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Macdonald says about a Being among the Yaos, analogous to the Dendid of the Dinkas, or the Darumulun of Australia, or the Huron Ahone. Yet analysis detects, in Mr. Macdonald's report, copious traces of such a Being, though Mr. Macdonald himself believes in ancestor-worship as the Source of the local religion.
Yaos, known by the three vertical slits in their cheeks; slim Nandi, with perforated lobes to their ears; ebony Kavirondo; Sudanese of an excellent quality; Wanyamwezi from the country between Tabora and Lake Tanganyika, the very tribe from whom the German Askaris are recruited, and all the dusky tribes that stretch far north to Lake Rudolph and the Nile.
Rowley tells how in Manganjah the sorcerer, to find out a criminal, placed, with magical ceremonies, two staffs of wood in the hands of some young men. 'The sticks whirled and dragged the men round like mad, and finally escaped and rolled to the feet of the wife of a chief, who was then denounced as the guilty person. Mr. Duff Macdonald describes the same practice among the Yaos:
This word for people survives not only throughout the Province of Bontoc but also far toward the northern end of Luzon, where it appears as "Apayao" or "Yaos." Bontoc designates the people of the Quiangan region as "I-fu-gao'," though a part of them at least have a different name for themselves.
I would therefore no longer say, as in 1887, that the Hellenic genius must have added to 'an old medicine dance' all that the Eleusinian mysteries possessed of beauty, counsel, and consolation . These elements, as well as the barbaric factors in the rites, may have been developed out of such savage doctrine as softens the hearts of Australians and Yaos.
It is to be wished that competent observers would pay more attention to such savage practices as crystal-gazing and automatism as illustrated by the sticks of the Melanesians, Zulus, and Yaos.
To bring these facts home, we must now consider some further examples of mother-right, in order to show how closely these customs are connected with the conditions of the maternal familiar clan. The Yaos of Africa have what may be regarded as a matriarchal organisation. Kinship is reckoned and property is inherited through the mother.
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