Among the northern clans of the Thonga tribe, in South-Eastern Africa, about Delagoa Bay, when a girl thinks that the time of her nubility is near, she chooses an adoptive mother, perhaps in a neighbouring village.  When the symptoms appear, she flies away from her own village and repairs to that of her adopted mother “to weep near her.”  After that she is secluded with several other girls in the same condition for a month.  They are shut up in a hut, and whenever they come outside they must wear a dirty greasy cloth over their faces as a veil.  Every morning they are led to a pool and plunged in the water up to their necks.  Initiated girls or women accompany them, singing obscene songs and driving away with sticks any man who meets them; for no man may see a girl during this time of seclusion.  If he saw her, it is said that he would be struck blind.  On their return from the river, the girls are again imprisoned in the hut, where they remain wet and shivering, for they may not go near the fire to warm themselves.  During their seclusion they listen to lascivious songs sung by grown women and are instructed in sexual matters.  At the end of the month the adoptive mother brings the girl home to her true mother and presents her with a pot of beer.[83]

[Seclusion of girls at puberty among the Caffre tribes of South Africa.]

Among the Caffre tribes of South Africa the period of a girl’s seclusion at puberty varies with the rank of her father.  If he is a rich man, it may last twelve days; if he is a chief, it may last twenty-four days.[84] And when it is over, the girl rubs herself over with red earth, and strews finely powdered red earth on the ground, before she leaves the hut where she has been shut up.  Finally, though she was forbidden to drink milk all the days of her separation, she washes out her mouth with milk, and is from that moment regarded as a full-grown woman.[85] Afterwards, in the dusk of the evening, she carries away all the objects with which she came into contact in the hut during her seclusion and buries them secretly in a sequestered spot.[86] When the girl is a chief’s daughter the ceremonies at her liberation from the hut are more elaborate than usual.  She is led forth from the hut by a son of her father’s councillor, who, wearing the wings of a blue crane, the badge of bravery, on his head, escorts her to the cattle kraal, where cows are slaughtered and dancing takes place.  Large skins full of milk are sent to the spot from neighbouring villages; and after the dances are over the girl drinks milk for the first time since the day she entered into retreat.  But the first mouthful is drunk by the girl’s aunt or other female relative who had charge of her during her seclusion; and a little of it is poured on the fire-place.[87] Amongst the Zulus, when the girl was a princess royal, the end of her time of separation was celebrated by a sort of saturnalia:  law and order were for the time being in abeyance:  every