part of the ceremony being ended, the father of the child divided the dega into a number of balls, one of which he distributed to every person present. And inquiry was then made if any person in the town was dangerously sick, it being usual in such cases, to send the party a large portion of the dega ; which is thought to possess great medical virtues. * Among the Negroes every individual, besides his own proper name, has likewise a konlong, or surname, to denote the family or clan to which he belongs. Some of these families are very numerous and powerful. It is impossible to enumerate the various kontongs which are founcf in different parts of the country g though the knowledge of many of them is of great service to the traveller ; for as every Negro plumes himself upon the importance, O r t h e antiquity of his clan, he is much flattered when he is addressed by his kontong. Salutations, among the Negroes to each other, when they meet, are always observed; but those in most general use among the Kafirs, are Abbe haeretto,— E ning seni.— Anawari„ &c. all of which have nearly the same meaning,'and signify, are you well, or to that effect. There are^kewise salutations which are used at different times of the day, as, E ning somo, good morning, &c. The general answer to all salutations, is to repeat the kontong of the person who salutes, or else to repeat the salutation itself, first pronouncing the word marhaba, my friend. * Soon after baptism, the c h i ld f fa r e marked in different parts o f the skin, in a manner resembling what is called tatowmg in the South-sea Islands. CHAPTER XXI. The Account of the Mandingoes continued.— Their Notions in respect of the Planetary Bodies, and the Figure of the Earth. •— Their religious Opinions, and Belief in a Future State.— Their Diseases and Methods of Treatment.— Their Funeral Ceremonies, Amusements; Occupations, Diet, Arts, Manufactures, &c. j j ! T h e Mandingoes, and I believe the Negroes in general, have no artificial method of dividing time. They calculate the years by the number of rainy seasons. They portion the year into moons, and reckon the days by so many suns. The day they divide into morning, mid-day, and evening ; and further subdivide it, when necessary, by pointing to the sun's place in the Heavens. I frequently inquired of some of them, what became of the sun during the night, and whether we should see the same sun, or a different one, in the morning : but I found that they considered the question as very childish. The subject appeared to them, as placed beyond the reach of human investigation ; they had never indulged a conjecture, nor formed any hypothesis about the matter. The moon, by varying her form, has more attracted their attention. On the first appearance of the new moon, which they look upon to be newly
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