the formation of words, it is difficult to introduce new ideas into it.
For a long time our missionaries have used a word, ‘enenya,’ meaning ‘to repent,’ but one day, recently, in the class, an intelligent evangelist said to the teacher: ‘The word you have just been explaining to us does not at all mean what you think it does. Let me explain to you the real meaning of it. Supposing a man is going along the road armed with a spear, and he meets two men unarmed carrying bundles of food. He spears one, and robs him of his load. A few minutes afterwards he thinks to himself, “How foolish I was to let the other man escape! I might have had his load as well.” He immediately follows him, catches him up, spears him, and takes his load too. Now, the regret that he felt at not having killed the second man is explained by the word “enenya,” which can hardly be said to mean “to repent.”’ It
