^{page 335 note 1} Meek, C. K., The Northern Tribes of Nigeria, vol. i, pp. 209–10.Google Scholar

^{page 336 note 1} Talbot, P. A., Tribes of the Niger Delta, pp. 195–6. Talbot records the same phenomenon more briefly in The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, vol. iii, pp. 431, 439, and 441. Among the Ibo, apparently, the institution sometimes degenerates into a form of prostitution, since Talbot says that, ‘Occasionally, however, it is simply a method of investment, and the “wife” is hired out to various men on payment, while any children belong to the female “husband”.’Google Scholar

^{page 336 note 2} C. G., and Seligman, B. Z., Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan, pp. 164–5Google Scholar; Meek, , op. cit., pp. 209–10, also remarks the presence of this custom among the Dinka in connection with the passage from his book just quoted.Google Scholar

^{page 336 note 3} Op. cit., p. 221.

^{page 337 note 1} Stayt, Hugh A., The Bavenda, pp. 143–4; p. 170.Google Scholar

^{page 337 note 2} A brief summary of Dahomean social organization and marriage-types which will provide a somewhat fuller statement of the background of the marriage form under discussion than can be given in this paper is to be found in Herskovits, M. J., ‘Some Aspects of Dahomean Ethnology’, Africa, vol. v (1932), pp. 272–81.Google Scholar

^{page 338 note 1} Herissé, A. Le, L'Ancien Royaume du Dahomey, pp. 210–11, names this form of marriage, but in his discussion confuses it with another type of the xadudó category named avonúsi, ‘woman-with-cloth’, in which a princess gives a young female retainer to a man to be his wife.Google Scholar

^{page 338 note 2} Herissé, Le, loc. cit., asserts that this form of marriage, though popular in earlier times, is disappearing under European control. This statement is somewhat to be doubted.Google Scholar

^{page 338 note 3} Though it is possible that the girl may be given to the actual husband of the woman who has ‘married’ her, no instances of this were recorded.

^{page 339 note 1} The words of Le Herissé in introducing his exposition of this marriage form also puts the matter with great clarity: ‘On conduit “une chèvre à un bouc”; qui sera le propriétaire des petits de la chèvre? Sans mil doute, le propriétaire de la chèvre. II en est ainsi des enfants nés sous ce régime. Us deviennent la propriété du maître de la mère, ou plus exactement, ils tombent sous la même puissance que leur mère.’

^{page 339 note 2} This is strikingly shown, for example, in the material comprising a paper entitled ‘Population Statistics in the Kingdom of Dahomey’, Human Biology, vol. iv (1932), pp. 252–61, where another portion of the 1931 field-data is analysed.Google Scholar