UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNI
AT LOS angele;
17 4«
3n the Trail of the Pigmies
An Anthropological Exploration under the
cooperation of the American Museum of
Natural History and American Universities
hy
Dr. Leonard John Vanden Bergh
J.D. L.L.B.
Photographic work under the guidance of
Dr. George Burbank Shattuck
Formerly Professor of Geology at
John Hopkins and Vassar Universities
Forenjoord by
ROBERT H. LOWIE
Associate Curator, Department of Anthropology
American Museum of Natural History and
Lecturer in Anthropology, Columbia University
T. FISHER UNWIN, Ltd.
London: Adelphi Terrace
1922
Printeil in U. S. A.
pr
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface
Introduction . . . . . . . i
The Wanyika ....... 1
The Wakamba 37
The Wakikuyu 75
The Masai 112
The Masai Lion Hunt .... 148
The Wakavirondo 158
The Congo 207
Map ..... ., ,.. >, .- . -. 1
ILLUSTRATIONS
Mambuti women of mature growth . . Frontispiece
FACING PAGE
Dr. Leonard John Vanden Bergh xiv
Map 1
Jungle Home Sweet Home 18
Village Life^ 19
iThe Funeral Dance 28
Administrating Justice 29
Blood Drinking of the Wakamba 46
•Types and Customs 47
Court of Justce of the Wakamba 60
■Scarifications 61
Wakamba Dances 64
Racial Differences in African Tribes 65
Wakamba Dentistry 70
Enlarged Navals Are the Result of Poor Confinement 71
Gruesome Method in Wakikuyu of Disposing of the
Dying Members of the Tribe 80
Temples of Worship 81
Wakikuyu "Ngoma" Dance 88
{Social Life in Wakikuyu 89
Wakikuyu Customs , 94
Professions 95
African Types 100
Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Wakikuyus .... 101
A Wakikuyu Engagement 104
Wakikuyu Girls Work as Well as Flirt 105
Extremes of Age 108
A Peaceful Village in Wakikuyu 109
Masai Village Life 118
A Masai Herder in Favorite Rest Pose 119
Masai Beauties in Full Gala Costume 126
Just Wives . 127
Lion Hunt of the Masai 150
FACING PAGE
Lion Hunt of the Masai . , . . r 151
Checker Board Scarifications of the Northern Waka-
virondo Women 164
Wakavirondo Scarifications 165
An Improved Native Villagel of a Wakavirondo
Mission 170
Wakavirondo Savagery 171
Quiet Village Life in Wakavirondo 180 \
Fishing Industry in Wakavirondo ...... 181
Blacksmiths in Wakavirondo Working 192
Housebuilding 193
A Wakavirondo Village Chief 198
Wakavirondo Warriors in Full War Paint Ready for
the Funeral . 199
Enjoying Native Drinks 204
Savage Entertainers 205
A "Hippo" Is a Gift of the Nile 212
Canoe Racing 213
Home Brewing in Uganda 222
A Mubira Woman w^ith a Disc Lip 223
Making Reed Doors in Uganda 223
Royal Fence Around the King's Enclosure .... 229
Mambuti (Pigmy) Family Reunion and Front of the
Ancestral Palace 236
A Mambuti (Pigmy) Archer 237
African Perambulators . . . . • 242
Two Embu Belles 243
Mambuti (Pigmy) Mothers in Front of Their Forest
Home 248
Among the Pigmies . 249
Father, Mother and Godfather 256
Munyika Woman Carrying Her Year's Result of
Copra Roap Making to Market 257
The Baganda Are Very Clever at the Making of the
"Lubugs" Barkcloth 262
Baganda Women Are Clever Mat Weavers . . . 263
PREFACE
Unlike England and Germany the United
States has never colonized East Africa and
this circumstance explains the relative dearth
of American books dealing with that vast re-
gion. In a measure the gap is filled by-
Father Vandenbergh's book, which presents
ethnographical observations made on thei
Wanyika, Wakamba, Wakikuyu, Masai, Ka-y
virondo, and the pigmy people known as the
INIambuti. A novice would not have suc-
ceeded in learning much during an eleven
months' stay among half a dozen distinct
groups, but Father Vandenbergh had pre-
viously spent nine years in the general region
revisited in 1919 and 1920, so that he did not
need to waste time on acquiring the technique
of East African traveling. In addition he was
ai3ed by a practical knowledge of one of the
Bantu languages.
As the author himself modestly insists, he
lays no claim to being a j^rofessional anthro-
pologist and when he presents a generalization
on racial psychologj'^ or gives a casual inter-
pretation of hereditary traits he is merely pro-
PREFACE
noiincing personal views such as may spon-
taneously suggest themselves to any traveler.
The value of his offering — and the same might
be said of not a few more pretentious publica-
tions by anthropologists themselves — lies not
in the exposition of theories but in the presen-
tation of facts recorded at first-hand or at least
with the aid of competent witnesses who have
had opportunities for first-hand observation.
So far as an ethnologist who is not a spe-
cialist in African ethnography can judge.
Father Vandenbergh's notes on the Wanyika,
Kavirondo and the Mambuti form the most
valuable portion of the book. Not that his
chapters on the Masai, Kikuyu and Wakamba
are intrinsically of lesser interest, but merely
that these tribes have already been the sub-
ject of monogi'aphic treatment, which so far as
I know, does not apply to the remaining
groups, so that any independent account of
these latter is of proportionately greater sig-
nificance.
It is a source of profound regret to scien-
tists that the African Pigmies remain so inac-
cessible and accordingly so enigmatic a peo-
ple. Dr. Vandenbergh's report corroborates
previous accounts of their exemplary moral
character from a Caucasian point of view and
PREFACE
their skill as hunters. His pictures are prob-
ably the best ever taken of members of this
race. At least, so I have been told by a col-
league who has himself had occasion to view
Congolese Pigmies.
It may not be out of place to explain that
some of the facts here described that may seem
strangest to a lay reader are amply vouched
for by independent authority. Thus, the
avoidance of the mother-in-law noted among
the Wakamba has been repeatedly reported
from various Bantu groups. Indeed, the cus-
tom is widely spread among the aborigines
of both Australia and Xorth America.
Similarly, the extravagant fear of defilement
encountered by Father Vandenbergh in
Kikuyu territory appears with equal promi-
nence in Mr. and Mrs. Routledge's narrative.
Finally, the description of Masai sexual life is
paralleled, so far as essentials go, in the ex-
tensive treatises of Hollis and Merker.
With its journalistic vivacity of style and
its excellent as well as ample illustrative ma-
terial Father Vandenbergh's book bids fair to
become a popular favorite and will doubtless
stimulate interest in the natives of East
Africa.
Robert H. Lowie.
INTRODUCTION
The books written on Africa in general, or
on particular portions of it, are naturally short
and vague in descriptive details if they are
intended for purposes of scientific information
dealing with ethnological data or biological,
topographical or other observations. Books
written on personal experiences of the travel-
ers are mostly extravagant in descriptions of
imaginary dangers and thrilling events which
are rarely met with. Diaries are very dry and
wearisome reading, usually to be taken with a
grain of salt when it comes to personal experi-
ences.
My own purpose in writing these chapters
is to tell and give, as far as in me lies, a true
version of the habits of the different tribes
with which I came in contact, dwelling at
length on some of the grosser customs, maybe,
because they struck me as emphasizing the
grade of culture, or rather lack of it, as exhib-
ited by the tribe under discussion.
ii INTRODUCTION
Looking at these peoples from this angle,
I natui'ally did not intend to relate personal
experiences among them or thrilling events
which, to tell the truth, have been very few in
my sojourn of ten years in Africa. But to
give my friends a little detailed information,
to elucidate the scope of 'and give more author-
ity to matters contained in these descriptions,
I might mention the object of my prolonged
stay in Uganda and Kavirondo during the first
nine years, from 1896 to 1905, and the last
visit I made my old African friends, from the
24th of September, 1919, to the 20th of Au-
gust, 1920, and how I became acquainted
with their weird and often disgusting and re-
volting customs.
From 1896 to 1905 I was a missionary en-
dowed with all the enthusiasm which must at
all times be the underlying foundation of a
missionary's career. To do my profession jus-
tice and to make my neophites worthy mem-
bers of the Catholic Church, I had to go deep
into their customs and traditions in order to
find connecting links Math which to make the
transition from their former modes of hving
easier and more palatable.
Later on, when I returned from Africa, I
found it difficult to get an unbiased or even
INTRODUCTION iii
a credulous hearing owing to the absurd state-
ments (absurd to my hearers) of the native
usages and habits which I spoke of. They
were true nevertheless. But to prove my
assertions I resolved to return to those parts
of Africa which seemed to supply most of the
reasons for incredulity on the part of my audi-
ences, and this time I wished to bring back
photographs which could not lie, but which
would show to the hilt that I did not overdraw
the mark or exaggerate my findings.
The motion camera has served my purpose
well, because I find now that my pictures are
not only "amazing" and "thrilling," but, as
all the daily newspapers, such as the Times,
the Globe, etc., of New York, state, an "intel-
ligent presentation" marked with the "stamp
of sincerity" of the man who knew what he
was going after — that was all I wished to ac-
complish.
The last excursion was not as full of "ex-
periences" as my first nine years, because I
traveled quicker and with more comfort than
I did on my first trip. During the years from
'96 to '05 I always traveled on foot under the
most trying circumstances. This time I had
trains, steamboats, horses, mules, automobiles,
motorcycles and rickshaws at my command.
iv INTRODUCTION
and consequently traveled in comparative lux-
ury, only marching probably 500 miles in all.
The accompanying map marks the route
which my expedition took, with an approxi-
mate statement of mileage, and the mode of
transportation. I did not keep track of dates
and must only mention them from memory.
But for every custom or tradition of the fol-
lowing pages I can guarantee absolute truth-
fulness, suppressing rather than exaggerating
the details.
My sources of information were of the best,
where I had to consult authors or living au-
thorities: such as the Rev. Father Wenneker
for the Wanyika of the Giliamu country ; Mr.
Ilobley, author of the Wakamba on the Wa-
kamba; Sir Charles Elliott and the govern-
ment reports for the Masai; the Rev. Father
Caisac of Kikuyu (than whom there is no
better authority on the Kikuyu tribe) for that
country; the Rev. Fathers Bergmans of Kis-
umu and Stam of Mumias for the Wakavi-
rondo, both of whom have made a very deep
study of the Kawando tribe ; and last but not
least, the Rev. Father Buyck of Kilo, Belgian
Congo, as an authority on the Mambuti Pig-
mies. The chapter on the Pigmies is more
or less a direct personal research, with Father
INTRODUCTION v
Buyck as interpreter through the medium of
a httle Pygmy woman who had strayed from
the great Pygmy forest and became well ac-
quainted with the Wanyari language, of which
Father Buyck is the best authority in the
Congo. This information is therefore first-
hand and scrujDulously stated as it came to me
in answer to my prepared questionnaire and
from direct personal observation during the
time which I stayed in that district.
The journey commenced at New York,
from which harbor we sailed to Naples, in
Italy, where we took the steamship Roma to
IMombasa, the British East African harbor on
the Equator.
On the 26th day of November, 1919, I left
Mombasa with a sigh of relief and a radiant
desire to accomplish a feat which I had always
wished to accomplish. That feat, as I men-
tioned before, was more in the nature of a
justification than a thought of adventure or
potential fame and reputation. In lectures
previously given, I had often been criticized
both by my friends and members of audiences
for stretching a jjoint or two. Even in the
course of ordinary conversation in which I
used to relate my past experiences on the
INIission field, I w^ould notice glances of incre-
vi INTRODUCTION
dulity exchanged between my friends, and
often felt the pangs of the braggart, whose
words were doubted.
Here I had my chance to vindicate such
mortifications, because I knew that the pic-
tures would speak for themselves and dispel
any further doubts which might arise in the
minds of those with whom I would come in
contact, for they would show the physical evi-
dence in support of my statements. I will
admit that in the twilight of time which had
passed since these experiences I sometimes be-
gan to doubt my own memories and impres-
sions, which might have grown in the gathering
shadows created by distance. I was therefore
impatient to set out on the long journey, which
I felt would be filled with thrills, not to be
shelved and stowed away as formerly in the
pigeonholes of my own unreliable memory, but
recorded by a scientifically certain register
which could not fail to convince where words
might leave little impression. That register
was the motion picture camera, which later
disgorged events and facts which will not only
amply justify my previous utterances, but
which will reveal to the world matters which
I had not even dared to mention before for
fear of ridicule.
INTRODUCTION vii
Here and now I take great pleasure in ex-
pressing my grateful appreciation to Mr. Jesse
Lasky, who believed me and who made it pos-
sible for me to give to the world not only these
records of conditions which I hope my pictures
will bring home to the civilized world — pic-
tures which may tend to ameliorate, if not in
some instances to eliminate, the hardships of
the natives of Africa, and which may call at-
tention to conditions which degrade humanity
and stand in the way of happiness, and even
the most elementary demands of human na-
ture. And I would even go farther and main-
tain that where the commercial world would
look upon this venture as a mere business en-
terprise, Mr. Lasky seized upon the oppor-
tunity not merely as a good commercial move
for the company which he represents, but as
a means to bestow a benefit on peoples who
were looked upon with contempt; to promote
endeavors for the uplift of these peoples ; and
above all, to bring home to the man in the
street and the office, absorbed in business piu*-
suits, the magnificent work which is being car-
ried on by missionaries in the almost unknown
parts of the world, and the ahnost superhuman
acts of altruism and charity among the lepers,
the lame and diseased of that dark hemisphere
X INTRODUCTION
terials which could only be had in small quan-
tities, although they were imperatively neces-
sary in the climatic conditions.
In the meantime, my companions were not
idle. Although I did not lay much stress or
take any interest in pictures outside the an-
thropological program which I had laid out
for myself, the scenes and tropical conditions
of the country were a novelty for them, the
native surroundings of the people interested
them greatly, although they were no novelty
to me. They took pictures to their hearts'
content, some of which proved to be valuable
for the series which is now released. Above
all, there was an interest created which paved
the way for the big things ahead of us.
Personally, I suffered a great inconvenience,
owing to ill health, which necessitated my be-
ing removed to the hospital on arrival in port.
In Naples I had been struck down with an at-
tack of ptomaine poisoning which had returned
on board the Roma, which took us to Mom-
basa. Under proper medical care in the hos-
pital I soon got over the effects of this malady
and was ready to undertake the "big trip" in
sixteen days from our arrival in Mombasa.
I might add that the tribes of which the
following pages speak are the most interesting
INTRODUCTION xi
of the great variety of peoples which inliabit
British East Africa and the Uganda Protec-
torate. Their languages vary according to the
family to which the tribe under discussion be-
longs. The Swahili language, however, might
be called the lingua franca of Africa, and
armed with the knowledge of that tongue one
may travel confident of being understood by
at least the more progressive members of the
larger settlements and communities. The
JNIasai were the only exception to this rule,
and into their country I took a Masai guide
and interpreter who had served one of the set-
tlers near Nairobi for a number of years as a
herdsman.
Being conversant with Kiswahili, and know-
ing the Luganda language well, I had there-
fore little difficulty in communicating directly
with the natives of these tribes, whilst my Ba-
ganda boys served on all occasions as splendid
intermediaries when I could not get an idea
across.
The itinerary of the expedition commenced
from Mombasa by rail, west to Mariakani,
whence we ti'aveled about twenty-three miles
north to Giliamu and back again to Maria-
kani to take the Uganda Railroad 200 miles
west, as far as Kapiti Plains, the starting point
xii INTRODUCTION
for Machakos in the Ukamba country, 28 miles
northwest. Thence we traveled by motor car
to Nairobi for 60 miles southwest. From
Nairobi 40 miles north to Chaina Falls, 10
miles' marching distance from the Mangu Mis-
sion in Kikuyu. To visit the INIasai we re-
turned to Nairobi, traveling 60 miles south
from there by motor car and on foot to
Nguruya's Masai settlement. Returning to
Nairobi again, we took the train to Kisumu, on
the Victoria Nyanza, the center of the Kavi-
rondo country, where we visited the north and
southern portions in different parties, going
south to Kisi, a distance of 50 miles, by boat
and on foot, and north in a circle to Mumias
and Kakamega, a route of some 150 miles on
foot and by motor car.
Leaving Kismnu we took the Winifred to
Kampala Uganda across the Victoria Nyanza,
where we took some wonderful pictures of the
Baganda. Going east 80 miles to Jinja, we
started down the Nile toward the Kyoga Lake
(a distance of some 70 miles), after crossing
which we traveled on land toward the Albert
Nyanza, a matter of 100 miles, partly on foot,
partly on a motor truck, to Butyaba, where we
caught a boat to Mahagi in the Congo.
Here we were in poor luck, having to march
INTRODUCTION xiii
the Avhole distance to the Wanyari village of
Zabu, some 200 miles, all the way on foot, with
an occasional lift in a hanunock, and back
again to Kasenyi, retiu'ning to Butyaba,
whence we took a boat to Nimuli. In order
to avoid the Fola Rapids, we had to march
again for a distance of 100 miles to Rajaff,
^vhence we followed the Nile in uninterrupted
comfort of Nile steamers and raikoad cars.
It is a peculiar coincidence that the eleva-
tion at Jinja (the source of the Nile) is 3,641
feet, whilst the distance from Jinja to Alex-
andria is 3,642 miles, allowing the Nile one
foot average drop from its origin to its flow
into the INIediterranean.
The climate varies with the districts one
visits, as does the temperature. For instance,
the average temperatm'e in Kikuyu in and
around Nairobi would be little over 75 degrees,
M'hile in Karthum in the Soudan, the ther-
mometer hovers between 120 and 112 degrees
all the year round; whilst the hot winds blow-
ing from the great desert make living condi-
tions unbearable.
The title of this book is more or less mis-
leading, there being only one chapter on the
Pigmies. But owing to the fact that there is
little to say about the Congo dwarfs whose
xiv INTRODUCTION
history is not only vague but communication
with whom is extremely difficult to establish;
and, moreover, since the other tribes spoken of
in these pages are scattered on the way to the
Congo, "The Trail" seemed to explain the
underlying motive better than any other term.
DR. LEONARD JOHN VANDEN BERGH
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THE WANYIKA
In order to get a good start without taking
undue chances I took the party to a country
and a tribe new to me to get the technical pro-
cedure in good running condition without
jeopardizing the pictures which would form
part of the main issue. This initiation proved
to be very valuable in so far as we happened
upon a few points which were of great interest
to the comparative tribal studies which I was
about to make. And it happened in so unex-
pected a mamier that it is well worth relating.
On the eve of Thanksgiving Day, 1919,
Father Wenneker of the Giliamu Mission had
sent me his mule to lessen the fatigue of tlie
long twenty-mile march from IMariakani Sta-
tion to Gilianm. Just about sunset I passed
a party of dancers, whose singing, with the
accompaniment of the tinkling of innumerable
bells, made my charger restive. I tried to
steer him into the midst of the dancing party,
but failed miserably until I whipped him in
1
2 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
that direction. A great shout went up from
the hundred throats and more of a savage mob,
and the mule reared and snorted and bucked
to such an extent that my attention was no
longer riveted on the wi'iggling mass and their
awe-inspiring bell "jazz." Presently a boy,
well dressed in khaki, jumped from the ranks
of the onlookers and calling the mule by his pet
name took hold of the bridle and made an at-
tempt to calm my shivering mount.
"Beast afraid, sir," he said; "me speak Eng-
lish very good. You go Mission?"
"Right-o," I replied ; "but I want to see this
dance first. Wliat's all the row about?"
"He dance dead man."
"Do they dance at funerals?" I asked.
"Yes," he replied; "but dead man no here —
to-morrow other dance there."
And he stretched out his hand toward the
north.
That settled the question in my mind, and
turning the mule's head, I went toward the
Mission. The boy followed me and I engaged
him in conversation, which led to the arrange-
ment whereby he agreed to take me to the next
dance on the following day.
