observed by the neighbouring King of Kakongo were similar; it was thought that the king would die if any of his subjects were to see him drink.[1] It is a capital offence to see the King of Dahomey at his meals. When he drinks in public, as he does on extraordinary occasions, he hides himself behind a curtain, or handkerchiefs are held up round his head, and all the people throw themselves with their faces to the earth.[2] Any one who saw the Muato Jamwo (a great potentate in the Congo Basin) eating or drinking would certainly be put to death.[3] When the King of Tonga ate all the people turned their backs to him.[4] In the palace of the Persian kings there were two dining-rooms opposite each other; in one of them the king dined, in the other his guests. He could see them through a curtain on the door, but they could not see him. Generally the king took his meals alone; but sometimes his wife or some of his sons dined with him.[5]
In these cases, however, the intention may perhaps be to hinder evil influences from entering the body rather than to prevent the escape of the soul. To the former rather than to the latter motive is to be ascribed the custom observed by some African sultans of veiling their faces. The Sultan of Darfur wraps up his face with a piece of white muslin, which goes round his head several times, covering his mouth and nose first, and then his forehead, so that only his eyes are visible. The same custom of veiling the face as a mark of sovereignty is said to be observed in other
- ↑ Proyart’s “History of Loango, Kakongo,” etc., in Pinkerton’s Voyages and Travels, xvi. 584.
- ↑ J. L. Wilson, West Africa, p. 148 (German trans.); John Duncan, Travels in Western Africa, i. 222. Cp. W. W. Reade, Savage Africa, p. 543.
- ↑ Paul Pogge, Im Reiche des Muato Jamwo (Berlin, 1880), p. 231.
- ↑ Capt. James Cook, Voyages, v. 374 (ed. 1809).
- ↑ Heraclides Cumanus in Athenaeus, iv. 145 B-D.
