to the home. A girl having once left her parent's home to
become a wife, waits many years before she pays a return visit.
Anciently the minimum time was three years, but some allow ten or more
years to elapse before the first visit home is paid. Two or three years
are then often spent with the parents. Many friends and relatives attend
any visitor, for with the Nou-su a large following is considered a sign
of dignity and importance. When a child is born a tree is planted, with
the hope that as the tree grows so also will the child develop.

"The fear of disease lies heavily upon the Nou-su people, and their
disregard of the most elementary sanitary laws makes them very liable to
attacks of sickness. They understand almost nothing about medicine, and
consequently resort to superstitious practices in order to ward off the
evil influences. When it is known that disease has visited a neighbor's
house, a pole, seven feet long, is erected in a conspicuous place in a
thicket some distance from the house to be guarded. On the pole an old
ploughshare is fixed, and it is supposed that when the spirit who
controls the disease sees the ploughshare he will retire to a distance
of three homesteads.

"A fever called No-ma-dzi works great havoc among the Nou-su every year,
and the people are very much afraid of it. No person will stay by the
sick-bed to nurse the unfortunate victim. Instead, food and water are
placed by his bedside and, covered with his quilt, he is left at the
mercy of the disease. Since as the fever progresses the patient will
perspire, heavy stones are placed on the quilt, that it may not be
thrown off, and the sick person take cold. Many an unfortunate sufferer
has through this strange practice died from suffocation. After a time
the relatives will return to see what course the disease has taken. This
fever seems to yield to quinine, for Mr. John Li has seen several
persons recover to whom he had administered this drug. When a man dies,
his relatives, as soon as they receive the news, hold in their several
homes a feast of mourning called by them the Za. A pig or sheep is
sacrificed at the doorway, and it is supposed that intercourse is thus
maintained between the living persons and the late departed spirit. The
near kindred, on hearing of the death of a relative, take a fowl and
strangle it; the shedding of its blood is not permissible. This fowl is
cleaned and skewered, and the mourner then proceeds to the house