A Yao story tells how a man and his wife contrived, each in the absence of the other, to secure for themselves, in order to eat it alone (a flagrant breach of good manners), a leg of the partridge that was being cooked for the family. Both having retired to eat the morsel into the dark interior of the hut, they came into violent collision and broke their plates. ‘She said, “Eating a relish alone! I was only tasting it!” He said, “And I was tasting it too!” The man took goods and gave the woman, saying, “Do not bring disgrace on me!” The woman brewed beer and gave the man, and the matter ended.’ Something like this is the tale of ‘The Man with the Bran-Porridge.’ A man who had told his wife that he never ate bran-porridge went to the coast with a caravan, sold his ivory to advantage and had a red fez given him into the bargain. The party reached their home and were met with the usual rejoicings; and the man, wearing his new fez, sat down to wait while his wife prepared him a meal. This was, as usual, a long business; the woman first pounded the maize, then put the bran on a plate, and took the grain down to the stream to wash it before the second pounding. The husband, growing more and more hungry as he waited, forgot his scruples or his fastidiousness, took the bran, poured it into his fez, poured some water on it, stirred it up and began to eat it. While he was doing so he saw his wife coming, and put the fez half full of bran and water on his head to hide what he had been doing. His wife, however, was too quick for him and asked, ‘What is that on your head that you are hiding?’ He said, ‘Medicine that I prepared for the journey.’ Whether she believed this or not is not recorded, but in any case, the fib availed him little, for very soon the bran-porridge began to trickle down his face. He said, ‘Oh! my wife, hunger, hunger! Some hunger eats weeds of the field, some hunger eats what is bad. My wife, do not tell people that I was seen with bran-porridge on my head, and I will pay you with goods.’ So he paid her with goods. But she must have been provided with a dangerous weapon in the event of future quarrels. The first of these stories makes mention of a separation. This, in fact, sometimes takes place—perhaps for some quite trivial cause. An unfaithful wife is divorced (or, if a slave, sold), and goes back to her uncle or other guardian. If a Yao woman’s children all die, her husband may leave her; among the Wankonde, public opinion is said to decree that it is best in such a case to kill himself. Sometimes a wife demands a divorce because her husband does not sew her calico properly (which may mean that she is going to be neglected for a younger rival), or the husband because the wife is lazy about hoeing.