Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/857

the ceremonial of which is performed by a band of hired mourners. The finest of cattle of the wealthy land-owner are slain, not by the usual method of stabbing, but by cutting off their heads, that their horns may be used to adorn the grave. The flesh of the cattle is given to be eaten to those who will in return join the band of mourners for a specified term. If the cattle are not slain all at once, but by installments, the means are thereby secured of prolonging the period of mourning for as long a time as the meat will hold out. It is common, after the head of a house has died, to remove the werst, or family residence. It is possible that this is done to get away from the malaria which the sickness and death of members of the family give notice has settled down upon the place; for malarious influences have been found to linger over into the year following one of extreme sickness. The children visit the graves of their parents only rarely, and then with much ceremony, to consult the oracle of their ancestors; and sometimes the oracle proclaims that the deceased desires again to enjoy the lowing of his cattle, when the son repairs to the grave with the herds. The Hereros are almost universally in as great terror of ghosts as any child among Europeans; and the household legends, which are transmitted from generation to generation, consist for the most part of stories of returned spirits. No one will venture out alone in the thick darkness; and, if one has to go at night for the missionary-doctor, he will not stir out without a.companion. Nothing in the world, says Herr Büttner, would move them to go into an anatomical museum, or to witness a dissection. Little as it troubles them to slay a beast, they will not lay hands on a human corpse without extreme compulsion. "The pictures in my anatomical atlas were an object of horror to them. When, during my last few months in Damara-Land, I was buying from the natives whatever I could get for specimens, I succeeded in overcoming their dread sufficiently to induce them to sell me a considerable number of magical charms; but not one of them would venture to bring me a skull, whatever price I offered them. A long box in which I had packed a lot of lances and bows, and which looked somewhat like a rough coffin, was a terror to all the people of my house, for how did they know that I was not going to fill it with the men's bones I was trying to buy? It was amusing to see how the men who afterward had to handle this box, lift it upon the wagon, etc., hurried with the greatest fear, so as to get it out of their hands as quickly as possible."