This
Custom Is Now Getting Into The Survival Form In Libreville And
Glass.
Nowadays the relatives do not thus sit, unwashed and
unkempt, keenly requiring the soap.
Among the bush Igalwa, I am
told, the soap is much wanted.
It is not only the widows that remain, either theoretically or
practically unwashed; all the mourners do. The Ibibios seem to me
to wear the deepest crape in the form of accumulated dirt, and all
the African tribes I have met have peculiar forms of hair cutting -
shaving the entire head, not shaving it at all, shaving half of it,
etc. - when in mourning. The period of the duration of wearing
mourning is, I believe, in all West Coast tribes that which elapses
between the death and the burial of the soul. I believe a more
thorough knowledge would show us that there is among the Bantu also
a fixed time for the lingering of the soul on earth after death, but
we have not got sufficient evidence on the point yet. The only
thing we know is that it is not proper for the widow to re-marry
while her husband's soul is still in her vicinity.
Among the Calabar tribes the burial of his spirit liberates the
woman. Among the Tschwi she requires special ceremonies on her own
account. In Togoland, among the Ewe people, I know the period is
between five and six weeks, during which time the widow remains in
the hut, armed with a good stout stick, as a precaution against the
ghost of her husband, so as to ward off attacks should he be ill-
tempered.
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