We took our motion camera and what we
snapped there will become a record of
THE AVANYIKA 3
Wanyika Iiistory which will be well worth
preserving in the archives of ethnology. With
a little bribe, handed out with discretion to the
leaders of the dance, we got a complete pro-
gram of a dance which has a deep meaning in
its weird movements and wailing songs ; it por-
trays a great fear of the spirits and a profound
expression of passionate sexual desire. For
this reason I repeat here what I learned
there.
The Wanyika occupy a stretch of country
approximately forty miles square, extending
from Mazeras to Ukamba station. This terri-
tory is not inhabited exclusively by the
Wanyika, for there are other tribes within the
boundaries, and parts of tribes calling them-
selves distinctive names like Wagiliama and
Wakamba. The exact origin of the Wanyika,
like the genesis of most tribes, is difficult to
ascertain definitely, and an examination of the
legendary ancestry of these people would lead
us far afield.
The men have no distinctive dress, but when
they deign to affect clothes they adopt the
fashion of the Swahilis. Ivory rings adorn
tlieir arms above the elbow and variegated
beads and wires about the neck and arms com-
})lete the costmne. The girls wear a less strik-
4 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
ing chain with fringes, which serves as a laval-
liere. The pendants are of copper and brass,
being in effect chains of one-half to an inch in
length.
The Wanyika are distinctly agricultural,
and they live principally on maize, mohogo
(arrow-root), a small bean known as "podjo,'*
ground nuts and cocoanuts, mawele and ma-
wimbi. All of these edibles are grains. Most
of the cultivation is done by the women with
a minimum of assistance from the men. One
may not speak of "the weaker sex" with refer-
ence to the Wanyika women — or, for that mat-
ter, with reference to many other African
women — for it is not uncommon to find women
serving as hapagazi (porters) on short saf-
faries. Europeans hesitate to employ women
on long journeys, but on a saffari of fifteen or
twenty miles there generally is a majority of
female porters. I was surprised on arriving
at the station of Mariakani to find that of the
fifty porters for whom we had previously con-
tracted, twenty-eight were women, the remain-
der being men and small boys.
As I have suggested, the food and drink of
the Wanyika are primitive. Their chief diet is
the mohogo or Manioc root, which may be con-
sumed raw or cooked. This root is cultivated
THE WANYIKA 5
extensively and comes to maturity within five
months after planting. It is a nutritious food
and it builds up strength to a surprising ex-
tent. The second staple is maize (corn) , which
is not so common and is confined to certain dis-
tricts. Maize is prepared either in a mortar and
pestle or milled in grinding stones. These
stones are operated by hand, of course, the
nearest approach to machinery being a set of
milling stones engineered by two girls. Maize
is a delicacy and receives careful treatment
from the native cooks. It may be baked in
ashes or boiled on the cob, as at our own Coney
Island.
On our way to the dance, I saw a man sitting
on the ground, directing a couple of women in
rooting up mohogo ( arrov/-root ) . It reminded
me of an experience of twenty-three years ago,
when I had quenched an overpowering thirst
by the same process which these women were
following. We dug up the roots so that we
might suck what little juice there was in them,
and well do I remember the ensuing gastric
fever with which the drink afflicted my old
friend. Bishop Biermans. I was curious to
see what the Wanyika would do — and the pic-
ture I had taken showed that this gray-headed
son of the equator repeated the action of my
6 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
old friend, and ate the root raw. But I doubt
whether he suffered any evil effects from it,
like my buddy of 1896.
Large sweet potatoes are ubiquitous and
popular, but beans are not so plentiful and
they serve as a manner of side dish. To vary
the Wanyika menu, there may be cocoanuts,
ground nuts, pembe (a small barley-like
grain), and the papali and the mango. The
last tw^o are fruits and are sought after to sell
rather than to eat. Cocoanut water is a staple
refreshment after a fatiguing saffari.
The Wanyika may be considered vegetari-
ans, for meat is expensive. Cattle are money
among the Wanyika, and they prefer to save
their cattle to barter for a higher order of
chattel (in their eyes) — women. Goats and
sheep and fowl are seldom killed, for they con-
stitute the personal wealth of the natives.
"SVhen we arrived at Giliamu, on the eve of
Thanksgiving day, I was surprised to hear
a gobbler honking in the backyard. I turned
to Dr. Shattuck.
"What does this suggest to you on this of all
days?" I inquired.
**It reminds me of what is going on in
Poughkeepsie at this very moment," he replied.
THE WANYIKA 7
"Why not here," I suggested, "when the
wherewithal is caUing for the occasion?"
I asked the good Father if he could let us
have a tui*key, and picking this gobbler as a
progressive — and therefore young — because he
was so noisy, I gave my cook, Simoni, orders
to catch him.
Next morning we left for a good day's work,
and the funeral dance expelled all further
thought of Thanksgiving until the big fellow
was placed before me. His size made me doubt
his youth, and the first bite on a slice of white
meat confirmed my suspicions. He must have
been an old sheik, and before my departure I
realized that two mouthfuls of tui'key had cost
me six dollars apiece.
A young pig also made me think that after
all the high cost of living in New York did not
compete with the prices at the Giliamu mis-
sion ; but then I did not know that the turkey
and the pig were importations designed to in-
troduce the breed on this unpromising soil.
Cocoanut water and milk are important
beverages, but the national drink is a concoc-
tion which differs from the ordinary native
"home brew." This drink is the pahn wine,
which brews itself over night. The palm tree
8 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
from which they tap this precious fluid has
widespreading branches with a small crown on
each. This crown is removed and the tip thus
bared is cut during the early part of the day
and is tapped in the evening. This is a simple
and effective brewing process. The tip being
scraped to open the pores, the wine seeps
through to the tip, where it is caught in a cup.
The juice is protected from the sun by a little
piece of matting placed over the tip, which
prevents the liquid from drying up. The na-
tives relish palm wine, but I doubt whether
any white men — even the most extreme anti-
prohibitionists — will enjoy it. To my palate
it seemed like pig's wash — but the natives im-
bibe it copiously and become hopelessly and
unmanageably inebriated on their "liquor." I
discovered this natural distillery quite by acci-
dent.
Lounging around, on the first Sunday, in a
camp chair on the veranda of the mission, I
noticed a movement on the limb of a ti-ee in
the distance. My cm'iosity was aroused, and
I made for the tree — and what I saw there was
a novelty to me. I had heard of, seen and
tasted different native brews of wine or beer,
but this was a new one in my catalogue. The
being moving in the pahn tree — I thought at
THE WANYIKA 9
first that it was a chimpanzee — was a boy sit-
ting astride a hmb. He had a hatchet in his
hand, and a pointed calabash the size of a quart
bottle protruded from the end of the limb on
which he sat. I watched him carve the top of
the limb and learned that a juice flowed out
of the bleeding branch — pahn wine. I have
since seen many such surgical operations per-
formed on pahn trees, but I cannot share in
the enjoyment of the fluid which makes the
Wanyika so lugubriously and sometimes so
maudlinly happy.
Wanyika huts are an}i;hing but elaborate.
Even the palaces of the chiefs are tawdry
apologies for houses. The picture on the fol-
lowing page offers a fair illustration of the
average Wanyika dwelling. The huts are
built of hud on go (adobe), or grass, or consist
merely of a straight thatched roofing which
extends to the ground. The framework is
composed of the straightest available sticks
tied horizontally to a few thicker rods placed
in the gi'ound from four to five feet apart.
This framework is made in duplicate so that
the builder may fill in the distance between the
two frames with grass or adobe.
The roof is supjDorted by two tall posts, from
which the main rafter hangs, and from this
10 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
rafter the smaller rafters are tied diagonally
to the top of the walls. Cross sticks are used
to make the surface of the roof strong enough
to bear the weight of the crowning thatch,
which represents the greatest artistic feat in-
volved in the building of the hut. It takes an
experienced hand to place the grass evenly
on the roof so that the distribution of weight
is uniform throughout. The grass remains in
place by its own weight, except over the main
center rafter, where it is fastened with grass
ropes. A small "veranda" juts out above the
walls to protect them from rain. In the ordi-
nary hut, which looks like a big round basket
turned upside down, this precaution is unnec-
essary, and the average native prefers the
"basket" pattern because it is easier to build.
There is only one opening in the hut, a four-
foot incision which sei-ves as a door, windows
and chinmey, all in one. It is only two feet i
six inches wide, so that entry into the hut is
accomplished only by a squirming process.
There is little light in the huts, and the at-
mosphere is intolerable, for the hut shelters
not only human beings, who are unpleasantly
fragrant, but chickens, goats, sheep, and not
infrequently a few calves.
Cattle come first, the wives second. The
THE WANYIKA 11
reason is that it takes cattle to buy wives with,
and once the wife is bought she'll keep herself,
but cattle have to be petted and cared for lest
they be lost. That seems to be the train of
thought in the native mind all over Africa.
They give ^lore care to a sick calf than to a
sick wife. /Hence the great care they bestow
on a kraal, or cattle pen. Barring the absence
of a roof, the enclosures sheltering the cows
are better built than their own huts. A young
calf is kept in the hut and occupies the center
of the family's domicile. Even bellowing at
night seems to be music to the native ear.
There is no furniture in the house except
a few water jars, two or three endekos
(gom'ds), a stone tripod for the cooldng pot,
and the paraphernalia for grinding corn, which
includes a mortar and pestle. Only the most
civihzed natives mdulge in bedsteads and mats,
for the majority sleep on the floor without
coverings of any sort.
Sometimes the hut is partitioned to allow
privacy for husband and wife. Two other par-
titions are made under the roof to act as a
gi'anary, and a third is constructed as a basket
or vat for palm wine. So the "living height"
of the hut is cut do^vn to four or five feet —
and the limitations of space, combined with
12 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the odors of humans, beasts and the cuisines,
make the huts umiinhabitable for one accus-
tomed to the niceties of white ventilation.
We had a bad day on the first of December,
having marched out for a distance of ten miles
from the mission to the Giliamu government
headquarters. We fomid our trip wasted, and
the onlj^ picture we had taken was that of an
Indian store, the proprietor of which was kind
enough to offer us some tea. We had scarcely-
left the "bazaar" when a characteristic African
rainstorm put the climax on a miserable day
with a terrific shower, which fortunately over-
took us close to a small native village. My
boy had the foresight to bring an umbrella
with him — more for sunshade than rain — but
it kept me dry from the knees up until we ar-
rived at the village, where the chief offered
us shelter. And such a shelter!
There were a dozen of us packed into the
hut. Dr. Shattuck and I were crammed in
with our boys, porters and the chief's staff.
The odor was terrific. The rats scurried be-
tween my feet and climbed up the thatch im-
mediately behind me. I'd rather face a lion
or a snake than a rat — any time. I was sitting
on the edge of a bedstead manufactured of
four slender sticks stuck in the ground and
THE WANYIKA 13
topped with other smaller sticks arranged
crosswise and covered with a hard cowhide. One
end reached the sloping roof, being partly
stuck in the thatch. When a rat approached
I moved to the far side of the bedstead, and
here I had the pleasant sensation of dirty water
seeping through the thatched roof, trickhng
down my neck. I moved back to my original
position, and presently I heard the scratching
of the rat scurrying along the cowhide bed-
top that drove me off my seat with a start
which made me bump into a rafter of the hut
with an impact that left a black bruise on my
forehead. I left the hut, and with my boy
holding the mnbrella, reinforced with a blanket
over my head, I spent the best part of an hour
imder a tree, which if it did not keep me dry
at least kept me away from the rats.
Wanyika mats and pottery are poor exhib-
its. The Wanyika confine their pottery activ-
ities to the making of the nsua or water-
jar. A half-groMTi cocoanut hollowed out and
moimted on a stick is their only cup. Their
mats are extremely crude and scarce. Most
of the families are without mats and only the
minority can boast this adjmict of civilization.
The villages of the Wanyika are very small
and confine themselves entirely to the huts of
14 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
one family. The father or the older brother
is the chief of this little village and he knows
no superior, for the Wanyika are not inclined
toward the feudal system. Consequently the
colonies are small.
Usually there is a little stockade for cat-
tle— if the chief o^^ais any — which forms the
center of the village. If the head of the fam-
ily has more than one wife he builds a separate
hut for each partner and the children of each
wife live with their mother. Sometimes the
village is surrounded by a low hedge of thorn-
bushes or by other growi:hs which serve as a
barricade. "\Aniere the head of the family hap-
pens also to be chief of some other families,
a small space is cleared around the main hut.
Here tribal consultations take place and fam-
ily brawls are adjudicated.
The plantations are close to the villages and
occupy as little ground as is absolutely neces-
sary for the upkeep of the family. The re-
sult of this economy is frequently disastrous,
for a famine invariably finds the natives with-
out reserve stores, and as the natives do not
sell food to the members of their own tribes,
famine brings wholesale starvation with it.
It occurs to the traveler through the prov-
ince of Giliamu that it is a great pity that a
THE WANYIKA 15
country so well adapted for cultivation and so
luxurious in its wild growths of all sorts of
trees and grasses should not inspire the natives
to be more provident and more industrious.
They could make this country a wonderfully
productive land if they had the stamina and
the inclination to work and to produce. It is
another example of the lack of distribution in
nature and the need of opportunity. Were
this a white man's country, fortunes could be
made by progressive farm_ers, and there would
be a market for the staples of foreign coun-
tries. All facilities are there. Cattle fatten
on the bare land with its deep carpet of rich
nutritious grasses and herbs — yet the herds of
cattle are small and far between.
Physically, the natives are strong and mus-
cular. They are of average height, although
the women are likely to be undersized. Their
mental development is low and their intelli-
gence even below the standard of the average
African tribe. They are listless and verj^ hard
to move. They are sullen and disinclined to
respond to a question even if it be for their
ovm benefit.
They are neither fish, flesh nor even good red
herring so far as their morals are concerned.
I should describe them as laissez-faire moral-
16 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
ists — or immoral. There is a certain sense of
shame attached to the birth of illegitimate chil-
dren, but they overcome this obstacle to the
free indulgence of their passions by preventive
measures and abortive remedies. Prostitu-
tion, as such, is not known to them, but when
a famine arrives, the women leave for the coast
and easily become victims of their craving for
food, selling themselves in the open market to
the highest bidder. The dances, of which I
shall have more to say presently, are not con-
ducive to pure thoughts and in these dances
there are movements which arouse sexual im-
pulses not easily to be checked — especially
among the girls, who are of that age "where
brook and river meet."
The Wanyika girls marry just as they are
coming to maturity and as an argument for
their virtue it may be said that they usually be-
come mothers in the regular course of time.
This fact leads to the inference that the girls do
not over-indulge before their marriage, al-
though it would not be scientifically correct to
say that all of them are virgins before mar-
riage, like the Kavirondo, for instance.
As mothers, they are careful of their chil-
dren and seem to have a well-developed ma-
THE WANYIKA 17
ternal instinct. They attend to their babies
until the time for weaning and treat them ten-
derly, even decking them out bravely with
beads from their o^vn slender store. They
carry the little ones on their backs, often with-
out artificial support, and it is curious to see
the babies cling to their mothers with the
tenacity of a little monkey. (At feeding time,
the niother swings the baby around on her
hip by one arm and gives it the breast while
the child hangs on to its parent with its tiny
legs as it rests on the hip, where it is supported
by the mother's arm. )
Losing a baby through neglect is a crime
that a father never forgives his wife and con-
sequently the poor woman must carrj'- it day
and night in the village, on the road and in the
field. For this purpose they carry the per-
ambulator and cradle on their backs in the
form of a sack fastened around the waist un-
der the arms, supported with a sling from the
head. To the father the baby means a future
helper in war as a boy or advancement in the
community in the girl for whose sale in mar-
riage he realizes cattle and goats.
The one safeguard of the morality of un-
married girls is the fear of their fathers^ who
18 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
look upon their daughters as prospective
sources of wealth. Consequently, when the
girls become mothers of illegitimate children,
their market value dechnes and the fathers
have their o^vn methods of revenging them-
selves. If the lover happens to become the
husband, however, the "value" of the girl is
not affected.
IMarriage takes place at the age of fourteen
or fifteen, depending on the matm'ity of the
girl, who, at this time, is only an apprentice in
cooking and other household arts and who is
therefore taken into the home of a sister or
the mother of the bridegroom for further in-
struction. Her love, of com-se, is not deep-
rooted, and it is chiefly subservient, the fear
of her husband dominating her affection. She
takes matters for granted and follows "the
natural course" as she has learned it from her
mother. When, however, incompatibility of
temperament becomes too evident, the girl
leaves her husband and the father must return
the price which the girl has brought him.
When thxC husband dies, the older brother of
the deceased inherits the A^dfe, who becomes his
property outright; but in case of divorce, the
older brother camiot recover the purchase
VILLAGE LIFE
Village council in Giliamu Evening meal in Uganda
Native store in Giliamu
THE WANYIKA 19
price paid by the first husband. Under such
circumstances, the older brother usually re-
ceives another female of the family to replace
the deserter.
Polygamy is the universal system, and a
man may have as many wives as he can af-
ford to buy. But the prevailing poverty, due
to the scarcity of cattle and the lack of indus-
trial enterprise, forces most men to be content
with one wife.
Joseph, my guide to the dance, confided to
me, with a broad smile on his homely features,
that he was about to marry, and with conmier-
cial shrewdness he dwelt especially on the high
cost of living — of wives, I might say. He sug-
gested that it was the greatest pleasui*e of his
life to assist me as interpreter, but that the loss
of time postponed the wedding for as many
days as he was at my service, because he could
earn no money and buy no cattle so long as he
was with me. I asked him how many head of
cattle he was short. "One," he replied, and
seeing my opportunity, I made a bargain with
him. I was to give him the price of the beast
if he would let me be a witness to his marriage
and permit me to photograph the event. He
beamed with delight at the offer, and before
20 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
my departure I saw Joseph the happy owner
and husband of as charmmg a little dusky
lady as I met on my long journey.
The possessor of two wives is looked upon
as a rich man, and the owner of more is con-
sidered a capitalist. I have heard of one great
mogul who owns sixty wives, and he is the
Croesus of the tribe. Once the purchase price
is agreed on and a deposit paid to bind the
contract there is little objection on the part of
the father to clandestine meetings of the future
husband and wife, and the bridegroom-to-be
is ever a welcome guest.
Wives take great pride in presenting their
lords with as many descendants as possible,
and families of four or five are the average.
The childless wife is in ill-repute whether or
no it be her fault. At childbirth the wives are
assisted by the older women of the neighbor-
hood, but the local midwifery is crude and the
results are obvious from the appearance (en-
larged navel) of many of the natives.
From a standpoint of culture I am always
interested in finding out whether a tribe is
endogamic or exogamous. Endogamy, or in-
marrying, traditions are naturally a manifes-
tation that the tribe is of low standard in the
scale of culture, because when they marry in
THE WANYIKA 21
the same clan they naturally are trespassing
a first law of nature which finds its own down-
fall in the end. Marrying outside the clan
according to a certain law prohibiting even
intermarriages between relatives down to the
X fourth generation will give a clan or tribe a
cliance to proper out-breeding to preserve the
race in healthy condition.
Wanyika marriages are entirely exogamous.
There is no intermarriage inside the clans, and
the men choose their wives from outside fam-
ilies to protect the pm-ity of the breeding.
There are different ways of identifying fam-
ilies, the principal one being identification by
the name given at birth. I have been unable
to find any totem system, but the traditions
of the family are guarded carefully.
Venereal diseases are not common among
the Wanyika, as one may gather from the free-
dom with which they expose their bodies. The
women wear little more than a short kilt and
leave the upper parts of their bodies entirely
exposed, and of the thousands of natives we
saw, there was only one case in which the rav-
ages of s^^hilis were plainly visible. We took
a picture of the victim to show the scarcity of
the disease.
The women mature — or, better, age —
22 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
rapidly. This condition may be explained by
the fact that life is all work and no play for
them, and that continuous child-bearing tends
to make them old before their time. The men,
spending their lives, "dolce far niente," retain
their youth admirably, so that men twice the
age of some women are strong and well-pre-
served when the women are long since worn
out and done with active participation in the
life about them.
