[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

RITES or BIRTH AND INITIATION 253
of each boy sleeps beside him and holds the lad’s penis in his
ï¬Ångers, which he warms from time to time at the ï¬Åre.
During these twenty days’ seclusion the candidates are taught
how to make and play the panpipes (msusm) (see Pl. XVIIIB),
a knowledge which is prohibited to women and unincised boys,
though these may see and hear them. This instruction is not
a chance amusement to keep the lads occupied, but forms a
deï¬Ånite part of the programme ; the pipes are regarded as having
a certain “ initiation value Other lessons there seem to be
none, but the novices are made to Witness at night a number of
remarkable performances, innumerable and ingenious “ hoaxes ",
which serve to some extent to test them and train them in selt~
control. Such performances seem to be well-nigh endless in
variety—their number depends probably on the creative imagine.-.
tion of the"performers——but they are all more or less of a single
type and they are all connected with ghosts. The following,
are descriptions of a few of them.
In one, the men sew rough kinds of cloaks made from the
leaves of the bastard cotton tree, with a covering for the head
and face in which two holes are left for the eyes. They don these
cloaks, wrap their feet in leaves, and fasten sticks to their ï¬Ångers
to make them look long. Thus garbed, at dead of night, they
enter the house where the candidates lie sleeping, and by the
faint light of the ï¬Åre they claw and maul the lads, who become
prostrate with terror. In another, the men dig ten rather deep
holes in a row ; beside these ten men lie down and thrust their
heads into them. The head of each man is then covered with
leaves and earth and a bamboo is placed across the neck, thus
giving a realistic imitation of a headless or beheaded body.
Now the candidates are brought out, and terriï¬Åed as they are
at the sight half-visible in the darkness, they are forced to go
up and touch these headless " devils In a third performance,
a. number of men lie down on their backs, in such a way that the
feet of one man rest by the head of the next. In this way a ï¬Åle
of prostrate bodies is made to reach from the door of the seclusion
hut as far as the gongs. Nevar leaves (such as are used for
cooking puddings) are then rolled up, strapped around with
others and fastened to the men so that they reach, like gigantic
penises, from one man's middle, across his belly, chest, and
head, almost to the next man’s testicles. These men now lie