BALANTE, a long-headed, prognathous patrilineal people who file their incisor teeth, living in French Senegal and Portu guese Guinea between the Kasamansa and the Geba rivers. Their present author and others that the proboscis and collar cavities of Balanoglossus are represented in the simplest fish-like animal Amphioxus and in the higher Vertebrata by the pre-mandibular and mandibular head-cavities which lie in front of, and at the sides of, the mouth. The principal advance made by the higher Vertebrata over the condition found in Balanoglossus is the break ing up of the long trunk body cavities of Balanoglossus into a series of hollow muscular segments or myotomes; and this change was correlated with and no doubt caused by an advance to a more vigorous form of locomotion expressed in lateral wrigglings of the language is related to Bagnun and Mandjak. They have age groups. There are no special marriage rules. They are mainly hunting people, engaging in cultivation, and are turbulent raiders. The dead are exposed for two or three days and then buried under their houses. The Balante practise ordeal by vegetable poison (tali).
See Dr. Lasnet, Une mission au Senegal (5900) ; Capitaine Brosse lard-Faidherbe, Casamance et Mellacoree (1893).