The Ncomi themselves put the body into coffins.
A barrel is the usual one, but gun-cases or two trade
boxes, the ends knocked out and the cases fitted together,
is another frequent form of coffin used by them.
These coffins are not buried, but are put into special
places in the forest.
Along the bank of the Ogowe you will notice here and
there long stretches of uninhabited bush. These
are not all mere stretches of swamp forest.
If you land on some of these and go in a little way
you will find the forest full of mounds—or
rather heaps, because they have no mould over them—made
of branches of trees and leaves; underneath each of
these heaps there are the remains of a body.
One very evil-looking place so used I found when I
was on the Karkola river. Dr. Nassau tells me
they are the usual burying grounds (Abe) of the Ajumbas.
In which the Voyager discourses on the legal methods
of natives of this country, the ideas governing forms
of burial, of their manner of mourning for their dead,
and the condition of the African soul in the under-world.
Great as are the incidental miseries and dangers surrounding
death to all the people in the village in which a
death occurs, undoubtedly those who suffer most are
the widows of a chief or free man.
The uniform custom among both Negroes and Bantus is
that those who escape execution on the charge of having
witched the husband to death, shall remain in a state
of filth and abasement, not even removing vermin from
themselves, until after the soul-burial is complete—the
soul of the dead man being regarded as hanging about
them and liable to be injured. Therefore, also
to the end of preventing his soul from getting damaged,
they are confined to their huts; this latter restriction
is not rigidly enforced, but it is held theoretically
to be the correct thing.
They maintain the attitude of grief and abasement,
sitting on the ground, eating but little food, and
that of a coarse kind. In Calabar their legal
rights over property, such as slaves, are meanwhile
considerably in abeyance, and they are put to great
expense during the time the spirit is awaiting burial.
They have to keep watch, two at a time, in the hut,
where the body is buried, keeping lights burning,
and they have to pay out of their separate estate
for the entertainment of all the friends of the deceased
who come to pay him 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.
