[178] As an instance of the importance attached to children, I may mention the fact that, after my birth my father was not announced to preach under his own name, but as "the father of Kéteka," the Malagasy equivalent of my name.
[179] Frazer, Golden Bough, Pt. I. The Magical Art, Vol. II. p. 277.
[180] Father Guillemé, Missiones Catholiques, XXXIV. (1902), p. 16.
[181] Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, p. 151.
[182] Frazer, Ibid., p. 276.
[183] "Birth," we are told by a keen observer, who has lived for many years in intimate converse with the natives, "sanctifies the child; birth alone gives him status as a member of his mother's family" (Dennett, Jour. Afr. Soc., I. p. 265).
[184] Travels, p. 109.
[185] Hartland, quoting Mr. Sarbah, a native barrister, op. cit., Vol. I. p. 286.
[186] Lippert, Kulturgeschichte, Vol. II. p. 57.
[187] This is done among the Beni Amer on the shores of the Red Sea and in the Barka valley, which is the more remarkable as mother-descent has fallen into desuetude under the influence of Islamism. (Hartland, Vol. I. p. 274, quoting Munzinger, Ostafrikanische studien.)