If she dies,
a new wife is selected for the same position, and enjoys the same privileges,
though she may happen to be a much younger woman than the rest.
The majority of the wives of Sebituane were given to influential under-chiefs;
and, in reference to their early casting off the widow's weeds,
a song was sung, the tenor of which was that the men alone felt the loss
of their father Sebituane, the women were so soon supplied with new husbands
that their hearts had not time to become sore with grief.
The women complain because the proportions between the sexes
are so changed now that they are not valued as they deserve.
The majority of the real Makololo have been cut off by fever.
Those who remain are a mere fragment of the people who came to the north
with Sebituane. Migrating from a very healthy climate in the south,
they were more subject to the febrile diseases of the valley
in which we found them than the black tribes they conquered.
In comparison with the Barotse, Batoka, and Banyeti, the Makololo have
a sickly hue. They are of a light brownish-yellow color,
while the tribes referred to are very dark, with a slight tinge of olive.
The whole of the colored tribes consider that beauty and fairness
are associated, and women long for children of light color so much,
that they sometimes chew the bark of a certain tree in hopes of producing
that effect.
