duty, they may strike one another,
or any member of a younger mopato, but never any one of an older band;
and when three or four companies have been made, the oldest no longer
takes the field in time of war, but remains as a guard over the women
and children. When a fugitive comes to a tribe, he is directed to the
mopato analogous to that to which in his own tribe he belongs, and does
duty as a member. No one of the natives knows how old he is. If asked
his age, he answers by putting another question, "Does a man remember
when he was born?" Age is reckoned by the number of mepato they have
seen pass through the formulae of admission. When they see four or five
mepato younger than themselves, they are no longer obliged to bear arms.
The oldest individual I ever met boasted he had seen eleven sets of boys
submit to the boguera. Supposing him to have been fifteen when he saw
his own, and fresh bands were added every six or seven years, he must
have been about forty when he saw the fifth, and may have attained
seventy-five or eighty years, which is no great age; but it seemed so to
them, for he had now doubled the age for superannuation among them.
It is an ingenious plan for attaching the members of the tribe to the
chief's family, and for imparting a discipline which renders the tribe
easy of command. On their return to the town from attendance on the
ceremonies of initiation, a prize is given to the lad who can run
fastest, the article being placed where all may see the winner run up
to snatch it. They are then considered men (banona, viri), and can sit
among the elders in the kotla. Formerly they were only boys (basimane,
pueri). The first missionaries set their faces against the boguera, on
account of its connection with heathenism, and the fact that the youths
learned much evil, and became disobedient to their parents. From
the general success of these men, it is perhaps better that younger
missionaries should tread in their footsteps; for so much evil may
result from breaking down the authority on which, to those who can not
read, the whole system of our influence appears to rest, that innovators
ought to be made to propose their new measures as the Locrians did new
laws--with ropes around their necks.

Probably the "boguera" was only a sanitary and political measure; and
there being no continuous chain of tribes practicing the rite between
the Arabs and the Bechuanas, or Caffres, and as it is not a religious
ceremon