Some must give up their ground for trees, and some for pastures. And hardest of all would be the custom oflobola, by which a man pays for his wife in cattle, for people kept too many cattle for this purpose, and counted all their wealth in cattle, so that the grass had no chance to recover.
1979,André Brink,A Dry White Season, Vintage, published1998, page38:
All the money he'd brought with him had gone intolobola – the dowry for a wife […].