.. usually three or four days."
After giving other details, Fritsch thus sums up the situation:
"These diverse facts make it clear that with these tribes
(Ama-Xosa) woman stands, if not morally, at least
judicially, little above cattle, and consequently it is
impossible to speak of family life in one sense of the
word."
In his _Nursery Tales of the Zulus_ (255) Callaway gives an account,
in the native language as well as in the English, of the license
indulged in at Kaffir puberty festivals. Young men assemble from all
quarters. The maidens have a "girl-king" to whom the men are obliged
to give a present before they are allowed to enter the hut chosen for
the meeting. "The young people remain alone and sport after their own
fancies in every way." "It is a day of filthiness in which everything
may be done according to the heart's desire of those who gather around
the _umgongo_." The Rev. J. MacDonald, a man of scientific
attainments, gives a detailed account of the incredibly obscene
ceremonies to which the girls of the Zulu-Kaffirs are subjected, and
the licentious yet Malthusian conduct of the young folks in general
who "separate into pairs and sleep _in puris naturalibus_, for that is
strictly ordained by custom." The father of a girl thus treated feels
honored on receiving a present from her partner.
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