“Amongst all the dwellers in a Bannav village, even more than among the other natives, there exists a very decided spirit of community. Thus, no family will drink wine without inviting others to join them, as long as the quantity will hold out; and on killing a pig, goat, or buffalo, the possessor divides it into as many portions as there are families, reserving for himself a share very little larger than the others. No one is forgotten in this distribution, from the youngest child to the oldest man. The deer and wild boar taken in the chase are divided in the same way, the hunters retaining only a rather larger portion in consideration of their labour and fatigue. I have actually seen a fowl divided into forty or fifty parts. Even if the children catch a serpent, a lizard, or a mouse in their little expeditions, you will see the oldest of them, on returning, portion it with strict impartiality amongst the party. These customs might have been borrowed from the early Christians had these savages ever heard of them. The other tribes also observe them, but less scrupulously. “Not only does general censure follow any criminal act, but severe penalties, such as slavery or exile, are imposed for lying. Even suicide--instances of which you occasionally find among them--has a stigma affixed to it in their penal code; any one who perishes by his own hand is buried in a corner of the forest far from the graves of his brethren, and all who have assisted in the sepulture are required afterwards to purify themselves in a special manner. “This legislation is far from being deficient in morality and wisdom, but unfortunately on certain points it is tainted with superstition, and has opened a large door to numberless injustices, and sometimes provoked cruel strife. On the subject of witchcraft they are particularly credulous: nearly every misfortune is attributed by them to the malice of certain persons whom they believe gifted with the power of influencing their fate; superstition serves as a guide to seek out the guilty individual, and when he is supposed to be discovered, he is usually sold for a slave, or a heavy ransom is exacted. “The Bannavs believe in the existence of a multitude of spirits, some mischievous to man, others beneficent. According to their creed, every large tree, every mountain, every river, every rock, almost everything, has its particular genius; but they seem to have no idea of a superior being, sovereign and Creator of all things.