The Wanyika marriage ceremony is about
the most cold-blooded commercial transaction
that I have yet found among the native tribes
of Africa. Possibly there is a certain amount
of love and affection involved as far as the
man and his wife are concerned, but the parts
which the parents of the bride play savor of
the straight bargain and sale across the coun-
ter. You pick your article, ask the price, hag-
gle until an agreement is reached — and the
sale is then and there completed.
The wedding which I witnessed was that
of a well-educated young Munyika who had
been a postman in the Cape and who finally
returned to his own tribe because of his great
affection for his own people. He returned
with a little bankroll — which became kno-vvn
to the natives. After looking about for a bride
THE WANYIKA 23
he finally settled his choice on a young maiden
with whom he came to a private understand-
ing. Wlien the daj^ for his application to the
girl's father arrived, he entered the courtyard
of his future parent in an ecstatic frame of
mind. The father was home and had been
acquainted with the fact that his daughter's
affections were taken up entirely by young
Mwangari, who was a "likely" son-in-law and
a good source of revenue for Mwamkare, the
old man. There was little argument in the
matter. As soon as the father had heard the
declarations of the lad, he summoned the girl
out of the hut, where she was waiting anx-
iously. He asked her whether she cared for
Mwangari, and Kaidza answered that she
worshiped the ground he trod on and that she
would follow him wherever he might lead.
With an imperious motion of the hand,
Mwamkare waved her back to the hut. Then
began the customary bargaining — ^the close,
relentless bargaining that only a Wanyika
father seems to be able to indulge in.
"If you are enamored of the girl," he said
to the young lover, "you are showing good
taste, because she is one of the prettiest girls
of the tribe, if not the most beautiful of all.
I have always set great store by this girl, and
24 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
I always knew that some day she would bring
me a good price. Now — I shall let you marry
her if you pay me eight cows and twenty-five
jars of palm wine for her."
Mwangari was taken aback and told the
father that he had been to a foreign country
where matters were reversed, and that he had
learned to cherish a wife according to the Eu-
ropean code, which forbade a man to let his
wife labor on a plantation.
"She will lead the life of a lady," he pleaded,
"and all that she will have to do will be to cook
the food which I shall buy for her."
The father, however, insisted on his price,
and settled the bargain on his own terms, for
Mwangari feared that Kaidza might think
that he underestimated her value. His chiv-
alry was not emulated by the father, who held
out for his price to the last pound of beef, as
it were. Later Mwamkare sent his oldest son
to inspect the cattle, which might later serve
as the purchase price of a wife for himself.
On the return of the son and his approval
of the cattle hung the consummation of the
bargain. The boy returned with a satisfactory
report, and the agi*eement was made. Mwan-
gari thereupon went home to his sister's hut
and told her to prepare to receive his bride.
THE WANYIKA 25
The next day he returned to the village of his
prospective father-in-law and brought with
him a few pieces of wearing apparel such as
the young girl had never dreamed of. After
paying the first installment of five jars of palm
wine to Mwamkare, the boy took his wife with-
out further ceremony to his sister's hut, where
she was installed not only as a guest but as the
wife of the head of the family and treated with
proper deference.
This primitive, cold transaction is much
more barbarous than, for instance, the manner
in which two Baganda marry. I shall discuss
the Baganda wedding later on, but here I may
add to one who takes an interest in the Wan-
yika, the mercenary marriage is a dishearten-
ing institution.
Wanyika women celebrate festal occasions
like weddings by drinking to the point of in-
ebriation, but they do not smoke, snuff or use
tobacco. The men enjoy snuff not only as it
is used by more civilized races, but as a "chew."
As I have pointed out, the natives are addicted
to stimulants, but here again poverty is the
mother of continence. Their lack of resources
prevents much indulgence in their pet vices.
There are but few tribal marks among the
Wanyika. Some natives, especially among
26 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the younger generations, have none at all.
Others have the two lower center front teeth
removed and the corresponding upper teeth
filed in the form of an inverted V. They
pierce the ears, but the aperture never is
greater than the width of one of our five-cent
pieces. At the age of three, boys are circum-
cised, and at the age of eight, the dental oper-
ations referred to above are made. But the
markings, which are a form of crude pagan-
ism, seem to be dying out in the present gen-
eration.
Superstition and forms of idolatry are ex-
tremely interesting to me, and there is a vari-
ety of these practices in Africa which is
astounding. Sun, moon and star worshipers,
which the natives all are to a certain extent,
are to me the most logical phenomena in
Africa. Realizing that there is no mode of
lighting up at night, they naturally would wel-
come the dawning sun in the morning, which
comes to them as a redeemer to expel all the
terrors and dangers of darkness, or the moon,
which enables them to at least go outside their
huts without being pounced upon by some
wild beast which may be hiding within arm's
reach. In the early days of 1896, when I first
touched African soil, and I saw the porters in
THE WANYIKA 27
the caravan offering incense on their little
amulet pallets to a new crescent moon, I
thought the worship foolish; but now, know-
ing the danger of the night tlirough a long ex-
perience, it looks to me like the most logical
thing for them to do to hail the coming of
light the savior. Other systems, of course, are
stuj^id and silly, and in a great many cases
harmful, but even there some extenuation of
their traditions can always be found.
The Wanyika have little superstition or
idolatry, although there are certain animals
which are sacred and immune from slaughter.
The chief object of this inmiunity is the hyena,
which is never molested, and whenever a black
calf is born the natives cover its head with a
box, tie the helpless animal to a tree and offer
it as a sacrifice to the first hyena which may
find it.
The spirits of the ancestors and of persons
who have died recently are fed according to
the primitive animistic ritual. The Wanyika
dig a hole in the ground and place half a gourd
in it. They pour cocoanut milk in the gourd,
mixing it with water, adding some food, such
as flour or meat, and leave the offering for the
nourishment of the departed spirit. The spirit
is summoned by a series of incantations. Only
28 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
those who were respected are honored with this
ceremony and with the funeral dance, which I
shall describe presently. Others are merely
placed in the gromid in front of the hut, to
pass forever out of memory.
On our way up to Giliamu we had an oppor-
tunity to observe a dance which was being in-
dulged in by the Wanyika, and in which we
found that only men participated. There was
a chorus of about a hundred children, ranging
from ten to fifteen years in age, some of whom
were girls. However, there is a dance, known
as the matanga, in which both sexes take part.
This is the funeral dance, which is done only
when a member of the tribe has died. It is
attended by ceremonies designed to expel evil
spirits. First, a white cloth flag is placed on
a stick at the hut of the departed tribesman.
In the dance, the leading dancer wears a red
sash about his waist, to which a spiritual sig-
nificance is attached. This man works him-
self into a frenzy, until he finally runs wild in
the semicircle of the dancers, and after making
fearful grimaces and performing astounding
antics, he finishes the dance with a wild leap
in the air. In this last evolution he holds the
sash and places a straight kick in the stomach
ADMINISTERING JUSTICE
Ordeal in Ukamba called Kithito.
Uganda trial. The winning party rolls his thanks in the dust at
the judges feet
THE WANYIKA 29
of the imaginary evil spirit to drive him for all
time from the premises.
The first dance which we saw was most fan-
tastic. The men were divided into three classes
of dancers. The first and largest class wore
a legging on one leg, composed of bells very
similar to om- sleighbells, fitted on strips of
rawhide which form a harness bound tightly
around the right leg from ankle to hip. They
move the leg provided with this ringing ap-
paratus at a given cadence of singing, which
is done by the choir of children. The second
section of dancers runs around like so many
demons through the onlookers and dancers,
jumping high every now and then with a
weird shout, while they shake their heads as
though they would rise higher — or as though
they had been stung by an electric shock. They
wear a headdress of long, flowing monkey
skins, and carry a wand in the right hand,
which they shake at intervals as though at-
tacking an invisible enemy.
There are leaders who act as "ma j ores
domi," with authority to direct and to bring
into line those who seem about to fall out.
These also carry whips with which they drive
off the too inquisitive spectators who might in-
30 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
terfere with the gyrations of the dancers and
with which they keep the dancers in order. The
dance moves sidewise, bearing to the right
with a slow and graceful movement. The
dancers keep time with the music so well that
one cannot refrain from applause at the conclu-
sion of the performance. The music supplied
by many little children's voices gives an air of
naive innocence to the dance, and the young-
sters stand together as they sing, with their
hands on one another's shoulders, moving on
four abreast, with just a hint of swaying.
The dancers evidently are picked members
of the tribe, for they are conscious of the honor
bestowed upon them, and move without a false
step. "X^Tiile the trained dancers were going
through their movements, a band of young
men were going through the same evolutions,
being guided by the master dancer, who or-
dered them about like a drill sergeant. These
novices would glance at the "professionals"
whenever there was an opening through which
they could watch them.
They looked on with that hungrj^ ambition
which seemed to say, "Wait till I get in that
line!" They had to practice almost against
the music, for whenever a "faux pas" occurred
the step was repeated, regardless of the
THE WANYIKA 31
rhythms supplied by the children. And the
most curious feature of the ceremony was that
there was not a woman participating or look-
ing on in the crowd of at least thiee hundi-ed
persons.
The Wanyika begin their training for this
dance at an early age, for I found that even
youngsters of five or six are trained religiously
to become members of the guild from which
the "professional" dancers are selected. In
the place of the gaudy leg chains which form
the principal decoration of the older dancers,
the children have a poor substitute in the shape
of a chain made of mango stones which are
strung on a bit of copra and womid around the
lower part of the leg with one loop fixed about
the big toe and the other tied about the calf.
It is not much of an imitation of the real thing,
but it keeps the youngsters lively and in good
trim. The more they wriggle their legs, the
better they seem to keep time, and they seem
to enjoy their performance as though it were
their fife's task. The dancing teacher also
seems to relish his duties, for he acts in a whole-
hearted manner, as though he were dancing
with his equals. His standards with the chil-
dren seem to be fully as rigid as though he
were teaching a group of professionals.
32 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
Girls are permitted to participate in the
dance of the boys. At first they are obviously
coy and bashful, as though they were on for-
bidden ground, but once the dance is in full
swing the}^ have to be restrained from making
advances to the young lads. They make a
striking effect wdth their thin cahco skirts,
which have double or triple fringes, according
to the wealth of the girl's family. These con-
cessions to modesty are from three to nine
inches in length and do not extend far down
the thigh. Beyond the swaying skirt, the girls
are not particular about their costumes, for
they are rather fond of exhibiting the pretty
figures to which many of them lay claim.
The funeral dance, of which I saw a sample
on the 29th of November, was a revelation and
raised the Wanyika in my estimation. "Why
they should thus mom^n their dead is still a
puzzle to me, but the dance brings out some
of the most artistic evolutions that I have ever
seen. The graceful, rhythmic swaying of the
men's bodies is marvelous, well studied and
carefully executed. The same rattling har-
ness described previously is worn at the funeral
dance, and part of the dancing is the same so
far as the men are concerned. The novel addi-
tion is the wiggling and wi'iggling — I cannot
THE WANYIKA 33
define it otherwise — of the couples when they
meet for a set. It may sound curious to the
American mind, but it is only in harmony with
the native customs all over Africa that the
women do the calling here, showing that the
woman is the slave, always catering to man,
her master.
The sets, of which there may be two or three,
are made up of picked male dancers, all tall
and well-built men, and girls of from twelve
to sixteen, whose wool-topped heads barely
reach the chins of their partners. The men
sing a weird song, telling of the sad death of
the subject of the *'wake," and ask the girls
to join them in bewailing the sad departm*e,
reminding them that when a person dies there
must be a substitute to replace the deceased,
lest the tribe perish. In answer to these tact-
ful overtm*es the girls glance at one another
coyly and diffidently from their place, which
is about fifty feet removed from the line of
men. The men resume their exhortations and
the maidens walk up to the line of men. They
do not speak on their arrival and make only
the slightest courtesy, after which they return
to their previous position.
The men then begin a snake-like motion of
the body, and with two taps of the armored
34 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
leg for every one of the unadorned mate, they
advance toward the women, with all the ben-
efits to be derived from the jingling of the
bells. Approaching the line of maidens, the
men allure the fair ones with a most intriguing
execution of a most captivating pass, after
which each faces a partner, who bows a bashful
assent to the invitation. Thereupon the man
lays his chin on his partner's forehead. Each
begins a motion of the body which is rather
suggestive, but the situation is not so shocking
as it might be, for both keep their hands hang-
ing hmply at their sides and bend forward.
The crowd looks on and claps hands in ap-
plause, at the same time singing a crude but
effective ditty. The "tout ensemble" is a won-
derful display of native art carried out in the
minutest detail, as though a ballet master had
spent years in training the performers. But
there is no stage director among the Wanyika,
no miracle man of aesthetics. Each native
teaches the next what he knows, and those
whose execution is not up to the standard are
barred from the dance. Perhaps this descrip-
tion gives the impression that the dance is
monotonous, but I could watch the evolutions
for hours and always find new features of
interest.
THE WANYIKA 35
The final act, when the mixed dancing is
completed, is a wild scene. The dancers take
leave of the maidens and withdraw to a posi-
tion about twenty feet away, where they start
a war dance in a semicircle, all walking or
dancing slowly toward the right, stamping
their armored legs. A\Tien they have assumed
their formal position, one member jumps out
of line and runs around the semicircle, sway-
ing his hands and feet. Another reproduces
his antics, and then the scene is set for the mas-
ter dancer, who comes out solemnly and takes
the front of the stage. This official leaps about
and runs the circle until he is "warmed up,"
when he takes one leap in the air, and in mid-
air kicks out his armored leg with a violence
that would do credit to a champion hurdler.
The kick is intended to exorcize the evil spirit
of death. That is the end of the program,
which is repeated, da capo, ad in fin.
The music for this dance is furnished by a
couple of tom-toms, a flute, a hunting horn,
and the singing of the youngsters, who attend
the dance in large numbers. They clap their
hands to the rh}i;hm of the dancing and stamp
their little feet as though they, too, were part
of the ceremony. The great feature of the
music, however, is the clanging of the bells on
36 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the armored legs, which is so perfect in time
that one cannot detect a single misstep of a
foot in this vast crowd of dancers. There were
more than forty "star" dancers in the per-
formance which I attended, and during the
hour and a half that I watched them I looked
for breaks in the rhythm, but I did not hear a
bell that was out of time. The bells are like
our sleighbells, and they are made of iron tied
to strings of rawhide, five in a row. These
rows begin at the ankle and run up to the joint
of the hip and thigh at intervals of two or three
inches. The harness is tremendously • heavy
and could not weigh an ounce under fifteen
pounds. The fantastic headgear of monkey
skins and cow tails, feathers and waving
plumes, adds "local color" to the dance and
helps to make the whole spectacle distinctively
native.
THE WAKAMBA
Leaving the Wanyika after a pleasant stay
of two weeks among them, we returned to
Mariakani station on the Uganda Raih'oad for
the bi-weekly train, and were pleasantly sur-
prised to see the sparks from the wood-burning
engine splash around the toy locomotive.
There was the usual haggling and fighting
about the surplus amount of luggage to be
crowded into the little guard van. But a
freight train brought the balance, which we
had to leave on the platform, after only one
day's delay. We therefore moved on farther
west for a distance of some two hundred miles,
and feasted our eyes on the large herds of the
various kinds of antelope and deer which ran
a distance, then faced the train expectantly,
and again turned and ran another few hundred
yards to renew their caprices. Ostriches paced
a few hundred yards to the right, parallel to
the roadbed, moving their long legs in meas-
ured inverted V's and clapping their feather-
37
r "1 ". '> J
38 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
less wings like useless Cupid appendages. This
sign of life at least gave us an intimation that
at last we had left the effete coast and pierced
into the real Africa of the hunter's dreams,
with Ukamba as the gate.
I always had a great desire to know more
about the Wakamba. In my earlier mission-
ary days I used to watch them in camp. The
joy at the killing of a zebra or kongoni and
the relish with which they used to eat the raw
or slightly roasted meat and tear away at it
with theu' saw-like teeth had a fascination for
me which made me always anxious to know
them better. Hence it was with a pleasant
anticipation that I swung off the train at
Kapiti Plains and pitched camp on the very
spot which ten years ago had sheltered our be-
loved and lamented Theodore Roosevelt.
To a certain extent I was disappointed, be-
cause they had changed so much since the early
days of 1900, when they were still in their sav-
age glory. They are now a mixed breed, and
civilizing influences, although not entirely suc-
cessful, have mitigated their raw savagery of
old.
"Arizona all over again," said my compan-
ion when we struck Kapiti Plains and had left
the Roosevelt camp. Nothing to be seen but a
THE WAKAMBA 39
slight bluff at the end of a gently sloping plain.
The bluff, however, had Avitnessed many a kill-
ing in former days, when the lions made Kapiti
the Eldorado of big game hunters and when
Stony Athi was THE lion cage of the world.
Kongoni were still to be found in great herds
and little did I know that I was prophesying
when I remarked to my companion what a
waste of good teeth this plain contained in the
many bleached skulls which the plain revealed
ahnost at every rod.
It happened to be the very ground where
the AYakamba get their teeth renewed from the
rich choice scattered along that road. It is
unbelievable that the Wakamba should be able
to insert these artificial teeth so skillfully that
they won't come out after they are screwed
into their place, but it is a fact notwithstand-
ing that the Ukamba youth whose picture I
have both in still and moving photograph has
no less than six of these artificial teeth screwed
into his upper jaw. He took one of them out
before the camera and put it back again, and
if it were not for that exhibition I would have
joined the chorus of skeptics who have smiled
in my face when I related the phenomenon.
The Wakamba, or, as they call themselves,
Akamba, are a Bantu tribe occupying a large
40 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
territory which begins west of the station of
Mariakani on the Uganda Raih'oad and which
borders on the Wanyika lands to Athi Station
on the same line, at whfch point it converges
with the territory of the Wakikuyu. The popu-
lation of the Wakamba territory is estimated
at 235,000, a figure based on the returns from
the hut taxes which the British government has
imposed on the Wakamba tribe. This popu-
lation is scattered over an area of about 150
miles from east to west, and an irregular
stretch from .lorth to south.
The tribe is essentially of Bantu stock, al-
though the many raids which they have made
on the Wakikuyu and the Masai have brought
about an admixture of Nilotic and Hamitic
blood, for the slaves taken on these marauding
excursions have left their mark on their prog-
eny. Except for this infusion of Nilotic and
Hamitic blood the Wakamba are a pure race,
for they are most exclusive when it comes to
taking in strangers by intermarriage.
Clan life is not highly developed in the
Wakamba tribe. According to the best avail-
able information, there are only eight original
clans, and some of these, like the Atui, are
subdivided into three clans which may not in-
termarry among themselves, although any
THE WAKAMBA 41
member of the three may marry a girl from
the mother clan. This peculiar regulation
necessarily tends toward a degree of inbreed-
ing and seems to contradict a statement made
by Mr. Hobley in his book on the Wakamba
to the effect that they are probably the purest
extant tribe of Bantu. I base this argument
on the fact that the Wakamba are insensible
to the deleterious effects of inbreeding, where-
as the other tribes are keenly aware of them.
Moreover, there are fewer totems among the
Wakamba than there are among most of the
other Bantu tribes. Several clans have the
same totem, and as the totem is the chief dis-
tinguishing mark by which the purity of the
clan is guarded and by which inbreeding is
avoided, I come to the conclusion that the
practices of the Wakamba unavoidably result
in alliances by which close relatives become
the parents of a less pure progeny.
