ABSTRACT
Basuto are kindly and considerate and give old people the attention and consideration to which their years entitle them. Old characters, such as Lelingoana, inspire tremendous loyalty and affection. The actual moment of death is not heralded by ritual wailing or in any other particular way. Death is formally announced verbally or by letter to the deceased's relations, friends and headman by his next of kin. Basuto religious beliefs and doctrine regarding death and the after-life are far from being coherent, stable or uniform. During life the spirit resides in the body, some say in the heart and others in the head, though the usual view is that it suffuses the whole body. The spirit is not regarded as a motor or vital force, which keeps the body going, and whose withdrawal would cause it to decay, but merely as a part of a person which sojourns in the body.
