister are, or were, allowed to have as many husbands as they choose, without going through any marriage ceremony. “Of these two women it is commonly said all Uganda is their husband; they appear to be fond of change, only living with a man for a few days and then inviting some one else to take his place.” We are reminded of the legends of the lustful queen Semiramis, and the likeness may be more than superficial. Yet these women are not allowed, under pain of death, to bear children; hence they practise abortion.[889] Both the licence and the prohibition may be explained if we suppose that formerly the kingdom descended, as it still does in Ashantee, first to the king’s brothers and next to the sons of his sisters. For in that case the next heirs to the throne would be the sons of the king’s mother and of his sisters, and these women might accordingly be allowed, as the king’s sisters still are allowed in Ashantee, to mate with any handsome men who took their fancy, in order that their offspring might be of regal part. But when the line of descent was changed from the female to the male line, in other words, when the kings were succeeded by their sons instead of by their brothers or their sisters’ sons, then the king’s mother and his sisters would be forbidden to bear children lest the descent of the crown to the king’s own children should be endangered by the existence of rivals who, according to the old law of the kingdom, had a better right to the throne. We may surmise that the practice of putting the king’s brothers to death at the beginning of his reign, which survived till Uganda passed under English protection,[890] was instituted at the same time as the prohibition of child-bearing laid on the king’s mother and sisters. The one custom got rid of existing rivals; the other prevented them from being born. That the kingship in Uganda was formerly transmitted in the female line is strongly indicated by the rule that the kings and the rest of the royal family take their totems from their mothers, whereas all the other people of the country get their totems from their fathers.[891]