The small list of totems also points to the
same conclusion. AAHiere many totems define
the limits of mating selection with an iron-
clad barrier about the preserves, there is less
danger of mistakes, so that this line of de-
marcation guards against subsequent degen-
eration. ^^^lat I have said about the preser-
vation of the purity of the tribe may be re-
42 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
peated in regard to the original prominence
of the tribal perfection as a Bantu group. We
must bear in mind that, after all, language is
the strongest criterion or factor dividing the
Nilotic and Bantu camps. The language of
the Wakamba is not so purely Bantu as that,
for example, of the Baganda or Urundi. This
characteristic may be ascribed to the strong
influence of the Masai strain in the tribe, but
the fact remains that the limited and generic
nature of the Wakamba totems contrasted
with the long litany of these guardian angels
of purity among other tribes seems to call for
some other explanation of the "distinction'*
conferred on the Wakamba.
The Wakamba muster only four animal
totems — ^the tortoise (the general totem of all
the Wakamba) , the pig, the bush buck, and the
Mbungu bird. The other totems are certain
parts of an animal, such as the liver, the head
or the lungs of any, or, in some cases, a spec-
ified beast. This, I think, is not a great
enough variety of interdicted food specifics to
prevent inbreeding. However, I merely men-
tion this matter to indicate that clan develop-
ment among the Wakamba is not especially
pronounced.
Wakamba huts are very unpretentious
THE WAKAMBA 43
abodes. They are built of twigs in the form
of a beehive, circular and not more than fif-
teen feet in diameter. They are divided in two
parts, one partition serving to permit a certain
amount of privacy for the father and mother
of the family. Parents and children have sep-
arate fireplaces.
Small as the huts are, there is a great deal of
ceremony attached to the building of them.
Like the Wanyika, the Wakamba are not gre-
garious and each family has its own village;
therefore when one speaks of the building of
a house, one means the establishment of a vil-
lage, to which much superstition is attached.
On my way from Machakos to Stony Athi
I saw an old man throwing stones from a cen-
tral position which he had taken up, and when
he turned from one quarter to another, throw-
ing stones to the four directions of the wind, I
thought he was performing some pagan rite or
other and naturally wanted to know what it
was all about. One of my guides maintained
that he was picking a building site. Being
more or less interested in real estate, I thought
I might pick up some new information for my
real estate agent friends, therefore I "stopped,
looked and listened," and this is what it all
meant.
44 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
The medicine man must select the site for
the village, and he arrives at his choice by
throwing stones in various directions. AA^ien
he is satisfied that he has located the right
place he sprinkles the area with the blood of
a goat and with the contents of the goat's
stomach. The prospective builder offers uj)
this goat, but he does not eat it, for the meat
is the baccici (fee) for the medicine man.
The boma (enclosm*e) is built first, and on
its completion the family sleeps four days in
the open hojtia under a scanty shelter. It is
required that husband and wife cohabit there
on the second and fourth nights, lest there be
no more children. AMien all of these rites
have been performed correctly, poles for the
building of the house are brought from the
forest or the woods. Allien the poles are
planted, a little grass is spread over them and
a meal of porridge is cooked. A portion of
this food is smeared on the poles; the family
partakes of the meal ; and the rest of it, divided
into four pieces, is strewn on the floor, along
with six pieces of meat, if meat is part of the
meal. On the second night of their residence
in this framework the parents must again per-
form their marital obligations lest ill fortune
strike the house. When finally the house is
THE WAKAMBA 45
erected, the owner must prepare a feast for
his relatives and slaughter two goats to initi-
ate the building properly. Later on a second
and possibly a third house may be added, along
with small grain huts.
The Wakamba are now an agricultural and
pastoral tribe by occupation, and they derive
their foodstuffs from their labors, although
originally they were purely pastoral. At
present they live principally on grains, espe-
cially maize, mtama, mawele and wimbi, which
they fuse into a porridge which they Uke to
mix with honey or milk. Green bananas and
Indian corn are their choicest delicacies. They
retain a special relish for a dish which they
used to regard as a staple when they hunted
and herded the cattle which is now too valuable
to eat. This entree is the raw blood of an ani-
mal— either deer or bullock — which they ex-
tract from the jugular vein. The animal need
not be killed to provide this "piece de resist-
ance," for the blood can be tapped without
slaughter. The liquid is churned in a gourd
and drunk from small leaves, which take the
place of spoons.
To obtain the blood of the bullock, they
throw the animal on the ground and tighten a
rope of rawhide about its neck to accumulate
46 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the blood. Then they shoot an arrow into the
jugular vem, from which the blood forthwith
spurts in great quantities. Sometimes they
apply their lips directly to the wound to
quench their thirst for their favorite non-
intoxicating beverage. As soon as the rope is
removed from the bullock's neck the bleeding
stops and the animal jumps up and bolts
away, none the worse for the experience.
The Wakamba maintain a gruesome system
of tribal marks, which seems to be dying out,
although many of the younger members of the
tribe still indulge in it. The older generations
have obeyed the code religiously and take
pride in it, and they condemn the youths for
not carrying on the tradition. The chief cus-
tom is to chip the teeth, and there are special
artists who perform this ceremony. They use
a small chisel and hammer with which they
knock off minute pieces of the four incisors
and sometimes the eye teeth, until the teeth
look like spikes. The upper jaw consequently
resembles a fine saw. The artist chisels around
the nerve without striking it, taking off the
enamel but leaving the cement protection for
the root. A minimum of enamel is left so as
not to endanger the cement. The result of the
operation is that certain teeth are made ex-
BLOOD DRINKING OF THE WAKAMBA
In the time of famine the Wakamba do not kill their animals
but extract and drink their blood.
Preparing for the operation. Shooting the arrow into the bull's neck
to extract the blood. The bull is bled from the jugular vein
in the neck.
Drinking the warm, raw, foaming blood with spoons made from the
leaves of a tree.
^>
o:
H-
C/3'
d;
o.
q:
Z'-
(/)
M
cu
>-
THE WAKAMBA 47
ceedingly sharp for the purpose of eating raw
meat and its shred fibers. The juicy substance
of the meat is thereby extracted with ease and
the natives derive the full benefit of their food.
These dental manipulations give the Wa-
kamba an unpleasant appearance, for the best
featm-e of the negro is the healthy and regular
line of teeth which is naturally his. When the
teeth are damaged the sm'rounding features
seem the uglier for it. The Wakamba aggra-
vate matters by breaking out the two central
incisors of the lower jaw in order to ward off
starvation during an attack of tetanus. The
Wakamba seem to revel in sacrificing health
for beauty — and for fancy. As a result of
these dental mutilations the condition of their
gums and mouths in general is deplorable.
Festering sets in almost universally and pus
forms about the roots of the teeth, generally
causing the loss of the teeth. Pyorrhea is com-
mon, and more serious mouth infections occur
frequently. Yet there is a compensation for
these evils, because the Wakamba have devel-
oped some remarkable dentists. Lost upper
teeth are replaced with new ones obtained
from the kongoni or hartebeest. These arti-
ficial teeth are grafted on the cavities and ham-
mered in until they remain in place. The new
48 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
teeth are filed or chipped to resemble the orig-
inal set. We saw one young Mukamba who
had six teeth extracted and replaced in this
manner, and he was able to take them all out
and screw them in again for eating purposes.
Yet despite the startling dental accomplish-
ments of the Wakamba I found that most of
the natives have their mouths in a shocking
condition.
What the Wakamba lack orally they seem
to gain in sight and hearing. These senses
are developed abnormally. The Wakamba
can see a long distance and can describe an
animal accurately when we can scarcely see the
beast. This ability gives one an uncanny feel-
ing. Their auricular sense is equally amazing.
They can speak to one another in ordinary
conversational tones at a distance of one hun-
dred yards without difficulty.
What makes the Wakamba such fine track-
ers and gunbearers is this abnormal sense of
hearing. This sense is so acutely developed
that a white man in pursuit would have no
chance with them. Their sense of am-icular
perception is as phenomenal as the sense of
odor in an elephant.
Another tribal mark which is very common
is one which seems to be equally common in
THE WAKAMBA 49
the United States. It is the method of beauty
culture which compels the women to pick out
their eyebrows. Some of the natives (the
Wakamba, of com-se!) go so far as to carry
a pair or more of tweezers with them wherever
they travel. The operation, I suppose, is pain-
ful, but beauty will not be gainsaid and the
natives will sacrifice nothing more willingly
than their eyebrows. Considering the black-
ness of the Africans, the absence of eyebrows
really makes little difference, for the beauty
spots are of the same color as the rest of the
skin and the hair ; but the natives seem to find
an cTsthetic dehght in the operation — and with
the women, that is ample ground for anything !
Another and more cruel mark is the scari-
fication of their skins, especially on the abdo-
men and the breasts. This habit, together with
the fashion of wearing copper and brass rings
and waistbands, causes an almost universal
complaint of skin trouble. There are few
women in the Wakamba district who are not
afflicted with coarse and often diseased skins.
Their condition is aggravated by their insist-
ence on greasing themselves with a crude mix-
ture of rancid butter. This combination of
irritants will leave little occasion for a medical
rechercheur to look further for the origin and
50 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
causes of the prevalent dermal trouble. The
fact that the natives wear tanned and cured
goatskins, which are seldom if ever cleaned or
washed, does not help to cure the disease, for
the apparel absorbs a great part of the matter
given off by the body and retains the putrefied
excretions of the sores.
To cicatrize these marks on the skin in vari-
ous patterns they use a knife and a needle
simultaneously, yet not a sigh escapes these
brave maidens when they submit in the cause
of beauty.
The ear also cannot escape the ravages of
mutilation which are demanded by the implac-
able law of fashion. Our o^\ti earrings hang
easily from the tiniest puncture, but the
Wakamba affect chains of enormous weight
and dimensions, and the thousand and one
other articles which they carry in their ears
could not be accommodated unless the whole
lobe of the ear were split open and extended.
Even this generous measure does not fill the
Wakamba beauty's cup of joy. She must
carry her ornaments not only at the bottom of
the ear but at the top. So she makes a clean
job of it — and the result is an ear that looks as
though it were knotted and folded over with
the weight of the trinkets.
THE WAKAMBA 51
Nor is the scalp immune from beautifying
artifices. The scalp is treated with relative
tenderness, but the results are divers and be-
wildering. It would be futile to attempt to
catalogue the many patterns in which the hair
is shaved. Moons, half-moons, quarter cres-
cents and stars are very popular; twists,
spirals, prisms — all the figures known to math-
ematics and trigonometry are found on the
fashion plates in the tonsorial department of
the Wakamba. To leave two or more tufts
growing after the bulk of the hair has been re-
moved is the height of good form. Sometimes
one sees a beautiful pyramid standing straight
up on the top of the head to lend enchantment
to Uka's dome. The whims of Lady Fashion
are strange and elusive — but so long as her
devotees are ready to pay the price in blood
and pain, what may a man say in protest?
Closely allied to the tribal marks is the ques-
tion of dress — another concession to vanity.
The men are indifferent in the matter, for their
personal pride is not developed in this direc-
tion. They seem to be almost callous to self-
respect and are content to let a blanket cover
their nakedness. Before the advent of blankets
they wore skins, and they were not particular
whether the skins protected them above or be-
52 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
low the waist. A portable chair and a snuff-
box— ah, that were happiness enow for them!
But the women! Well, "you know what
women are." There was a banquet in Nairobi
at which most of the diners were in what is
known as "full" evening costume. A facetious
old-timer in British East Africa remarked that
the more clothes the African women adopted,
the less the white women seemed to wear. I
shall not pass judgment on this uncharitable
observation, but it brings out the point that
the African women are not so insensible to
clothes as they used to be.
However, the Wakamba women are an
exception, for they always had an inter-
est in dress and they have a prescribed
wear for each stage of life through which
bhey pass. They begin their career with
a little beaded life-belt to which other beaded
coils are added until, at the age of ten or
twelve, they have accumulated quite a wide
band of strings of beads. This band, in most
cases, is wider than a cholera belt, and it comes
in every conceivable color. At this age they
begin to indulge in jewelry, such as armlets,
necklets, arm and elbow coils of brass and cop-
per, and all the rest of the feminine gewgaws.
They pile on neck rings until they are bur-«
THE WAKAMBA 53
dened with a sizeable stock of hardware, al-
though, as I have mentioned, these ornaments
produce scars and irritations on the skin. The
girls always wear a httle apron, but when they
are about ten years old they put on well-cured
skins or a cloth mantle thoroughly soaked in
castor oil and lava dust. This garment is sup-
posed to last a lifetime, and as they advance in
age the women may add a blanket or two under
the cloth. The old women wear a skin, over
or under which they frequently wrap a cloth
mantle. In their old age they retain whatever
luxury life has provided for them.
Marriage customs are, of course, absorb-
ingly interesting always and everywhere, and
I never pass a tribe without investigating into
its ceremonial customs and methods of bridal
acquisition. This, to my way of thinking, and
the dance give one a better key to the status
of culture in a given tribe than any other usage
displayed. I like the old Baganda system the
best, because there they use every method
known in the matrimonial mill. I wrote a the-
sis on that question, and I believe that the sys-
tem of matrimony reflects the mental attitude
of a clan or tribe, in regard to the moral status,
very accm-ately. It is for this reason particu-
larly that I look upon the Wakamba as an un-
54 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
moral people, ha^-ing no regard for their bar-
gains once a contract is made.
Marriage is a ceremony about which the
Wakamba trouble themselves even less than
the Wanyika; with them, it will be remem-
bered, marriage is purely a matter of com-
merce. Not that the AVakamba overlook the
important part of the transaction which means
so many cows or goats added to the herds of
the bride's father, but there is even less cere-
mony in the giving of the daughter and her
departure from home than there is with the
Wanyika. With the Wakamba, marriage is
a deal in which the young man is fleeced.
The young man and the young woman be-
come acquainted, and when there is a mutual
understanding the prospective bridegroom in-
forms his father who, accompanied by a couple
of goats, calls on the yoimg woman's father.
The goats are handed over to the father-in-
law-to-be, and after the import of the caU is
explained the two men confer about the pros-
pects of their children and the young man's
father departs. Three days later he returns
with three she-goats and another conference
takes place. Seven days later he pays another
visit, bringing with him six goats. A subse-
quent call enriches the girl's father by twenty
THE WAKAMBA 55
to forty additional goats — and then the recipi-
ent recalls that he has neglected to demand one
or two bulls. When the final animal offering
is delivered, along with three or four gourds of
"Tembo," the fathers drink to the bargain.
While the conviviality is at its height, the girl's
family is informed of the transaction, and this
is a cue for the men to prepare for a battle.
Six brothers or other relatives of the groom
leave their homes well armed, and approach
the house of the girl. She, knowing the
day and the hour, strolls into the field where
her brothers are herding the flocks. The six
stalwarts attempt to carry her off. The
brothers contest the maneuver. If the kidnap-
ers are repulsed, the bridegroom is obliged to
forfeit ten additional goats. The w^hole pro-
cedure is not unlike the forcible bride-snatching
of the early Teutons.
The girl, having been kidnaped successfully,
is taken to the hut of her father-in-law, where
she is treated with the utmost consideration,
and after the birth of the first child the hus-
band builds his o^vn hut and forms his own
establishment. Three weeks after this event
the bride's mother receives fourteen bunches of
bananas, one male sheep, one large male goat
and other food. Then the young man halves
56 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
a young bullock, one half of which goes to the
mother-in-law. l^Hien he has delivered this
present he suggests to his wife that she go with
him out of the village of her parents. He looks
about as though he were suspicious of trickery,
and when he reaches the village limits he takes
the girl by the hand and they go home to stay.
Hereafter the yomig husband never speaks to
his mother-in-law again, and he must avoid her
should they meet on the road.
The day after this ceremony three of the
girl's female friends go to the hut of the young
couple and receive some beads. Here they stay
for three days, during which time they weep
and lament the departure of their old com-
panion.
Sometimes an elopement takes place, but if
the girl's father objects, the girl must be re-
turned and there must be a wedding according
to custom. It is quite conmion for the
Wakamba to lend their wives to visiting
brothers or clansmen, and there is no resent-
ment on the part of the lady who receives this
change of venue without being consulted.
The Wakamba are exogamous in their
choice of life partners, except where there is a
subdivision of the clan, in which case, as I have
THE WAKxlMBA 57
pointed out before, there may be an endog-
amous union.
Birth customs among the Wakamba are
very peculiar. The mother is confined stand-
ing up, clinging to a horizontal pole, with her
limbs spread out wide to facilitate the birth.
There are two women in attendance, one to re-
ceive the baby and the other to sever the um-
bilical cord, which she immediately buries
close to the house. The mother may not leave
the hut for twentj^ days after the birth, and
she is fed by the women in attendance. At the
end of this period the parents have their first
ceremonial cohabitation, during which the child
is placed on the breast of the mother to make
certain the birth of other children. This con-
tinues until the first menstruation occurs,
after which the mother carries the child on her
shoulder. "\Mien a child is born feet foremost,
it is a bad omen, and such children are circum-
cised apart from the rest and are always looked
at askance. They can never find anyone will-
ing to marry them and practically become out-
casts.
Formerly it was the custom to bury alive
a girl born as one of twins, because she
was thought to bring ill fortune to the family.
58 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
Beer is brewed on the day of the birth, to be
consumed three days later at a feast given by
the father, who also kills a goat or a bullock,
depending on his wealth. Six months before
the expected birth of a child the woman ceases
to live with her husband. During the full term
of carrying the child, she must not eat butter,
for butter is supposed to kill the child. (Un-
married women who have conceived consume
butter as an abortive measure. ) Nor must the
mother eat honey during her pregnancy, be-
cause honey is fattening and would fatten the
child to such an extent that the mother would
die in giving birth or become incapable of de-
livering it.
The Wakamba have little respect for the
dead, and for the rank and file of the people
there is not even a burial. Peasants and
women are thrown out into the bush without
being placed under the ground, and their
bodies are allowed to rot or to be eaten by the
jackals and the hyenas. Usually the beasts
of prey deliver the last rites in their own
ghastly manner. The common dead are even
stripped of their clothing, if they have any,
and they are neither mourned nor honored with
a cortege when they are disposed of in the
bush.
THE WAKAMBA 59
I had no opportunity to observe the funeral
rites of the Wakamba, but I am told
that their system is a heartless one. Battle-
field hyenas of the Napoleonic wars have much
in common with these gentry. The chiefs and
heads of villages fare a little better, but there
is none of the elaborate mourning which is
common in other tribes. The natives dig a
grave for a prominent man and deposit his
naked body in the aperture. The spirit is fed
from time to time by food which is left on the
plot where he is laid away. No cultivation is
permitted on this land, and soon it is over-
grown with weeds, which generally are the
mark of the resting place of a chief.
There is a prescribed mourning term of
twenty days to be observed by the relatives of
the departed, but this is in reality a period of
feasting rather than a time of sorrow. Great
quantities of beer are consumed, and there are
dances, but not the kind of dances which the
Wanyika perform as a religious observance.
The village mom-ns one day for a chief, and
there is a continuous wailing from morning
until night. The wife, the children and the
brothers do not shave their hair for seven days.
All marital rights are suspended for two days
after a death, however humble, for it is believed
60 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
that a child conceived under such circum-
stances is shadowed by death, and that even
if it survived it would be the slave of lethal
spirits. 'Nor is there eating for one day after
a death, lest the gaunt spirit share the feast
and reap more victims. There is wailing for
three hours after every death, not for sorrow
but to expel the evil spirit from the community.
Being a graduate in Jurisprudence with a
hobby for ancient Anglo-American legal insti-
tutions, I revel in old, "moyen age" and modern
jury methods and our ancestral ordeals by
water and fire, which together with our other
systems might almost have been taken "en
bloc" into the Wakamba procedure. Of
course, they have no plowshares nor pitch, but
otherwise they follow us pretty closely. The
"Kithito" particularly is a remarkable insti-
tution.
The Wakamba have some odd methods for
meting out justice. They favor various forms
of ordeals which are similar to the early Eng-
lish system of trying a case. One instance is
ordeal by fire. The medicine man heats an
iron, confers a certain power on the heated iron
and thereafter hands it to the accused, who, he
says, shall not be burned if he is not guilty. If,
however, the iron hui'ts him, his guilt is mani-
THE WAKAMBA 61
fest. There is also a water test, which is em-
ployed when several persons are suspected of
a given misdeed and when there is no specific
evidence against any one of them. The sus-
pects are placed in a semicircle by the medicine
man, who, after lining up the persons on trial,
fills a gom'd with water and begins to revolve
it. If the guilty one is in the party the gourd
will spout forth water when it is turned toward
this individual, whose guilt is thereupon de-
clared.
