The afterbirth was called the second child, and was believed to have a spirit, which became at once a ghost. It was on account of this ghost that they guarded the plantain by which the afterbirth was placed, because the person who partook of the beer made from this plantain, or of cooked food from it, took the ghost from its clan, and the living child would then die in order to follow its twin ghost. [But in some clans the afterbirth was buried in the house.]

[It is their belief that after his death the ghost of the king attaches itself to his jawbone and the ghost of the afterbirth attaches itself to the base of the umbilical cord.] Each king during his lifetime builds a large house in his enclosure, which, after his death, becomes his malalo (the abode of his ghost). . . . [On his death his body is embalmed and placed in a conical hut, and after some five or six months have passed the hut is visited by three chiefs who sever the head and] place it in an ant hillock, Where it is left for a few days, guarded by the soldiers, until the ants have eaten all the flesh from it. . . . [The skull is then washed and taken to the new king, with the words, "Wehave brought the king," and the new king gives permission to remove the lower jaw, which is placed in the malalo along with the remnant of the placenta, which has been preserved in a house built for it in the enclosure belonging to the Katikiro (prime minister)]. . . .

A little beyond the middle of the hut [tomb] is a dais . . . covered with lion and leopard skins, and is protected by a row of brass and iron spears, shields, and knives; the chamber at the back of the dais formed by the bark-cloth curtains is the home of the lwanga (jawbone) and mulongo (placenta), and the ghost is attached to these; they are placed upon the dais when the departed king wishes to hold his court, or for consultation on special occasion. . . .

The Katikiro of the deceased king becomes the bearer of the "king" (the jawbone is called "the king") and the Kimbugwe [second officer of the country] the bearer of the mulongo.1

1Roscoe, J.n/an/an/an/an/a, , 54–55; "Further Notes on the Manners and Customs of the Baganda," , 32: 43–46, passim.