3yS AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
expeditions or raids were limited to the immediate neighbours, and tribes living more than twenty or thirty miles away were regarded as too remote to be either friends or foes.
The tribes immediately surrounding the 'Bantu Kavirondo', who are all of non-Bantu stock, lived in a constant state of war or tension with the Bantu. The Nilo-hamitic tribes to the east of Kavirondo,1 who are predominantly pastoral, attacked the Kavirondo mainly for the purpose of raiding their cattle. The Teso and Luo in the west were bent on the conquest of territory and, as far as place-names and tribal traditions reveal, have gradually pushed the Bantu tribes eastwards. Their successive fronts of retreat run, generally speaking, parallel to the present Kenya-Uganda boundary. The pressure exercised by surrounding tribes upon the 'Bantu Kavirondo'does not, however, seem to have been excessive, for, in spite of their great similarity in language and culture, it did not weld them into a political and military unit. It may even be that their eastward retreat was at times and in some areas voluntary, as their present territory is at least as fertile and more healthy than the country from which they have moved.
In none of the approximately twenty tribal groups which make up the 300,000 Bantu of Kavirondo has political integration reached a very high degree, but it differs sufficiently in the various tribes to make generalizations from conditions in one area impossible. The following analysis, therefore, claims to apply to the two sub-tribes only of which a detailed study has been made, viz. the Logoli in the south and the Vugusu in the north. Both tribes have neighbours of non-Bantu stock along part of their boundary: the Logoli the Nilotic Jaluo and the Nyangori, a Nandi-speaking group, and the Vugusu the Teso, the El Kony, an offshoot of the Nandi living on the lower slopes of Mt. Elgon, and the Uasin-Gishu Masai, who frequently raided their country. In defence against these raids, the Vugusu lived in walled villages, the construction and maintenance of which demanded the co-operation of a large number of people, while the Logoli, like most of the other tribes, lived in isolated homesteads that were scattered over the whole countryside. The Logoli, who at present number approximately 45,000, inhabit an exceedingly fertile and well-watered stretch of country which permits of a very dense population. The Vugusu number about 40,000, but are dispersed over 1 The Nandi, Uasin-Gishu Masai, and El Kony.