compliment; and if he has been an important man, a big man,
the whole district will come, not in a squadron, but just when
it suits them, exactly as if they were calling on a live friend.
Thus it often happens that even a big woman is bankrupt by
the expense. I will not go into the legal bearings of the case
here, for they are intricate, and, to a great extent, only
interesting to a student of Negro law.
The Bantu women occupy a far inferior position in regard
to the rights of property to that held by the Negro women.
The disposal of wives after the death of the husband among
the M’pongwe and Igalwa is a subject full of interest; but it
is, like most of their law, very complicated. The brothers of
the deceased are supposed to take them— the younger brother
may not marry the elder brother’s widows, but the elder
brothers may marry those of the younger brother. Should
any of the women object to the arrangement, they may
“ leave the family.”
I own that the ground principle of African law practically
is “ the simple plan that they should take who have the power,
and they should keep who can,” and this tells particularly
against women and children who have not got living, powerful
relations of their own. Unless the children of a man are
grown up and sufficiently powerful on their own account, they
have little chance of sharing in the distribution of his estate ;
but in spite of this abuse of power there is among Negroes
and Bantus a definite and acknowledged law, to which an
appeal can be made by persons of all classes, provided they
have the wherewithal to set the machinery of it in motion.
The difficulty the children and widows have in sharing in the
distribution of the estate of the father and husband arises, I
fancy, in the principle of the husband’s brothers being the
true heir, which has sunk into a fossilised state near the
trading stations in the face of the white culture. The
reason for this inheritance of goods passing from the man
to his brother by the same mother has no doubt for one
of its origins the recognition of the fact that the brother by
the same mother must be a near relation, whereas, in spite of
the strict laws against adultery, the relationship to you of the
children born of your wives is not so certain. Nevertheless
this is one of the obvious and easy explanations for things it
is well to exercise great care before accepting, for you must
always remember that the African’s mind does not run on
identical lines with the European— what may be self-evident
to you is not so to him, and vice versa. I have frequently
heard African metaphysicians complain that white men make
great jumps in their thought-course, and do not follow an
idea step by step. You soon become conscious of the careful
way a Negro follows his idea. Certain customs of his you
can; by the exercise of great patience, trace back in a
perfectly smooth line from their source in some natural
phenomenon. Others, of course, you cannot, the traces of
the intervening steps of the idea having been lost, owing
partly to the veneration in which old customs are held,
which causes them to regard the fact that their fathers had
this fashion as reason enough for their having it, and above
all to the total absence of all but oral tradition. But so great
a faith have I in the lack of inventive power in the African,
that I feel sure all their customs, had we the material that has
slipped down into the great swamp of time, could be traced
back either, as I have said, to some natural phenomenon, or to
the thing being advisable, for reasons of utility.
The uncertainty in the parentage of offspring may seem to
be such a utilitarian underlying principle, but, on the other
hand, it does not sufficiently explain the varied forms of the
law of inheritance, for in some tribes the eldest or most influential
son does succeed to his father s wealth , in other
places you have the peculiar custom of the chief slave inheriting.
I think, from these things, that the underlying idea
in inheritance <3f property is the desire to keep, the wealth of
“ the house,” i.e., estate, together, and if it were allowed to pass
into the hands of weak people, like women and young children,
this would not be done. Another strong argument against
the theory that it arises from the doubtful relationship of the
son, is that certain ju-ju always go to the son of the chief
wife, if he is old enough, at the time of the father’s death, even
in those tribes where the wealth goes elsewhere.
Certain tribes acknowledge the right of the women and
children to share in the dead man’s wealth, given that these