Reviews. 22^
Les Ba-ronga. Etude Ethnographique sur les Indigenes DE la Baie de Delagoa. Mceurs, Droit Coutumier, Vie Nationale, Industrie, Traditions, Superstitions, et Religion. Par Henri A. Junod. Neuchatel : Paul Attinger. 1808.
M. Junod, a Swiss Protestant missionary, who has resided for many years among the Ba-ronga in Delagoa Bay, describes in this work the people and their civilisation. In two previous books he has given a grammar of their languages, with a vocabulary and a conversation-manual, and an excellent collection of their songs and tales. He now proceeds to give us an account of their lives, their beliefs, and their religious and superstitious practices. The work is divided into six sections, dealing respectively with the life of the individual, the man and the woman, through all its stages from birth to death, burial, mourning, and division of the property of the deceased, the life of the family and the village in their various social relations, the national life, government and warfare, the agricultural and industrial life, the unwritten literature and medical art, and lastly the religious life, that is to say, the ancestor- worship, the notion of Heaven, sorcery and possession, divination, omens, amulets, and various superstitions. Every part of a book, the materials for which have been collected with such care and judgement as are here inscribed on every page, must be of value. And this is a book which it is difficult to praise too highly.
The grade of civilisation on which the Ba-ronga stand is by no means the lowest. Thus, they have passed out of the stage of mother-right into father-right. Polygamy of course is practised. Since wives are bought, or, to speak more accurately, are obtained by handing over a dower-price to the bride's father, the number of wives is a question of wealth and consideration. But an examination of the terms of relationship discloses relics of a prior organisation by group-marriage. A man regards not merely his own mother as mamana (mother), but also his father's other wives and the sisters of his mother and her fellow-wives ; and they regard him as noua7ia (son). It is not stated whether the wife of his paternal uncle is also regarded as 7fiat>ia}ia ; but probably she is. At all events, his paternal uncle, according to our reckoning, is reckoned by him as his father {tatana) ; and so are the husbands
vol. X. Q
