The Rev. J. Macdonald has described the ceremonies and customs
attending and following the initiation-rites of a young girl on
her first menstruation among the Zulus between the Tugela and
Delagoa Bay. At this time the girl is called an _intonjane_. A
beast is killed as a thank-offering to the ancestral spirits,
high revel is held for several days, and dancing and music take
place every night till those engaged in it are all exhausted or
daylight arrives. "After a few days and when dancing has been
discontinued, young men and girls congregate in the outer
apartment of the hut, and begin singing, clapping their hands,
and making a grunting noise to show their joy. At nightfall most
of the young girls who were the intonjane's attendants, leave for
their own homes for the night, to return the following morning.
Thereafter the young men and girls who gathered into the hut in
the afternoon separate into pairs and sleep together _in puris
naturalibus_, for that is strictly ordained by custom. Sexual
intercourse is not allowed, but what is known as _metsha_ or
_ukumetsha_ is the sole purpose of the novel arrangement.
_Ukumetsha_ may be defined as partial intercourse. Every man who
sleeps thus with a girl has to send to the father of the
intonjane an assegai; should he have formed an attachment for his
partner of the night and wish to pay her his addresses, he sends
two assegais." (Rev. J. Macdonald, "Manners, etc., of South
African Tribes," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, vol.
xx, November, 1890, p. 117.)

Goncourt reports the account given him by a French officer from
Senegal of the dances of the women, "a dance which is a gentle
oscillation of the body, with gradually increasing excitement,
from time to time a woman darting forward from the group to stand