THE BEMBA TRIBE OF NORTH-EASTERN RHODESIA 109
ceremony and are buried according to particular rites. They are divided into groups according to the order of their ancestors arrival in the country, and each has a special office based on the privileges of his original ancestor, e.g. the care of the royal drum, the right to sit on a stool in the chief's presence, or the duty to call him in the morning by clapping outside his door.
The main duties of the bakabilo in native eyes are ritual, as has been described. They are in charge of the ceremonies at the sacred relic shrines and take possession of the bdbenye when the chief dies. They alone can purify the chief from the defilement of sex intercourse so that he is able to enter his relic shrine and perform the necessary rites there. They are in complete charge of the accession ceremonies of the paramount and the bigger territorial chiefs, and some of their number are described as bafingo, or hereditary buriers of the chief. Besides this, each individual mukabilo has his own small ritual duty or privilege, such as lighting the sacred fire, or forging the blade of the hoe that is to dig the foundations of the new capital.
Besides their priestly duties, the bakabilo acted as regents at the death or absence of the chief, and any question of succession or other matter of tribal importance is placed before the bakabilo, and the big Ceremonies I witnessed at the chief's capital were all made occasions, of such discussions. The procedure is complex, but an effective method of deliberation. The paramount sends two special hereditary messengers, also bakabilo, to place the matter before the council. The senior members speak and if a difficulty arises they refer the matter to the head priest of the land, the Cimba, who sits apart with his own following, and gives decisions on matters of tribal precedent or suggests rewording decisions to be carried to the chief. Some of the discussion is carried on in archaic cibemba. .
The importance of the bakabilo}s council is the check it holds over the paramount's power. These are hereditary officials and therefore cannot be removed at will. Two or three of the bakabilo have been chased out of the country in the past for overweening pride, according to tradition, and the Cimba was removed from office in 1934, but only after the tribe had suffered for many years from the results of a species of megalomania to which he seemed to be subject. Otherwise the bakabilo are immune from the chief's anger and exert a salutary influence over him by refusing