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intestines were eaten, being ripped up, cleaned and boiled. On the other hand, it was stated that young men were compelled to eat in order to make them brave, the conception being, apparently, that by eating the flesh of a slain warrior they absorbed his courage [110] 
. The skulls of enemies were preserved, and when the young men first went to war they were made to drink beer [111] 
and a certain medicine from one of the skulls, with a view to making them fearless. Women were not permitted to eat human flesh, [112] 
and it was not permissible for married men to eat the flesh of women who were killed during an attack on a town. But wifeless old men could eat the flesh of a woman with impunity.
Blood-brother rites are not practised by the Mambila. But if two towns which had been enemies agreed to live together in peace, the chiefs of the respective towns would meet at the boundary and swear friendship. Each carried a calabash of water, and, after swearing the oath, he put some salt into the water and gave it to the other to drink.
All the Mambila practise male circumcision, but it was said that the blacksmith groups had only recently adopted the custom. The operation is performed without any elaborate ceremony when boys have reached the age of 8 or 9. After the operation the glans is covered with a grass cap in order that women may not see the wound. The cap is discarded when the wound heals, and each boy receives a gift of a chicken from his mother. It is possible that the custom among numerous other tribes of wearing a penis-sheath is connected with the rite of circumcision, and I have been told by members of a sheath-wearing tribe that their women are supposed to be ignorant of the fact of circumcision, which was regarded as a sign of secret affiliation with the gods.
There is no developed totemism among the Mambila, but most of the Torbi section refrain from eating goat's flesh and do not allow visitors to use their dishes for cooking goat's flesh. Some also refrain from killing and eating the flesh of a certain species of antelope.
There are also a number of animal-taboos connected with child-birth each family having its own particular taboo which is inherited matrilineally. Thus in one family it may be taboo for an enceinte woman to eat mutton, in another to eat chicken