Something approximating the sanctity of
our oath is administered in a case where there
is no direct evidence, but where strong sus-
picion attaches to a certain individual. The
suspect is brought before the "Nzama," or na-
tive council of elders, who sit in judgment.
The accused is asked over and over again
whether he is guilty of the offense with which
he is charged. If he declines to answer satis-
factorily he is finally confronted with the
"Kithito," or sacred horn, before which he must
swear his innocence. The sacred horn, which
is one of a kongoni or hartebeest, or of a bul-
lock, is filled with weeds and a certain poison.
The "Kithito" is placed on the rocks and a
little twig is laid on the sacred emblem. There-
upon the accused is charged by the medicine
62 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
man to demonstrate his innocence on the holy-
fetish, and he is informed that if he swears
falsely he is bound to die; if he swears truly,
the stain will be removed from his character.
So strongly do the natives believe in the effi-
cacy of the oath that if they are guilty they will
refuse to swear on the "Kithito" and confess
their crime rather than face certain death. If
they are innocent, they make their oath with-
out fear. The "Kithito" is much in use at the
present time, and it is the best friend of the
officers of the com'ts among the Wakamba,
because it weeds out many cases which other-
wise would have to be tried in regular courts.
The chief or any elder may administer the
oath, and if a quorum be lacking, any of the
natives may sit in judgment. The form of
the oath is to take up the twig from the horn
and to hold it out to the judges, who are there-
by convinced of the innocence of the defendant.
Sometimes the twig remains on the horn, and
the oath-taker receives a similar twig with
which to touch the other. The "Kithito" is
used also to make peace between two clans of
the Wakamba, and it is handed down from
father to son, becoming a traditional sacred
relic in the family. The different foods and
THE WAKAMBA 63
medicines with which the horn is filled are re-
newed on occasion, and when the "Kithito" is
to be used it is smeared with the fat of a sheep.
Capital punishment is not known among the
Wakamba, but a code which sounds like the
early "dooms" of the English courts is used
by the elders and the medicine men. For in-
stance, an assault whereby the head of the com-
plainant is severely injured is atoned for by
one goat or ox, or even by as much as five cows,
if the hurt is disfiguring. Rape is punished by
a forfeit of two goats — three, if the girl has
conceived. In this €rime the girl receives the
skin and the elders consume the meat.
When a person proves to be a habitual thief
or a constant nuisance, he is "removed from the
face of the earth," but not by capital punish-
ment. He (or she) is warned repeatedly that
he will be reported to the heads of his family
or clan and that thereafter the clan will be
held responsible for his actions. If, after such
warning, there is no improvement in his be-
havior, the family or clan is looked upon as a
menace to public safety and dealt with accord-
ingly. As a result of this law the clan usually
gives its delinquent member another warning;
if this ultimatum is ignored a certain member
64 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
of the family is detailed to kill the offender —
and this duty is generally performed with
alacrity.
Succession rights are equitable among the
tribe. When the head of a family dies his
wives are inherited by his brothers, who appor-
tion them among themselves, and the property
passes on to the sons. Daughters are not
*'named in the will," but their uncles are mor-
ally bound to support them.
Having had such a good time at the
Wanyika dance, I was much disappointed in
that of the Wakamba. There seemed to be a
lack of aesthetic or mystical meaning to it, or
if there was any I could not find it, except the
diabolical meaning of the witch dance.
Unlike the Wanyika, the Wakamba have
very poor dances. They compensate for the
lack of quality in the dancing by holding these
functions as frequently as possible; there are
terpsichorean sessions daily, whenever a suffi-
cient number of dancers can be gathered to-
gether. A semicircle is formed, with men at
the lower end of the line and the women on the
other. The men beat a drum, which they hold
between themselves and the women, and they
continue raising the sound throughout the evo-
lutions. The partners assume a "cheek-to-
s= >>
k' ^ M r^ f-1 *-- • '^ n
. u U u ^'
i U h| ^ i-^ K H'^
ILi »«i L~ k
^ ^=-^:'
THE WAKAMBA 65
cheek" posi^ure — as though they were in one of
our fashioiiable griUrooms — but only the men
move their feet. The women remain still be-
low the waist, but they ^vi'iggle the upper parts
of their bodies in a manner that reminds one of
the "shimmy," while their arms hang limply at
their sides. The men and women come to-
gether at the start of the dance proper — or im-
proper, if you prefer — and stay in one place
throughout. A shrill whistle accompanies the
dance, which, however, cannot be said to pos-
sess artistic or rhythmic elements.
The old women have a witch dance which is
rather eery in its effect. The movements are
similar to those indulged in by the younger
dancers except that the old women do not in-
dulge in the voluptuous contortions of their
younger sisters. There is something sensual
in the antics of the half-naked j^omig women,
but the old women behave in harmless fashion.
The sight is rather disgusting on account of
the ugly appearance of the old creatures. If
the dance had a pleasant connotation no one
could cavil at the old women having their meed
of pleasure, but the witch dance carries with
it a dreadful meaning. This dance is not only
intended for a possible future execution of the
kind that I have described (the death sentence
66 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
of a habitual thief or other malefactor), but
where such a death is impending the old women
who have a gi'ievance against the victim dance
this witch dance to implore the spirit of death
to come and seize the object of their hatred.
Formerly it was not uncommon to execute an
old woman past usefulness or any woman who
no longer could bear children or perform the
ordinary drudge of labor.
When such an execution were foreseen other
aged women would gather and hold the witch
dance partly for self-protection and partly to
invoke the vengeance of the spirits of the an-
cestors on the guilty parties who intended to
kill the aged woman.
There is little to be said of the industries of
the Wakamba. Although the men are not
quite so listless and lackadaisical as the Wanyi-
ka, there is little energy to be found. The men
occasionally assist the women in the fields, but
they are very unreliable workers. The only
labor at which they do not lack enterprise is
the making of beer, of which they are abnor-
mally fond. It is not easy at this time to see
them at this task, for brewing has been pro-
hibited by the government on account of the
excessive drinking and the consequent lawless-
ness.
THE WAKAMBA 67
The worst feature I remembered of them
from the old days was their boisterous and dan-
gerous condition when they had indulged in
their "tembo," an alcoholic inebriant made of
sugarcane and much worse than any found on
the old caravan route. Although I had little
experience with the Wakamba, I do remem-
ber plastering some nasty gashes which were
the results of overindulgence.
The Wakamba are notorious for their pas-
sion for drink, and they cannot get enough of
their own sugar beer, the manufacture of which
I shall discuss later. For the consumption of
this native drink they have an especial location
which they call the "Thomi." This reservation
is an open space in front of the village, and
it is swept religiously every morning by the
young boys of the village. The sanctity of the
"rendez-vous" is so stringent that all visitors
are barred. It is a sort of exclusive club for
old men, and should a woman happen to stray
into this bacchic shrine she would be beaten and
driven out like an intrusive dog. Here the
men drink and play their games and pass the
best part of the day. A fire is built in the cen-
ter, where the wise old heads may sit about and
discourse on the topics of the times.
Another intoxicant, or more correctly, sopo-
68 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
rific, is snuff. Every Mukamba carries a snuff-
box, which is his principal article of accouter-
ment. The natives are very proud of these
containers, and they have some very attractive
boxes in the shape of a small ball of hollow
wood with an ivory cover. The snuff mer-
chants are the chief attraction of the native
market, where they squat in little groups of
six to ten. The snuff mart is the center of
keenest haggling in the trading place, and if
you have ever relished snuff or have become
a slave to it, get some Ukamba snuff, and I
gTjarantee you that it will be the last you'll
whiff. I bought some to please them, and
my nose still retains the memory of the ven-
ture.
The British government, always anxious to
put down native abuses and yet desirous to
preserve the ancient traditions, has modified
the drinking bouts in a most diplomatic man-
ner. There are certain ceremonies for which
the native beer is prescribed, such as births,
circumcisions, espousals, thanksgivings for the
crops, sick healings and sacrifice festivals. For
these rites a certain quantity of beer is "sine
qua non," and the government issues permits
for its use onlj^ when these solenmities occur.
The natives therefore feel that the officials are
THE WAKAMBA 69
not interfering with their traditions, but at the
same time the consumption of sugar beer is
diminished. They used to make their beer
from sugarcane, and later from raw sugar.
Both commodities were placed under an em-
bargo, and now they import molasses, which
was not included in the statute. However,
molasses is soon to share the fate of its prede-
cessors.
The manner in which this sugar beer is made
from the raw material is rather ingenious.
Owing to the native resourcefulness there is
little more required than the sugarcane, a
grater, such as the nutmeg grater, and a piece
of string. The cane, stripped of its bark, is
grated and produces a sort of shredded pulp.
The pulp is then shaped into a loaf and wound
around with the string to make it cohere.
AAHien the loaf has been reasonably packed it
is wi'ung like a piece of clothing in the wash.
The juice is the beer, which is ready to be con-
sumed after one day of fermenting. To facil-
itate the operation the natives dip the fiber in
water, which also tends to dilute the bqer.
There are, of course, a number of artisans
who perform various tasks like blacksmithing,
<;rarpentry, and chairmaking. Blacksmithing
is a profession which passes from father to son.
70 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
The other trades are adopted by voluntary ap-
plication. The scarifier has the dual distinc-
tion of being artist and medicine man, and his
profession is one much sought for because
every Makamba is anxious to be tattooed in the
best possible style. To perform this operation
perf ectl}^ three instruments are needed : a piece
of charcoal, a sharp knife, and a hook resem-
bhng our button-hook. The charcoal traces
the hues along which the scarifying is to be
done ; the knife makes ever so slight an incision
and the hook turns over one side of the skin so
that the tattoo "will grow out in the correct
manner.
The chainmaker has an equally limited set
of tools. He carries a pair of pliers, a steel
needle which looks like our knitting needles,
and a small flat stone or board on which to roll
his long string of links. The dexterity of this
man is marvelous. He makes a string of links
in an instant and he cuts and puts them to-
gether while you wait.
The ring maker is not so great an expert al-
though his science demands that he leave the
muscles, arteries and veins of the arms
and legs sufficiently free so that there is
no atrophying or impediment in the nat-
ural flow of the blood. He must take
THE WAKAMBA 71
care that the rings about an armored leg do not
press against the flesh. Many a woman is
seen with a swollen arm where the winding of
the thick wire has obstructed the easy and nat-
ural flow of blood through her veins and arter-
ies. A woman who entrusts herself to an in-
efficient coiler has to suffer the consequences of
his awkwardness as well as the pangs imposed
by her vanity.
The chipping process involved in the tribal
teeth marking which I have outlined is work
requiring considerable nicety of execution.
The dentist's paraphernalia look like a carpen-
ter's outfit. The chisel with which he chips the
enamel is about two inches long and one inch
wide and not very sharp. He lays the boy
on whom he is operating on his lap so that the
head rests on the thigh, with subsidiary sup-
port from the abdomen. He places the chisel
on the patient's teeth and hammers away at it
gently with a light stick. This operation con-
tinues for hours on end and it is repeated day
after day until the teeth have acquu*ed the
orthodox tribal shape. Their sawlike teeth as
I said before always had me wondering in the
olden days and now I had the opportunity, I
went into this j)hase of Wakamba barbarism
very particularly; and the results were some
72 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
startling features and some wonderful pic-
tures.
Stoolmaking is another artistic profession.
The stool has the form of the familiar milking
chair. Three round legs are inserted through
half the full diameter. Some of the chairs
have a copper or hrass band turned around the
edge, and a brass or copper inlay on the sur-
face. The copper wire is placed in a little
groove in the hard wood of which the chair is
constructed.
There are endless ornaments made of beads,
including necklets, armlets and bracelets.
Patterns artistic and not so artistic, are to be
found in profusion; both the men and women
produce these articles — all except the intimate
bead apron which the women wear. This bit
of Wakamba lingerie is made only by women.
The beaded ornaments are woven so finely that
American women would be proud to possess
bags made by the natives.
The natives also make fiber bags, which the
women carry suspended from their heads by a
strap. The fiber for these receptacles is
stripped from the bark of young saplings of
a certain tree and chewed by the women, whose
sharp teeth are most useful in cutting the bark
into a thread-hke fiber. AVlierever the teeth
THE WAKAMBA 73
have punctured the bark, a strip of fiber is
loosened so that it may be detached. The
fiber is then twisted into a string and woven
into the desired form.
Honey making also may be classified as a
Wakamba industry. The beehives are hung
high in the air. They are wooden cylinders,
four feet long with a diameter of a foot and a
half. They look more like idols or hke food
stores for the spirits than like beehives, but I
am told that they produce the sweetest honey
to be found in British East Africa. The hives
are not unlike the native drums, and sometimes
these cylinders serve both as a source of
nourishment and as a musical instrument.
For hunting the natives use the bow and
arrow. Their arrows are the deadliest known,
on account of the potent poisons with which
they are tipped. Poisoned arrows, however,
are more common in warfare than in hunting.
The poison is prepared from the sap of the
IMurai tree and the fangs of the scorpion.
^Vllen not in use, they are wrapped in a thin
covering of skin or fiber which comes loose
when the arrow is shot. The natives are sure
shots at a distance of one hundred feet. An-
other weapon which sometimes comes into play
is a double edged sword about two feet long.
74 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
They also have a wired hunting club which is
said to do great damage both in battle and in
the hunt.
The only lasting impression that I took
away from the Wakamba was that recorded in
my nostrils — and it was not a pleasant impres-
sion. To protect their skins from cracking in
the great heat, the natives daub their bodies
with rancid butter, the odor of which is beyond
the vocabulary of polite description. And in
case of malaria or other disease, it is well to
keep the natives away from the camp with an
armed guard, if necessary, or they will aug-
ment the nausea, though they be as much as
forty yards away.
THE WAKIKUYU
If I were forced to make a selection of loca-
tion where to spend the balance of my days on
the African continent I would without hesita-
tion plant myself in Kikuyu within easy reach
of Nairobi. There is some indefinable atmos-
phere of freshness about Kikuyu which puzzles
one for an assignment of cause. Is it the mild
almost semi-tropical chmate, the purity of the
air, the evergreen aspect of the counti-y, the
deliciousness of the all year round fruit, the
green velvet fields, the perennial soft murmurs
of the crystal clear brooks or the gentle man-
ners of the natives, or probably, the combina-
tion of all these attractive attributes? Be this
as it may of the many times I have visited
Kikuyu there is only one miiversal memory
impressed on my mind and that is a spirit of
calmness, resignation and easy abandonment
v/hich makes the leisure of a vacation so ab-
sorbingly desirable. All these influences are
to be found in Kikuyu. If my memory does
76
76 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
not fail me I think the average elevation of
that district is a little above 4,000 feet.
I cannot recall a sweltering hot day nor a
chilly spell which one finds, for instance, a little
farther west on the Mao plateau. No ^dolent
storms hke in Kavirondo or Uganda are en-
countered here. I belicA^e the natives of Ki-
kujm have a ti'adition which claims that the
great Mungu waited to watch the effect of
all his other domains he had created and then
gathered all the choicest qualifications of the
different parts of the earth and bestowed them
on the region of Kikuyu to make it a garden
paradise.
To emphasize the spirit of the district I
would add that the people inhabiting that
country do not manifest the extremes of lassi-
tude nor the violence which one meets in al-
most every other tribe. It is remarkable to
listen to their quiet contemplations uttered in
their gentle singing drawl, and one marvels at
the logical, clear-sighted deductions expounded
in the ordinary course of conversation, I
often sat listening to them when Father Cai-
sack, their old white friend and father, drew
them out. One such conversation still stands
out in my memory, one in which the topic of the
^ar was discussed. Evidently they had heard
THE WAKIKUYU 77
the news of the war from a French viewpoint
with ample embeUishments of atrocities com-
mitted. Without any animosity and with pre-
cise exactness I was asked as the latest arrival
from Em-ope why the Allies had not made a
clean sweep of such human monsters as the
Germans were or marched on Berlin to execute
the inevitable law of nature which we know as
"an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,"
The only answer I could think of was that re-
ports in Kikuyu must have been slightly ex-
aggerated. They evidently had compared
warfare in Europe with the kind they knew
between themselves and the Masai in which
no quarter was given nor mercy expected. It
tame all the more as a shock to me because they
are otherwise such a mild charactered people.
I have often thought that the environment
of mild elements must have borne a great in-
fluence on their psychic formation and that
their philosophic speculations are merely the
result of an even temperament, caused by the
suave topographic, geological and atmospheric
circumstances, with which they are surrounded.
Measm-ed in physical distance there was
only a difference of about fifty miles between
the central settlement of the wild Wakamba at
Machakos and Nairobi, the pivot of the Ki-
78 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
kuyu tribe, but the difference of the two peo-
ples mentally, ethically and of instinct is ahnost
infinite. This difference probably fastened it-
self on to me with more emphasis, because, this
time I made the trip from Machakos to
Nairobi by automobile, and was as it were,
transplanted from the midst of one tribe into
the heart of another in less than five hours.
In a word the Wakikuyu were always a co-
nundrmn to me. Their gentle manners, their
harmonious tone of conversation, their unper-
turbed attitude, softened by a pleasing smile
and languid pose atti'acted me.
Hence I had made up my mind to study
them this time from a closer angle and resolved
to get to the bottom of this conundrmn if pos-
sible. Arriving in Nairobi I immediately in-
quired for my old friend and former com-
panion of many a stroll through Kikuyu, the
Rev. Father Caisack. I found that he had
moved away from Nairobi and was living up
country to get away from the host of new-
fangled social creeds of the universe as seen
from the Nairobi narrow vision of it, and de-
vote his time and great talent to the "Kyuks"
where indeed he has demonstrated his ability
beyond question of a doubt. Then in the se-
clusion of the Mangu Mission I saw the Kyuks
THE WAKIKUYU 79
through the redeeming eyes of the old and be-
loved guide.
The most outstanding feature among the
Wakikuyu which impresses one immediately on
setting foot on Kikuyu soil is a custom which
we might regard as the most horrible and in-
human practice in the world, were it not for
the gentle nature and the kindly manners of
the natives. These traits may be said to off-
set the apparently hard-hearted fashion in
which they disposed of their dead.
On my way to the Mangu Mission I was far
in the lead and alone when, stepping aside from
the road, I stumbled on a human skull hidden
in the grass. I picked it up and found that it
bore all the evidences of having been recently
stripped and picked. On my arrival at the
mission I asked my old friend, the Reverend J.
Caisack, an old French missionarj^ whether he
had many experiences such as I had encoun-
tered that afternoon. The story that he told
me was almost unbelievably gruesome.
It appears that the AVakikuyu never bury
their dead, but throw their bodies out in the
bush or high grass while the sufferer is still liv-
ing. "Wlien the sick begin to show signs of the
approaching end the relatives carry the dying
person out from the hut and deposit him near
80 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the enclosure. When death has relieved the
misery of the patient, the body left in the open
soon begins to decompose. The odor attracts
the hyenas toward the place where the body
lies and these body snatchers take the funeral
off the hands of the bereaved family. The
custom sounds ghastly, yet when one under-
stands the underlying reason for it, it seems
less horrible.
The Wakikuyu are essentially a very re-
ligious, and pensive people with a philosophy
which one would not expect to find in the wilds
of the Kikuyu range. The mainspring and
the principle of this creed is that sin is the root
of all evil and that the result of sin is death.
They further argue that death is contagious
and that therefore no one must touch the dead
for fear of being contaminated by the germ of
death. Hence before a person dies he is
carried out where no one needs to touch his
body after the departure of the spirit. ^Vhen
a person dies suddenly the body is left in the
hut and a hole is made in the wall so that the
hyena will enter and drag the body out.
