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The Language-Families of Africa
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Historical SummaryBut in Chagga life the most frequent and highly developed form of the evil wish was the curse. Cursings were not infrequent, for example, in domestic quarrels, a favorite curse being, "Lose your blood," and if a pregnant woman was cursed by her husband and died before or during childbirth, the penalty was as follows:
Seven oxen and seven goats to the father of the wife, four oxen and four goats to her maternal uncle, two oxen to the chief "because his cup was knocked over," that is, the murder deprived him of a source of service. . . . In addition the man pays two oxen, two goats, and one sheep as cost of the process. . . . In case the wife died but not the child they did not dare to prosecute, for they thought the child would surely die as soon as a suit was begun. In that case all the payments the man made to the household of the wife to cause his guilt to be forgotten went under the name of "marriage gifts."
If mother and child both die but the mother leaves other children her father is urgently advised against a complaint to the chief, and they use the proverb, "Don’t burn the tree with the branches." . . . They also refer to the continuation of her life and existence in the children, and say, "She left her head outside," that is, she is not all buried (565).
The curse of the dead was particularly dreaded because the dead remained spiritually alive and acted as judges and executioners. A man might prevent forever the marriage of his descendants within a sib with which he had quarreled, and marriage negotiations would be broken off if it was discovered that the ancestors had at some time been involved in a bitter lawsuit, even though there had been no cursing.
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Chicago:
"The Language-Families of Africa," The Language-Families of Africa in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. Thomas, William I. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937), Original Sources, accessed July 2, 2025, http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=YP78PQQHL24QMTJ.
MLA:
. "The Language-Families of Africa." The Language-Families of Africa, in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, edited by Thomas, William I., New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937, Original Sources. 2 Jul. 2025. http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=YP78PQQHL24QMTJ.
Harvard:
, 'The Language-Families of Africa' in The Language-Families of Africa. cited in 1937, Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. , McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York. Original Sources, retrieved 2 July 2025, from http://www.originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=YP78PQQHL24QMTJ.
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