[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the tribes about Lake Nyassa and on the Zambesi.]

With the Awa-nkonde, a tribe at the northern end of Lake Nyassa, it is a rule that after her first menstruation a girl must be kept apart, with a few companions of her own sex, in a darkened house.  The floor is covered with dry banana leaves, but no fire may be lit in the house, which is called “the house of the Awasungu,” that is, “of maidens who have no hearts."[79] When a girl reaches puberty, the Wafiomi of Eastern Africa hold a festival at which they make a noise with a peculiar kind of rattle.  After that the girl remains for a year in the large common hut (tembe), where she occupies a special compartment screened off from the men’s quarters.  She may not cut her hair or touch food, but is fed by other women.  At night, however, she quits the hut and dances with young men.[80] Among the Barotse or Marotse of the upper Zambesi, “when a girl arrives at the age of puberty she is sent into the fields, where a hut is constructed far from the village.  There, with two or three companions, she spends a month, returning home late and starting before dawn in order not to be seen by the men.  The women of the village visit her, bringing food and honey, and singing and dancing to amuse her.  At the end of a month her husband comes and fetches her.  It is only after this ceremony that women have the right to smear themselves with ochre."[81] We may suspect that the chief reason why the girl during her seclusion may visit her home only by night is a fear, not so much lest she should be seen by men, as that she might be seen by the sun.  Among the Wafiomi, as we have just learned, the young woman in similar circumstances is even free to dance with men, provided always that the dance is danced at night.  The ceremonies among the Barotse or Marotse are somewhat more elaborate for a girl of the royal family.  She is shut up for three months in a place which is kept secret from the public; only the women of her family know where it is.  There she sits alone in the darkness of the hut, waited on by female slaves, who are strictly forbidden to speak and may communicate with her and with each other only by signs.  During all this time, though she does nothing, she eats much, and when at last she comes forth, her appearance is quite changed, so fat has she grown.  She is then led by night to the river and bathed in presence of all the women of the village.  Next day she flaunts before the public in her gayest attire, her head bedecked with ornaments and her face mottled with red paint.  So everybody knows what has happened.[82]

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Thonga on Delagoa Bay.]