The consequences of these practices are more
fanciful than the keenest imagination could en-
compass. Men who have recently lost their
TEMPLES OF WORSHIP
Sacred tree of Wakikuyu used in public worship
Construction of native Mission Church
THE WAKIKUYU 81
mothers lie awake at night in their grief and
hear the dreaded brutes enter and carry away
the remains ; and often they hear the crmiching
of bones as the intruder tears the body apart.
A mother who has just lost her child lies groan-
ing on her couch, distraught with the loss of
the only thing she loves in this world, and while
she is in the throes of her great sorrow she
hears the howling of the night prowler in the
distance, with its harrowing bark, coming
nearer and nearer until finally the infant's
body is slung over the neck of the beast and
carried away to be consumed by the scavenger
of the jungle. But so great is the religious
conviction of the natives that no attempt ever
is made to interfere with the feast of the wild
ogres and they are allowed to go unpunished
on their unholy and gruesome quest.
This feeling is so strong with the Wakikuyu
that even the dying themselves not only regard
the disposal of their bodies philosophically, but
even remind the bystanders and relatives that
the time has come for them to be carried away
because they feel death approaching. In-
stances are known where fathers of famihes
were heard to command their children to take
them out of the hut for fear that the contagion
82 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
of death might attack their progeny and the
family die out through misguided filial affec-
tion and respect.
The Wakikuyu seem to be a race of philoso-
phers with the stoical convictions so strongly
impressed on their minds that no sacrifices are
too great to satisfy the demands of their
reasoning. The Spartans of old were not
more insensible to pain and suffering nor to the
ultimate test of courage (death) than the
Wakikuyu who on first acquaintance would
impress one as mere savages of a low order.
It is only on fm*ther study of the race that one
begins to appreciate their loyalty to their con-
victions which, extravagant and needlessly
cruel as they may appear, are nevertheless an
expression of a mental attitude which must be
respected as we would have our own convic-
tions honored.
Their tradition is that death is not a natural
event but merely an accident brought about by
the mistakes and transgressions of the persons
responsible for the welfare of their depend-
ents. It is not looked upon as a punishment
but rather as a logical though avoidable result
consequent on errors of judgment or action.
Once the person has died, there is supposed to
be a certain contagion which attaches to others
THE AVAKIKUYU 83
— mostly members of the family. The conse-
quent series of deaths may come quickly or at
length but they are certain to follow. Touch-
ing the body of a dead person is certain to kill
the unfortunate one who has the temerity to
lay his hand on the corpse. This helps to ex-
plain the seemingly cruel custom of carrying
out the fatally ill before their death.
The teachings implied in this strange
philosophy form a moral code which is also as
inconsistent as the theory of death. For in-
stance, there is no sin in anything that is ac-
cording to the course of nature ; conversely, all
things contrary to nature are wicked. Ac-
cordingly fornication is no evil, nor is adultery,
but incest, sodomy and similar crimes are so
sinful that death will follow as a matter of
com*se. After circumcision, girls and their
lovers may live together without soiling their
souls and even conception is not a thing of
which they need be ashamed. Yet when the
young man has made arrangements for mar-
riage the girl looks upon him as her master, and
M'ill take another lover as soon as her fii'st lover
has paid a certain amount of the marriage price
to her father or brother. Duels will follow
sometimes but these are merely an expression
of jealousy, rather than a punishment for mis-
84 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
behavior. Sexual intercoui'se before marriage,
or even between lovers who do not contemplate
marriage, is not considered wi'ongful but is
called "stealing." "Stealing" is a question of
opportunity, and opportunism is one of the
principal elements in their moral standard.
The worst feature of the burial tradition is
that it will take generations to exterminate this
practice, because it has become part and parcel
of their natural instincts. I am told that it is
much easier to convert the Wakikuyu to re-
ligion than to bury their dead, for, although
they will discard their code in favor of the
European principles, still they will hold on
tenaciously to their method of undertaking.
Every time a Christian dies there is the same
struggle for the last rites of Christianity. In
some cases the more advanced Wakikuyu
make an exception, especially when the father
of three or more sons is concerned, and when
the sons have worked in European communi-
ties as soldiers or servants. Under such cir-
cumstances the boys will take the consequences
rather than face the scorn of their employers
or companions, who are members of other
tribes, and they will bury their father in a
decent manner. But even here there must be
a purifying ceremony for ten days, during
THE WAKIKUYU 85
which they must not come in contact with the
outer world and banish all effects of the con-
tact with the dead by a long series of cleans-
ings, routine sacrifices, absolutions, and soli-
tary confinement. This burial takes place
only where a father has three or more sons who
are all circumcised and are in good standing
with the community.
I had always been interested in the psy-
chology of dancing. Dancing to me is a lan-
guage of signs and an expression of sentiments
of the emotional side of the man and the
woman. It interprets the language of the soul
where words would be too familiar and expres-
sion too risque.
I have never danced myself and probably for
this reason imagine more psychological value
in this particular than there really is, but I see
more in the impulsive characteristics of races
in a dance than I can notice in their languages
or national characteristics ; as a matter of fact,
I judge their characteristics often from their
dances.
I may be wrong and yet I feel that watching
a dance is the surest criterion by which to con-
firm other impressions. It even shows their
standard of social intercourse among one race.
A visit to seaside and summer resorts will up-
86 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
hold my theory in this matter better than any
other argument. The very music tells its tale.
The dance is to a certain extent the moral
index of the tribe and this generalization is es-
pecially true with the Wakikuyu. Among the
Wanyika, it will be remembered the funeral
dance is the principal and most solenm cere-
mony after the death of a member of the tribe
and a direct call is made to the young women
of the tribe to keep the clan in existence.
Among the Wakamba there is the witch dance
to invoke death on a troublesome member of
the tribe. Among the Wakikuyu the concep-
tion of the dance carries more of a spirit of
pride for past and present deeds of valor.
This idea pervades the whole dance and the
whole series of passes and figures in the dance
serve as it were to demonstrate what the par-
ticipants have done or are able to do.
The dance begins with an exhibition by
about twenty young warriors, all circumcised,
who walk about in a brave manner as though
to defy any challenger. Thej^ are in full war
paint and carry their heads high. At given
intervals they stop their march around the field
and indulge in a monotonous pass in which
they shake their heads up and down carefully
tossing their long hair back from the forehead.
THE WAKIKUYU 87
They go through this movement defiantly star-
ing straight ahead and ignoring all onlookers ;
then in a measured step they stalk about ap-
parently unmindful of the audience but aware
of their physical attractions which elicit a cer-
tain amount of deserved admiration from the
women. They wear a sword by their sides to
proclaim that at any time they are ready and
willing to defend not only the tribe but their
lady loves. They have eyes for no one except
the maidens who are the chief witnesses of their
prowess.
A\nien the crowd is gathered around, other
young warriors stand about the circle in a
group of their o^vn, each holding his spear
manfully, with his sword drawTi. AAHiien the
spectators have w^armed up to the occasion
each outside group in turn runs about the field
circling the main dancing party and making a
killing display in front of the girls who ap-
plaud them, sometimes merely shouting their
admiration, sometimes by running after the
single dancers bearing a little twig in their
hands. The young warrior who poses here
with di'awn sw^ord must have killed a man, a
Masai, or a Mukamba with his own weapon be-
fore he is allowed to make this exhibition. He
brandishes his weapon in the air with pride and
88 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
glory, and the more the women proclaim his
bravery, the wilder become his antics. He
looks about for his lady love, hoping to outshine
his brothers in her eyes. At present this dis-
play is merely a ceremony because the British
Government has prohibited the promiscuous
killing of enemies. However the tradition
lasts and the girls take the will for the deed.
Presently there arrive on the scene other
young warriors who proudly carry their
shields. They take their turns at a pass which
is even wilder than that of their preceding com-
petitors. They form a corner of their own in
the field and it is evident that the young women
are not cold to them, as the furtive glances at
the newcomers soon become less shy. Once
the warriors consider the women's attention
sufficiently aroused they dart out into the
middle of the arena and start a sham fight with
their spears and swords, protecting themselves
with their gorgeously painted shields. Every
muscle is taut and all eyes are on the alert for
a parry. They lunge at one another, each try-
ing to drive his spear home. They run around
for a favorable opening, harassing their op-
ponents as much as they dare, until they are
able to drive them back and out of the field.
The girls now have no interest in the dancers,
WAKIKUYU "NGOMA" DANCE
Just completed their costume. Lava stockings the feature.
Their bronze muscular bodies shine in the sun
First pass of the dance.
SOCIAL LIFE IN WAKIKUYU
Group of Wakikuyu debutantes watching the dance
Social scions decked out to catch the ladies' fancy
A covy of Wakikuyu flirts
THE WAKIKUYU 89
but follow every movement of the fighters.
The . conquering hero is applauded and
showered with smiles and flattery. His physi-
cal charms are discussed by the fair ones who
vie with one another to catch a glimpse of the
hero.
Then another bid is made by the spearman
for further favors from the women and now
they begin a free for all fight in which all
comers are welcome. They prance around the
arena like wild men and in the confusion they
frequently come into unexpected contact with
one who is not at that moment their immediate
opponent and wheeling around they attack the
newcomer. Those who are driven out of a cer-
tain prearranged line are considered "hors de
combat" and must withdraw unless he become
embroiled with another warrior who is within
the limits. However, there is little doubt as
to their skill and courage in the minds of the
girls and the other spectators. No wreath or
crown is placed upon their brows for their re-
ward is to come later, when the women have
had ample opjDortunitj'' to pass upon all the as-
sorted feats of gallantry exhibited by the war-
riors and dancers. That part of the "ngoma"
does not arrive until the last hour before sun-
down.
90 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
The dance "goes merrily on" while the men
who are greased with sheep fat and red lava
dust, decorated with a variety of feathers, local
animal tails, heads, chains, rings, belts, and
adorned with everything except clothes, begin
to perspire profusely, and the mixture runs
do^vn their backs and chests. But their merri-
ment knows no fatigue nor intermission and
their endurance is worthy of admiration. The
rays of the afternoon sun beat mercilessly on
their oil-drenched skins, which would make any
man but a native of this soil collapse. It
makes one dizzy to watch the dancers move
their owl-like heads backwards and forwards
with sudden jerks that would cause concussion
of the brain in a white man. But perhaps the
native brain requires a thorough shaking up to
put it on a level with the human variety.
The most amusing part of their corporeal
decorations of war paint probably is their imi-
tation stockings. It is diverting to watch the
natives don their pedal finery. They go to a
stream or water hole long before the dance be-
gins and, provided with a piece of decayed lava
or pumice stone, they apply the wetted ma-
terial to the calves of their legs and draw all
manner of fanciful patterns with their finger
nails. There are no traditional designs, and
THE WAKIKUYIT 91
every dancer is his own architect. They lool:
like owls in the green masks which they daub
on their faces. The visage, surrounded by a
wig of natural hair, arranged in two inch coils
of the smallest possible diameter, and smeared
in sheep fat and lava dust, with their small
beady eyes gleaming out, are a sight for the
evil spirits to behold. The stoical look in their
eyes gives them the appearance of a host of
spirits such as Dante describes in his "In-
ferno." The "tout ensemble" of this hetero-
geneous crowd dancing around is a revelation
which only beholders of a Kikuyu "ngoma"
may enjoy.
The peak of the dance is reached only when
the girls join in the chorus. Here is the
apotheosis of the "ngoma." The girls have
had ample opportunity to choose the winner —
"theu* man," as it were. The warriors by this
time have no doubt as to their choice and the
maidens also are verj^ definite about their pre-
dilections. There is an intermission in which
each "beau" edges up to his "belle." The
young lady looks radiantly on her "beau," the
young warrior retm'ns her glance with inter-
est, and so the cast for the "grand finale" is
made up. There is no artificiality in this se-
lection for it is Nature herself who determines
92 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the plan for the continuation of the "genus hu-
manum" so far as the Wakikuj'^u are con-
cerned.
"Choose your partner" is the unspoken com-
mand, and the young folks are not slow to
obey. AVhen all the dancers and the gladi-
ators and their mates are gathered they form
a ring in the center of which the leading
beauties are assembled. These lead a song in
praise of the warriors and the surromiding
chorus join with them to intone the motif of
the passes of the dance. The young men and
the 3^oung women are face to face, the hands of
the women being placed lightly on the hips of
the men. No suggestive motions are made.
They merely dance a slow step, beating tune to
their own singing, and increasing the time as
they proceed. They bring both feet flat on
the ground and the great crowd is silent as the
earth trembles under their feet. They all
throw up their hands and clap them time and
time again above their heads. This is a very
interesting part of the ceremony, and adds to
the color of the dance. The crowd around
them look on with a certain jealousy which
does not escape the white man who watches
the dancers. The emotion is justified because
the participants of the "round dance" are
THE WAKIKUYU 93
picked men and women of their comitry. The
older women are sorry that their time is past
{ as soon as girls are married they abstain from
taking part in the dance ) . The older men feel
the stiffening of their limbs more acutely now
than ever. The younger generation of both
sexes are eagerly waiting for the time to come
in which they shall have their fling.
It is noteworthy also that the men especially
show a remarkable physique, lithe and slim,
with every muscle alert and mobile. They are
steady and sure in their movements, displaying
a grace which is not diminished by their savage
smToundings. The girls are coy in their de-
meanor and gentle in their poise; their diffi-
dence in the crowd demonstrates as under no
other circumstances the inherent gentility of
their character. In a word there is no objec-
tionable feature in any part of the dance, which
might be shown in the most puritanical society
without giving Mrs. Grundy any excuse to de-
nounce the great AVakikuyu pastime.
^Miile I prefer to watch their tribal tradi-
tions and customs I do not overlook the com-
mercial traits of the character and in the case
of the Kikuyu this was forced upon me more
or less in a dramatic manner. In talking to
one of the prominent officials, I found that the
94 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
Government objected very strongly to the
dances for economical reasons. This same
question was later emphasized by an EngUsh
functionary. Shortly after we had our dance,
the "lid" was put on tight.
One character trait which sets the Waki-
kuyu above the average East African negro is
his thrifty, industrial spirit. His energy and
willingness to work for a living is so pro-
nounced that "ngomas" must be held on Sun-
days, for all other days are working days.
The Wakikuyu crops are planted and tended
with care, and when the harvest comes, the na-
tives make certain that the birds do not harvest
the fruits of their labor. They do not entrust
the protection of their crops to scarecrows, so
they send their boys and girls into the fields
from six o'clock to eight in the morning and
again from four o'clock to six in the evening.
Dm-ing the period preceding the harvest, you
will hear the hills and valleys ring with the
sound of the children's voices, screaming and
shouting to keep the birds away. The children
are equipped with a sling, and when vocal
warnings are insufficient, stones and lumps of
earth ward off winged intruders.
Coffee growing is the principal industry of
the Wakikuyu at the present time, and the
WAKIKUYU CUSTOMS
A living scarecrow in Wakikuyu
Wakikuyu warriors at the dance for admiration of the girls
PROFESSIONS
Wakamba snake charmers training to become medicine men
Wanyika heralds announce the funeral dance
THE WAKIKUYU 95
boys and girls participate actively in this occu-
pation. Thousands of Wakikuyu are em-
ployed in picking berries during the harvest,
and dui'ing the growing season they are con-
stantly clearing the ground and weeding.
There are some coffee plantations which em-
ploy three hundred Wakikuyu all year 'round.
The natives shell the beans, dry them and store
them — all without the supervision of an over-
seer. After their day's work, which ends at
fom* in the afternoon, the natives return home
to work their own garden patches or banana
plantations.
The youngsters tend the flocks of sheep and
goats, while the older boys look after the herds
of cattle. One rarely sees young warriors un-
employed or idling about. Even if the Waki-
kuyu are somewhat remiss in learning or adopt-
ing Christianity, at least they practice the gos-
pel of labor. They are not expert mechanics
or artisans, although I have seen infrequent
pieces of woodcarving which did them great
credit.
It is not hkely that they will adopt Euro-
pean methods of work nor do they care much
for "modern" methods. They continue to
wear their o^vn styles of dress and look down
on the young bloods who ape the fashions of
96 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the white men. I heard one missionary say
that the Wakikuyu would give ninety percent
of their possessions if the white men would de-
part from their country and leave the natives to
do things in their own way. And this opinion
came from one who is the best loved and most
respected white man among them, a man who
has been with them for twenty-five years.
The traveler is surprised at the extreme
sense of modesty which these people have de-
veloped— especially the women. I noted this
in connection with their dance, but their
modesty is not confined to any special occasion
and there seems to be nothing artificial about
it. No matter where one happens on the
Wakikuyu women, they are always well
dressed — or shall I say well covered? Unlike
the women of other tribes, the Wakikuyu do
not fancy European styles of dress but retain
the severe customs of their ancestors. The
traditional wardrobe consists of three pieces of
skin, one to cover the breasts, one to protect the
back — this piece practically encircles the body
— and one, a sort of small apron skirt, which
begins at the waist. This last skin is never re-
moved, even when the wearer is bathing in the
stream. The first two may occasionally be
abandoned when the women are working hard
THE WAKIKUYU 9T
and the heat becomes oppressive, but the
apron, which is a small triangular bit of goat-
skin, is looked upon almost as a fetish, the re-
moval of which would pollute a woman's soul
for all time. The large skin — the mantle — is a
garment of small skins sewed together. All
of the skins are continually soaked in castor oil
and lava dust, which not only makes them pli-
able, but which also serves as a signal that the
wearer is approaching, owing to the sound pro-
duced by the contact and rubbing of the skins.
This system of dress is not altogether agree-
able to the nostrils, although it is not quite as
offensive in this respect as the costmne of the
Wakamba women.
The women also wear a great variety of trin-
kets which serve to adorn their heads, necks,
arms and legs. It would be futile to enumer-
ate all of them, if not, indeed, impossible, for
one finds new ornaments everj^ day. An al-
most universal decoration consists of three tiny
sticks placed in three holes punctm-ed in the
upper part of the ear-shell. A whole collec-
tion of earrmgs, an inch and a half in diameter,
made of pink, blue and white beads, hang from
an aperture in the lower part of the ear lobe.
This aperture is quite large and widely ex-
tended. Sometimes a wooden ring is worn in
98 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the lobe and the rings suspended from the
wood. The hole in the lobe may be from two
and a half to three inches in diameter, so that
it sometimes senses as a receptacle for a bottle.
Necklaces of beads are another popular deco-
ration. Some of' these ti'inkets contain sixty or
seventy strings of beads and they are rather
burdensome neckwear for a young girl. Coils
of brass, iron, and copper rings about the arms
and the calves of the leg are common. Strings
of beads make effective head bands, but the}^
are w^orn only at dances. Wristbands, simi-
larly constructed, are in great demand and
some of them are genuinely artistic creations.
These seem to be derived from the bands which
the natives have seen on European Avrist
watches. It would be impossible to list all of
the gewgaws which the Wakikuyu men and
women wear in their ears. Key rings, key
handles, army buttons, chains — ^the catalogue
is long. The most peculiar ornament I saw
was a broken compass, minus the crystal and
the needle, but with the dial intact,
Hairdressing is an art with the Wakikuyu
that might be studied profitably by American
tonsorial speciahsts. Girls of marriageable
age (13-16) find it essential to shave the head,
leaving a central crown of about four inches
THE WAKIKUYU 99
in diameter dripping with castor oil and lava
dust, the hair plaited minutely, like old-
fashioned lace curtain fringes, with an enticing
circle of oily red drippings about the crovv'n.
The eyelashes are clean shaven or extracted —
and they are just as particular about this
operation as the New York business man is
said to be about his morning shave. The war-
riors and dancers also are finicky about their
hairdressing, so that they may cut an imposing
figure in the dance. The hair must be just so
long and no longer in order to achieve the full
effect involved in shaking the mane up and
down and back and forward during the dance.
The very young and the very old care httle
about hairdressing. Before and after they are
in the dancing group, they do not matter
socially.
One of the most surprising discoveries I
made was a ceremony of private confession
among the Kikuyu pagans, a rite very similar
to the Sacrament of Penance in the Catholic
Church. Sin, among the Wakikuyu, is be-
lieved to be the source of all evil and unless the
sin is remitted and forgiven, it is bound to re-
sult in death or in some great misfortune.
Consequently, when a pagan has conmiitted a
sin, he goes to the medicine man and confesses
100 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
his misdeed to that grandee, who is thought to
be able to appease the spirit o£ vengeance.
Sin is not necessarily a transgression of the
moral code of the decalogue, but a violation of
any traditional virtue or custom of the tribe.
Sins against the law of nature are regarded
with particular horror while moral transgres-
sions which are "natural" are likely to be con-
doned. Therefore, it is with confessions of
sins against nature that the native will seek
the ear of the medicine man. There are un-
pardonable sins; incest and bestiality. So
great is this conviction that not long ago a
girl who was sinned against by her father, who
was drunk at the time, committed suicide by
drowning in the Chaina River. Although the
poor girl was not consciously or even morally
guilty of the crime, she was so ashamed and so
fearful of the consequences of the act that she
ended her life to propitiate the spirit of de-
cency. Sins of bestiality are partly propiti-
ated by killing the animal which was responsi-
ble foi the violation of nature's law.
Transgressions of tribal "mores'' may be ad-
justed by the confessional. The breach may
be alto'C^ether harmless morally and yet it may
offenc^ Ihe spirit which guards tlie purity of the
trib^. For instance, there is tui'pitude in-
I-
do
AFRICAN TYPES
Wakamba coiffure of the masculine genius
Masai type of warrior
Boy with elongated head. Skull is shaped in youth
PROPITIATORY SACRIFICE OF THE WAKIKUYUS
A white kid is sacrificed as peace offering in a feud
Friends of the assaulted party helping him eat the find
THE WAKIKUYU 101
volved when the wind blows away the thatch
of a roof at night or when the wind whisks off
a man's clothing, leaving him nude. A hyena
entering the village courtyard or a jackal
barking in the public square are forms of sin.
Such events although void of human guilt,
must be atoned. for by the victim, who goes to
the medicine man, confesses his violation of
tribal integrity and is absolved after paying his
sacrifice of a goat to the medicine man.
Sometimes, when a personal sin is con-
cerned, the penitent may be so diffident about
his revelation that he cannot overcome his con-
fusion and the medicine man will hand him a
stick, bidding him confess to the piece of wood.
The man steps aside, whispers his story to the
stick, tm-ns the stick over to the medicine man,
who casts away the wood, saying, "There go
your sins." A goat is presented to the wizard
— and all is well.
There are happenings which are not in them-
selves sinful but which are considered evil
auguries and these, too, are confessed. As an
example, a man may be on his way to another
village and encomiter a snake on the road.
Immediately he turns back ; for he looks on the
incident as an expression of the unwillingness
of the spirit to permit him to proceed, and if he
102 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
is especially worried he may go to the medicine
man and the spell is banished by the sacrifice of
a goat. "WTien a woman throws a Imnp of
earth at her husband, the act is taken to mean
that she despises him and he asks for a divorce.
Her exhibition of contempt is considered an
omen of the displeasure of the spirits and the
man may go to the medicine man to have the
curse removed. "Whether he confesses or not,
the divorce invariably is granted.
The confession is knovvTti as "taika" which
means to "vomit" or "cause vomiting." The
doctrine is a logical corollary of the philosophy
which sways the Wakikuyu. The contagion
of the evil effect of sin is entirely personal or
confined to the family of the transgressor.
There is no fear that outsiders may be infected,
but the contagion may strike any one who is
connected with the original offender. Forgive-
ness for touching a corpse may be obtained by
confession if the deed was done accidentally.
There is a system of confession which is
practiced when a person is in danger of death.
The sick man calls the medicine man to his side
and has the medicine skin placed on the
ground. The wizard enters solemnly, with
measured step. He slowly deposits gourds
filled with magic powders and grains on the
THE WAKIKUYU 103
skin. He then passes his hand or a Kongoni
horn (the Kongoni or Hartebeest is supposed
to impart especial reviving influences, being
the symbol of powerful vitality) over the
patient's face and neck. This is done to deter-
mine whether or not there is enough vitality left
in the patient to hold out hopes of recovery.
Now he mixes certain powders and gives them
to the sick man to swallow. All of these treat-
ments have their symbolical and even patho-
logical meaning. He watches the effect of the
medicine — and looks wise. Presently he takes
four twigs with leaves on them and places two
of them under the patient's arms. He passes
the remaining two through the aperture in the
patient's ear lobes and then throws the sticks
behind his back. The sticks under the arms
meeting at his back shows there is still sufficient
strength left in the heart. The sticks passed
through the earlobes, if they meet at the base
of the cranium, demonstrate that there is still
a certain powerful action left in the nervous
center. This ritual also expels the evil spirit
from the patient's soul.
AVith the departure of the evil spirit, the
effects of the spirit's tenancy are treated. The
sick man is compelled to take a mouthful of
the desiccated contents of a goat's stomach.
104 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
which he spits out. This measure also has a
diagnostic effect for if the stomach can retain
this mess it shows that his digestive organism is
still in good condition, as indeed it must he.
We must recall that "taika" is vomit-
ing. The patient is now considered pure,
and ready to have his fate pronounced
over him. The augury is read by the
medicine man from two groups of pebbles,
beans and buttons, which he shakes out of a
small gourd and deposits on the cow skin. He
counts the two groups and if the nearer group
is the greater, it means that there is no hope
for the sufferer. Hereupon, the unfortunate's
friends take him to a cleared space in the brush,
where he is laid down gently to await death.
The same friends gather a few branches and
leaves and construct a shade over him, leaving
the front open so that the hyenas will easily find
the remains. A little fire is built to provide
the poor man with the last comforts and to pro-
tect him against the cold night air, and he is
left to drag out his last hours of misery as best
he may. If the waiting is prolonged, his
friends and relations may occasionally visit him
and offer delicacies, but usually the mental de-
pression following the pronouncement of
doom, causes him to turn over and die without
A WAKIKUYU ENGAGEMENT
This native told Dr. Vanden Bergh that he had just become en-
gaged to the finest little girl in the world. His spear is sheathed
with a plume to show that his intentions are peaceful. The girl
by carrying his spear accepts his proposal.
THE AVAKIKUYU 105
a struggle. IMiiny cases of autothanatos have
thus been known to occur.
Contrary to all traditions of other tribes and
countries, marriage seems to be an event of
sorrow rather than an occasion for joy in
Kikuyu. I have noted previously that when a
Kikuyu maiden is in love with a man she
changes her attitude towards him as soon as he
has proposed marriage and has paid part of the
marriage price. She then looks upon him as
her lord and master and takes another lover.
This paradox becomes even more startling
after the nuptials have been completed.
Of com'se there is a mutual understanding
between the bride and the bridegroom before
the gi-eat event "which holds the world en-
thralled" is consummated. That very under-
standing has prompted the future husband to
visit the maiden's father or older brother,
bringing a few gourds of beer, and under the
influence of a friendly drink, to discuss matters
and to come to an agreement as to the price of
the woman in the case. Forty to sixty goats
are the usual price of the young man's "passion
divine." He loses no time in paying do^\Ti
the first installment of ten goats, and the non-
return of these is a sign that the only-girl-in-
the-world has accepted him officially and that
106 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the wedding may take place as soon as he has
paid off the rest of the dowry. Six or eight
months pass before he has paid in full, and
then he awaits his opportunity to carry off his
bride by main strength.
To capture the bride he sends three of his
friends to waylay the girl at a certain prear-
ranged spot which she is known to frequent —
usually near the village or at the well. Wlien
the coast seems clear, the young men seize her
and she raises the conventional "hue and cry."
She resists and struggles in the most approved
maidenly manner, but her efforts are, of course,
fruitless. No one comes to her rescue, and
presently she is borne away to the groom, who
awaits her in high glee. He carries her off to
his mother's hut, while she fights back and
weeps continually. After she has been placed
in the hut, she weeps for eight days more, while
her husband remains away. Actual tears are
shed, and old timers in this country maintain
that the thought of being made a slave
prompts this lachrymal outburst, but I fancy
that the tears are caused by no very serious
emotion. Be that as it may, after a week of
frenzied crying, the girl returns home to her
mother. She seems a humiliated soul, groan-
ing and walking with weary steps. She re-
THE WAKIKUYU 107
mains with her mother for part of the day, and
then her husband calls for her. The girl has
the option of asking her father to return the
goats and the other items of the dowry, in
which case no marriage is established.
For ten days the husband has lived apart
from her, but when she returns with her mas-
ter to his mother's hut, there is no further ex-
cuse for delay in the consummation of the mar-
riage. That night they become man and wife
in fact, and she may no longer run away from
her husband unless divorce has set her free.
The bride's girl friends come and make a great
display of sorrow on losing their playmate.
They stay for three days, during which period
they weep endlessly. AVhen they are gone, the
young couple start life in earnest and the hus-
band sets about the business of building his
own hut and establishing his own family.
After marriage the woman no longer is en-
titled to attend dances or other festivities, but
must work to enrich her husband and look
after his interests. For her marriage has
been a real burial of all her privileges and of
her freedom of action. Perhaps, she has had
reason to weep at the thought of ending her
girlhood. And yet — ^to remain a spinster at
eighteen is considered a disgrace among the
108 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
Wakikuyu and women who are unmarried at
that age are put in the same category with the
defiled and the uncircumcised.
The rest of the Wakikuyu customs are simi-
lar to those of the Wakamba and other native
tribes, except in a few details. The native vil-
lages resemble those of the Wakamba, and
there are as many huts as there are wives in the
chief's harem. Each wife keeps her own chil-
dren with her and tends them. There are
granary huts for each wife and the chief has
a storehouse of his own. There is a little
"homa" for the cattle, the sheep and the goats.
Each head of a family starts his own village
and when the young men marry they start
their own establishments. Although the huts
are small, there are partitions for the girls and
boys, with a private apartment for the mother
and father. The grown-up boys sleep wher-
ever they may find a resting place, although
sometimes there is a spare hut known as a
"house for boys," which also accommodates
over-night visitors. Wlien a close friend calls
on the chief, the latter will assign him to a cer-
tain hut and this hospitality entails the use of
the wife whose hut has been placed at the
visitor's disposal. She virtually becomes the
EXTREMES OF AGE
Aged Wakikuyu woman. Wanyika girls at the wash tubs
THE WAKIKUYU 109
friend's temporary wife. If a child should be
born to the wife and friend, it is considered the
property of the chief.
The Wakikuyu have two religions — private
and public. The private worship is dedicated
to the ancestral spirits of members of the tribe
and takes place in their own villages and huts.
For public ceremonies, such as sacrifices to ob-
tain rain, the villagers from miles around
gather about a sacred tree or gi'ove of trees,
which is their temple. The sacred tree is the
Mogumo and it is regarded as so sacred by the
natives, that any irreverence visited upon it by
outsiders is resented by the whole tribe. We
discovered this fact when we asked some of the
natives to hold a sacrificial ceremony under one
of the trees for our benefit. We volunteered
to supply the goat for the sacrifice, but they
were indignant at our proposition.
"How would you white men like to have us
come to your Church," the elder demanded,
"and ask you to perform j^our services to
satisfy our curiosity?"
The argument was conclusive, and we had to
be content with a still picture of the sacred
tree.
The Mogumo is an integral part of their
110 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
philosophy of sin and traditional command-
ments. No man dare offend it at the peril of
his hfe because the transgression will be pun-
ished even if the offense remains unknown.
The spirit of the tree is as omnipotent and
omniscient to the natives as that of Zeus was to
the ancient Greeks.
Circumcision is prevalent with the Waki-
kuyu, as it is with most of the African tribes.
The uncircumcised are as pariahs, and no girl
would think of marrying an uncircumcised
young man, or vice versa. This ceremony
admits the boy to the rank of warrior and the
girl to the marriageable state. The rite in the
Kikuyu country carries with it obligations of
taboo, and when a young man considers the
taboo of the Kikuyu rite an imposition which
he does not care to obey, or when there are too
many species of viands of which he may not
partake, he asks leave to be circumcised accord-
ing to the Masai custom. The medicine man
converts him to that order, and no distinction
is made in admitting him to all the privileges
of the Kikuyu tribe. The circumcision of
boys is not entirely completed, only three-
fourths of the foreskin being removed. For-
merly, warriors would not be considered full-
THE WAKIKUYU 111
grown men, even after circumcision, unless
they had killed a member of a hostile tribe.
The ceremony used to be followed by head
hunting expeditions consisting of ten or more
braves, but the criminal code imposed by the
British Govermnent has ended this practice.
THE MASAI
It is remarkable how nature itself directs
the separation of races and tribes and pre-
scribes their boundaries through tribal in-
stincts and desires, giving each what they ask
for as suiting their inclinations best. It is an
open question whether frontiers are made by
geogi'aphic limitations as much as by ethnical
considerations or rather the racial cravings and
requirements. Or whether the surroundings
and environment of the races once placed have
decided their cultural tastes and shaped their
tribal wants in the selection of primordial
modes of living. 'Why are pastoral tribes and
why their agricultural counterparts ? Did the
tribes select their territories or did territories
determine their needs and tastes? One may
argue either way or other and support his con-
clusions with equally strong argmnents pro
and con. The question would merely lead to a
"circulus vitiosus." It is the old problematical
"was the egg or the hen first" enigma.
112
THE MASAI 113
That question intruded itself on my mind
more than any other on passing the boundary
line between the Kikuyu and the Masai.
There was only a distance of a hundred odd
miles between the two centers which I had
picked out for a study of the two tribes. From
]Mangu we returned south to the city of
Nairobi where, crossing the Uganda Railroad,
we moved another sixty miles due south to the
best INIasai settlement Vvhich offered. Leaving
Nairobi there was only a thin narrow slip of
fertile soil to pass before we crossed into an
ideal pastm'e land. The dividing line between
red lava dejDosit of the North and the gray
and black loam undulations of the South was
so marked that it left an indelible impression
on my memory which comes to the foreground
whenever I think of the two races. The foot-
hills leading to the heights of Moimt Kenia be-
came smaller until they almost settled into the
corrugations of the vast grazing lands of the
JMasai.
Is the local aspect of the bleak prairie re-
sponsible for the ahnost sour and certainly
bloodthirsty nature of the IMasai as contrasted
against the gentle nature of the green garden
fed indigene of the always higher climbing
Kikuyus? Or is it the dietary effect of the
114 THE TKAIL OF THE PIGMIES
staples of the territories ? Traditional enemies
of ages they live without ever a thought of
settling in the domains invaded and conquered
in the many raids they mutually made on each
other, Xow then, is it the innate instinct of
race, or the effect of territorial propensities in
the form of nourishment which forms so dif-
ferent a human being at so short a distance?
And above all why should the Masai disdain
vegetables and mealies and live on meat, blood
and milk exclusively whilst their neighbors, the
"Kyuks," crave for both? I leave the solu-
tion to the Ethnologist and the Dietitian to
settle, for I confess the problem passes beyond
my ken.
It is sufficient to say here that the economic
expert looking at the country from a merely
commercial standpoint hastened a branch line
into the coffee producing country to the north
and did not even cut a decent wagon road into
the south without speculating as to the why
and wherefor. And to tell the truth I made
our stay in the Masai country as short as I con-
veniently could and hurried our operations
with the utmost speed in order to get away
from so inhospitable a country where one
could not even get a drink of water without
swallowing germs so self-asserting that they
THE MASAI 115
made themselves almost felt crawling on the
palate and where only living creatm'es of the
coarsest kind seemed to have sm-vived. To
grapple with that element and thrive seems
impossible and that probably explains the
vanishing condition of the Masai since when
man is pitched against the coarsest of beasts
the outcome is no longer a question of surmise.
So at last the time had come to visit the
"Masai." The redoubtable fame of the Masai
was almost as well established among the white
men in British East Africa and Uganda as
that of the Mohicans of our Red Indians, and
in mentioning this comparison I might add
that it will not be long before some historian
will -vvrite a book on the "Last of the Masai."
I was not prepared for the disappointment I
had in store for me from the beginning. The
Masai had given the Government so much
trouble that they had been driven back to a
reservation into which no white man was
allowed to go without a permit. This regula-
tion was strictly adhered to by Mr. Ainsworth,
the Natives Commissioner of Nairobi. The
fact that my contemplated lion hunt with
spears by the Masai had been adversely criti-
cized by the local journal of Nairobi did not
make my efforts to pass the border line easier.
116 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
However, the American Consul, Mr. Eells,
sponsored me and that gave my expedition an
entree.
I shall not soon forget that trip. I was told
that the joui*ney could be made by automobile
and consequently I had chartered a car for our-
selves and a couple of mule wagons for the
saffari.
The road was very good for about twenty-
five miles. I had been given a very vague
idea of the distance and the road but the
farther we proceeded the more complicated re-
ports became. Finally arriving at Ngong, the
Government Station, I was told that the
nearest settlement was at least thirty miles
away. The Masai shift their locations so fre-
quently that no one seemed to know where to
look for them, consequently our directions were
very vague.
Striking out from the road to the south we
drove our car into the open veld and soon got
entangled in all sorts of obstacles, dry creek
beds covered with big bowlders and rock crop-
pings on the plains. An amusing sight were
the herds of Grants, Kongoni and Thompsons,
varieties of buck which stood at attention ears
up and eyes directed our way. Then the
leader would turn away and lead his flock into
i
THE MASAI 117
safer regions, himself falling back to act as
rear-guard protector. The Kongoni were the
last and hardest to move, protesting, as it were,
to have their peaceful possession invaded.
We got stuck in one of the creek beds about
fifty-five miles out of Nairobi and my Masai
guide whom I had taken out of Ngong assured
me that we were near Angm'uya's kraal. I
marched ahead following my guide and at last
after a march over undulating ground I saw
across the next creek a circle of low dime-loaf-
shaped huts surrounded by a thorn hedge —
but not a soul in sight. I ranged my powerful
glasses on the village but not a figure could I
see nor any signs of cattle by which the Masai
villages are always known. "Not a living soul
there," said I to my guide.
"Kulala" (sleep) answered he in broken
Kiswahili at the same time urging me on.
While I could not distinguish a sign of life
our movements evidently had been noticed be-
cause coming down the slope I soon detected
three or four tall figures armed with spears
shining in the sun, coming our way. I knew
then that my quest had not been in vain.
The tall spearmen came to a standstill in
front of us. The leader accosted my guide,
ignoring me. An exchange of greetings en-
118 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
sued carried on by the villagers whose answer-
ing monosyllables of "Ah ah," "eh eh," "oh
oh," in monotonous succession fascinated me
until at the end of my guide's harangue the
chief (Anguruya himself) came up to me, spat
on his hand and held it out to me. He led us
into the village, the two warriors falling in line
behind me.
Having learned more of our intentions on
the way to the village, he conducted me into the
kraal and with a sweep of his long arm and
long nailed fingers he bade me welcome with
"the village is yours."
Presently he dived into two or three of the
cow-manure plastered huts, and introduced me
to his four wives whom he had brought out.
"They are yours," he said, "and you may pick
out whatever hut you please or these," pointing
to the women, "will build yom* o^vn hut (mean-
ing my tent), if you prefer."
I thanked him for the kind offer but told him
that I would not trespass on his liberal and
welcoming offer.
The women looked at me and took one of
my white hands admiring its color and another
took off my hat and pointed to my glossy
smooth hair, exposing my dome to the danger-
ous rays of the sun. I smiled, putting back
MASAI VILLAGE LIFE
Village of the plains. Huts are plastered with cowmanure
Thornbush gate is opened in the morning to let out cattle
Masai women in "dolce far mente"
THE MASAI 119
my hat, and made a sign of thirst giving utter-
ance to the word "madzi." They giggled and
looked askance at my guide and presently one
of the ladies dived into a hut and brought out
a gourd of grayish looking, evil smelling fluid.
Thirsty as I was I put the gourd to my lips
taking care to let the water drop out on the
ground. AVhile I did not let a drop of it pass
my lips my nostrils got the full benefit of the
stench.
Presently my companions came in and I in-
troduced them to the chief and his court.
The "freedom of the city" was conferred upon
them in the same gentle and liberal fashion
and presently we settled down.
To describe the Masai one must look at them
from an altogether different standpoint than
that from which we have thus far considered
the other races. They are a purely pastoral
and Hamitic tribe, speaking a Nilotic lan-
guage, wherein they differ in all essentials
from the Wakamba, Wanyika and Wa-
kikuyu. A pastoral tribe is natm-ally void
of all central settlement and home comforts for
the reason that it is always traveling and leads
a nomadic hfe. The Masai are as might be
and has been said, on a continuous "saffari.'*
True, there is a certain proportion of the elders
120 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
who stay at home and have villages, but even
these travel from place to place and frequently
it occui'S that they establish themselves in three
or four different villages in one year. This
happens particularly when there is a cattle dis-
ease which they try to escape by moving about,
avoiding the grasses which have been satm'ated
with the germs of the dying cattle. Some-
times they overcome a disease in this manner.
It will be seen, then, that there is a valid
reason why the Masai are a tribe about which
little can be said with regard to their domestic
habits — for they are not a domestic people.
They have no pottery, no basketry, no black-
smiths, no grain fields or any sort of agricul-
ture nor any other kind of industry for the
reason that whatever they need they buy.
Being a Spartanlike stoical race they have re-
duced their needs to the most rudimentary re-
quirements of nature disdaining all artificial
supplements to living comfort. They are rich
in cattle, some of which they acquire in raids,
and, with their war-like dispositions, they are
the most dreaded tribe in East Africa.
All they look for when they do settle down
is water and plenty of range with the best kind
of grass for their cattle. Their villages, when
they build them, are of the crudest kind and
THE MASAI 121
planned more for the convenience and safe
protection of their cattle than for themselves.
They set up a number of huts in a circular
form with a hedge of rough thorn brush sur-
rounding the circle, high and thick enough to
prevent the wild animals from clearing the
fence. There are certain open spaces left in
the hedge so that the cattle can come in and go
out in the mornings and evenings. These
openings in the thorn walls are closed every
night when the cattle have come home and they
are reopened in the morning. There is a pecu-
liar superstition connected with this opening
and closing. No one is permitted to open or
shut them out of tmie for fear that the spirits
of the tribal forefathers will be offended at be-
ing shut out. We wished to take a picture of
the operation in daylight, but this was the only
thing which the chief, Anguruya, had to refuse
us and his apologies were profuse, but we re-
spected the idea and took the pictm'e in the
early morning when the doors were officially
opened.
The interior of the village is laid out en-
tirely with a view to accommodate the cattle.
There is an inner circle surrounded by a similar
hedge of thornbrush with gates which also are
closed at night and opened in the morning.
122 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
This enclosure is put up so that the cattle may
be herded together. The circle is propor-
tioned according to the number of cattle it is
intended to shelter, and it is left open overhead
"vvithout any covering whatsoever. The ac-
cumulation of cow manure is enormous for the
space is never cleaned or cleared. Of course
the Masai have a great many usages for this
commodity for they all but eat it. They use it
as medicine, as fuel, as plaster for their huts,
and even for chairs. Not seldom does one find
that the center of the cattle enclosure is higher
than the top of the hedge surrounding it, and
sometimes there is an elevation of two feet of
ground on the inside of the hedge projecting
above the outside level.
The construction material of the whole vil-
lage consists of twigs and branches of trees of
the thinnest kind, owing to the fact that the
Masai always live in parts of the country where
there is scarcely any forest or wooded area.
They seek the pori country because there the
best grass usually is found. For miles and
miles around there is not one tree which gives
shade enough to relieve the midday heat, ex-
cept around the edges of riverbeds and creeks.
Consequently, the Masai use hght twigs for
the frames of their houses. The rest of the
THE MASAI 123
building material is plentiful because it is cow-
dung. And to be truthful, it is the best plaster
to be found because it is pliable and goes
through the cracks of the frame easily and it
goes there to stay. They use tons and tons
of it. It is antiseptic, killing germs which
otherwise would be plentiful in a village where
the natives are so unsanitary and unclean.
The odor which would be repugnant to white
men is perfume to the Masai. AVlien thor-
oughly dried it is waterproof, for they do not
allow the cracks and splits to widen before fill-
ing up the gaps. The outer finish is smooth
and even, and a thick application covers the
whole building so that in case of rain the water
easily runs down.
The interior of the hut is as crude as the out-
side. The entrance — for one may not call it
a door — is about four feet high, so that one
must stoop to enter. It is so narrow that one
must slide in sideways rather than stoop for-
ward. There is an inside wall, very thin but
effective, which separates the home of the
young calves from that of the human inhabi-
tants. On the near and far sides of the huts
there are two alcoves or built-in bedsteads and
maybe a third built up against the front wall if
it is desired, to cm'tail the accommodations of
124 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the calves. The space left between these bed-
steads holds the fireplace in the center, with
squatting room for the members of the family.
There are four tiny posts in the center of the
hut which may be utilized as chairbacks.
There is always a fire smoldering in the grate,
or rather, between the three stones which take
the place of a grate. The beds remind one of
the couches of the early Visigoths and Franks
because they are composed of a number of
skins and cowhides piled on top of one another.
These skins are cured but not tanned so that I
cannot vouch for their being a soft couch.
The only utensils or substitutes for crockery
are long oval gourds used for water and milk.
They have no cooking pots of any description
because they don't cook mealies or other vege-
tables. They live entirely on meat and milk.
It is said that some of the Masai eat mealies
clandestinely onlj^ and that must be so, be-
cause I could find no traces of any in the vil-
lages which I visited, although I made it a
point to look for these elusive articles. For
spitirons on which to turn their meat, they use
the ever handy twig or perhaps a discarded
lower point of a spear; from all of which it
will be seen that the Masai live a most primi-
tive life and have very few wants.
THE MASAI 125
Yet they were a hardy race before the en-
trance of the white man. I use the word
"were" advisedly, because since they were for-
bidden to raid and wage war with their neigh-
bors thejT- have become more indolent and have
acquired habits of overindulging in sexual ex-
cesses which threaten to destroy the race. The
rate of childbirth among them is alarming and
it is said by some authorities that there are no
more than 20,000 Masai left in the country.
This statement was partly borne out by the
fact that tliere were very few children in the
villages which we A^isited. ^^Hiat effect insuf-
ficient housing has to do with this condition is
a study well worth entering into, because when
one considers that their huts are only 14 feet
long, 7 feet deep and 6 feet high and a great
part of these is occupied by the calves, and
that furthermore there is absolutely no light cr
fresh air to be found in this space, it would
seem to argue that there is little chance for the
embryo of the human species to develop.
Such mothers as one does find in these vil-
lages are extremely proud of their offspring
and treat them with the utmost care. I was
asked by some of these tender mothers to give
them medicines for their children and saw on
different occasions where they fed them on
126 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
butter after weaning. That the youngsters
did not Hke the diet was evident because their
mothers would close their tiny nostrils with a
lump of butter and force the food down their
mouths in large quantities, at which the little
beggars balked with arms and legs beating in
the air.
The women are a lazy collection, indolent
and lackadaisical to a degree. They have
nothing to do except build the huts when they
change location and to fetch water from the
waterholes once or twice a day. The men
themselves cook their own meat, roasting and
turning it on the fire as they eat. There is no
agriculture to keep them busy like the Waki-
kuyu and other tribes. They drag their feet
along the ground as they walk. This slouch-
iness, however, must be explained by the heavy
coils of brass and steel wire which they wind
about their nether limbs. The coils are flush
with the knee and 'the ankle, and are made of
heavy steel wire and polished so that they shine
in the sun and dazzle the eye. They cannot
weigh an ounce under twelve or thirteen
pounds and are absolutely immovable. They
are flattened out at the bottom and run a little
wider at the knee so as to give that joint a
little play. The effect on their feet is dis-
JUST WIVES
Masai queens at the investiture of the Chief.
This Mumyika owner of a small harem of four is particular about
his manioc root
THE MASAI 127
astrous in so far that the foot is callous and the
skin on the upper part almost as hard as the
sole of the feet. They try to protect the upper
part of their feet to a certain extent by insert-
ing a rag between the foot and the wire but
owing to the heavy weight of these ornaments
the soft skin becomes hard nevertheless. They
have the same kind of ornamentation for the
upper and lower limbs of the arms, although
these coils are of a lighter material. The steel
wire of which this armlet is made weighs be-
tween eight and nine pounds and makes the
movements of their arms extremely awkward.
The signs of callous can be seen better here
than on the feet because there is no protection
w^hatsoever on the wrist and at the upper part
of the elbow joint.
ISIost women sport the coils on the upper
and lower right arm and on the lower left arm
but in all cases they cover the arm from the el-
bow down to the wrist. The poor women lag
terribly under the hea\'y weight of these orna-
ments but they would no more take them off
than om* ladies would move in society without
their trinkets. To make matters worse, they
cannot take them off even for a rest or a
change occasionally, or when they are sick, but
they must carry this dead weight with them
128 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
from the moment it is put on until the wearer
becomes so aged that she can no longer drag
the weight.
There is also the necklace of the same size
of wire as the leglet. This ornament is twisted
in three or four stiff coils about the neck and
from the fifth round it widens out until the last
coils surround the shoulders. This thing bobs
up and down as they walk and when they stoop
the spiral comes down over their head sur-
rounding them with as splendid a steel armor
as ever the old Prankish warriors wore in
battle. This spiral looks very much like a clock-
spring of enormous size. To complete their
ornamentation they have two flat coils of
brass, suspended by a strip of rawhide, hang-
ing from the lobes of their ears. These coils
hang down on the slope of the neck towards
the breasts and sometimes they come down as
far as the breasts. Besides these there are a
number of other necklaces of beads, turquoise
chains and the like. A favorite decoration,
for instance, is a rope of small copper chains
which they hang in their ears and wind around
over their heads. These I have only seen on
the favorite wives of the chiefs and they lend
the wives the appearance of Egyptian god-
desses.
THE MASAI 129'
The women's wecaring apparel is very much
like that of the Wakikuyu — skins which are
extremely well tanned and very soft, which
softness is increased by the great amomit of
grease in which they are soaked. The women
here, as among the Wakikuyu, are circumcised
and wear the little apron of circmncision.
They usually v/ear a piece of Americani or
calico for loin cloth and sometimes a mantle
of the same material.
The men wear only the short Roman cloak
of calico or sometimes of skin, and do not ex-
hibit the slightest modesty about their persons.
They wear no ornaments around the arms or
legs except a small strip of skin in case they
have entered into some agreement with an-
other warrior. They are fond of a string or
bracelet of elephant hair or of the tail whiskers
of a giraffe with an amulet attached. The
reason for their disregard of ornaments is
probably to be found in the fact that they can-
not be too light on a hunt or in battle where
they need all their strength and agility without
being weighed down by useless impediments.
One cannot say enough about the gi'eat
courage of the Masai warriors — which virtue
is the only one they claim or care about. To
be dubbed a coward among the Masai warriors
130 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
is sufficient reason to commit suicide or to kill
the man who uttered the taunt. Their train-
ing is wonderful, and as battle and the chase
are their only occupations, they are naturally
always in good trim.
The Masai may be said to have a standing
army of great military strength and it is amaz-
ingly well organized. It is this army which
has held the other and surrounding tribes in
such great awe of the Masai. The Masai
raided and waged war from the coast to the
Victoria Lake and their fame as warriors was
so far spread that from Mount Kenia to the
Kilimanjaro the tribes were in fear and trem-
bling when the news was spread that the Masai
were on the warj)ath in the neighborhood.
The main saffari highways were time and
time again threatened by their rebellious out-
breaks so that our saffari in 1896, for instance,
had to take the German route because the
Masai were out for trouble. On such oc-
casions the government closed the main arteries
of traffic because they could not undertake the
responsibility for attacks from this dreaded
tribe. In due com-se of time the government
won out over them but not without many a
skirmish and occasional losses.
THE MASAI 131
Owing to the suppression of their raiding
proclivities and the gradual closing in of the
tribe in certain boundaries of the reservation,
the military organization of the Masai has
more or less fallen into abeyance so far as mar-
tial enterprises are concerned but it is still
maintained for hunting and for the continu-
ance of their traditional existence as a warhke
tribe.
Their military organization was for all prac-
tical purposes a wonderful institution. There
were three sections which composed their
standing army. The three sections included
so many classes or years of circumcision.
From this it may be imagined that circum-
cision and military service were closely inter-
woven in their effects and causes. Circum-
cision meant official conscription of the mem-
bers of the circumcised class. These classes
were organized all over the tribe about every
four years and became known as the Eletets
ages or Pororrs of such and such a name; for
instance — II Kidmei, camp or sirit formations.
These camps and sirit formations were appor-
tioned according to geographical location, and
they naturally were formed of the different
clans or gilata.
132 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
The ceremony of the circumcision is kno"svn
as the E-unoto ceremony which is called by the
chief medicine man after due consultation of
the spirits and after formal auguries have been
taken. Leaders or Aigwenani are appointed
by the chief medicine man. The appointee is
not notified before the ceremony for fear that
he might do something to disqualify himself.
He in turn appoints two Sirits or Lieutenants
who command their own battalions made up
of the different clans of his geographical loca-
tion. It often happens that these sirits are
at odds owing to their clan traditions of prow-;
ess. This forms the chief source of grief for
the Aigwenani who must use all the diplomacy
at his command to prevent serious misunder^
standings.
If a warrior at the ceremony of his circum-
cision blinks an eye or shows any sign of pain
he is disqualified and looked upon as a coward
by his comrades and marked for Hfe to such
an extent that he is unable to find a spouse even
after he has killed his man or his lion. Cour-
age is the capital virtue of the Masai ; he who
lacks this virtue or flinches at a danger is for-
ever outlawed. After circumcision they al-
ways go in pairs and if one runs away from
THE MASAI 133
danger he is reported to the Aigwenani or the
Sirit of his coiiuiiand. Thus, not only the
"esprit de corps" but the morale is kei}t up to
the highest standard.
Each warrior's shield proclaims to which
sirit and year of circumcision he belongs and
this indicates also his clan and the geographical
section from which he comes. ^ATien the cere-
mony of the circumcision is over, the day for
the solemn handing over of the country to the
guardianship of the newly made warriors has
arrived. The principal medicine man, seated
on a chair enthroned on a pile of cowslips, re-
ceives them and shakes hands with each war-
rior as they pass him in review. On such oc-
casions the married warriors may not leave
their huts while the older and outgoing class is
clothed with old men's garments and stands up
while the younger sit down. At this time the
chief medicine man addresses the new warriors
and warns them that the safety of their tribe
and country is now in their hands, and that
they must guard it at the cost of their blood
and lives even as their fathers have kept the
country intact and made it possible for them to
become the proud guardians of an unbeaten
and independent race. After this, each goes
134 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
to his own home and gathers his belongings
wherewith he departs for the kraal to which his
sirit has been assigned.
The older men and outgoing warriors leave
the warrior kraal and take up their abode in
the kraals of the chief and elders to get mar-
ried and raise a family. The younger war-
riors move from place to place as the location
of their cattle herds changes. They go out
raiding and looking for opportunities to enrich
the tribe with new cattle and booty. They
concentrate where there is most danger from
the wild animals which follow their herds and
woe to the man who loses a large number of
cattle without giving a good account of himself
or warning the warriors of the danger con-
fronting their cattle. Since the government
has stopped all raiding, the attention of the
Masai is more and more concentrated on the
well being of their cattle.
The younger Masai warriors, who live apart
from their older clansmen, have corresponding
classes of girls, who are of the same circum-
cision ages, and with whom they live in abso-
lute free love — without being reproved for it.
Yet there is a certain sense of honor among
them which seems to consider as a virtue absti-
nence from this promiscuous life. This infor-
THE MASAI 135
mation I had from the chief Anguruya, who
while we were watching the young bucks dance,
told me that every man who went up to the
girls, for whose special benefit this war dance
was given, made it kno\vn to these girls that
he was virginal and as yet had not touched a
woman by turning his head over the girl's face
and touching her with his long greasy braids.
It was remarkable how many of the young
men made this a point. That they must be
perfectly truthful about it would be concluded
from the very fact that their fellow warriors
who live in the same kraal with them are called
upon by traditional custom to deny the implied
fact of another's virginity by a statement to
that effect should one of them dare to profess
this virtue without having the right to do so.
There are a number of minor ceremonies
which are performed at different occasions to
celebrate certain events in the lives of the cir-
cumcision classes. For instance, there is a feast
when the young warriors, after sufficient time
has been given them to grow their hair into the
warrior's pigtails, depart for their respective
kraals. The outgoing warriors then appear
before their chief with the younger men and
their leader is spat upon by the chief as a bless-
ing. The younger men challenge the older
136 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
ones and meet one another in battle until the
older men finally yield to the younger as their
masters at arms. Again, when they used to
go to war, the older men would spill milk and
honey on the ground in token that they would
be victorious and the women would sprinkle
them with milk from a milk gourd. "V^Hien the
warriors went to battle and arrived at the place
of combat each fighter planted his spear in the
ground, challenging the enemy, saying that he,
the son of so and so, would not retire but would
die or conquer on that spot. If the enemy
fled, they killed as many as possible. If the
men lingered on the raid, the women, holding
small gourds covered with grass, waited and
prayed for their safe return. The women also
used to keep fresh milk in the gourds for the
refreshment of the warriors when they re-
turned.
"WTien they visit the villages of the elders or
are summoned for a lion hunt in the neighbor-
hood of the elders' village they walk up slowly
and solemnly toward the gate. If the children
know of their coming they go out to meet them
and the warriors lay their hands on the little
heads in solemn silence. They march up to
the gate in a measured step, sober minded and
calm. At the gate of the village the chief re-
THE MASAI 137
ceives them, shaking their hands as the men
pass in single file. They then turn toward the
huts of the princesses or chief's wives and at a
respectful distance await the pleasure of the
ladies. They stand at attention w'ith their
spears in their hands and their shields resting
on the ground. AVhen the ladies finally ar-
rive, the warriors pass from the left to the right
shaking hands with them and bidding them
welcome. At the end of the salutation the
warriors go to the huts of the ladies they know
best and plant their spears at the entrance as
a token that they are there, without wishing to
hide either their identity or the fact of their
presence.
They do not eat in these huts nor do
they eat at any time with the women, but
they seek a spot outside the village near the
waterhole or well where they build their fire
and grill their own meat. The warriors do
not drink an>i;hing stronger than milk or water
for "fire water" injures their fighting abihty.
IS^either men nor women smoke but they use
snuff in great quantities. In the villages of
the elders, liquor brewed of sugar cane is very
welcome, but it must be smuggled in and used
clandestinely as the open use of it is looked
upon with great displeasure by the chief who.
138 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
however, may indulge in it to his heart's con-
tent also clandestinely.
For the rest, the Masai have very few habits
and customs which are of any importance.
Their circumcision is a preparation for the
young men to become warriors and they are
taught how to shoot birds with their arrows and
learn how to throw a bullock, etc. The cir-
cumcision itself is accompanied, as in other
tribes, with senseless ceremonies. The nam-
ing of a child and the funeral ceremonies are
also with slight variations similar to those of
other tribes and therefore it matters little
whether we go farther into these details.
But I part with the Masai with the gi-eatest
of regret. It is not only a jjity but a shame
that so fine a race as the Masai should be
doomed to extinction. They are now not only
a decadent race but they are on the verge of
absolute dissolution as a tribe and as a people.
For this there are a number of causes each of
which could be avoided with a little organized
care. I shall quote three reasons why the
Masai are on the decline. The first, no doubt,
is the fact that they only marry after the war-
riors have left the ranks and are settled as old
men in the kraals of the elders. The second is
that free love amongst the Morans and the
THE MASAI 139
younger generation of women leads to the in-
capacitating of the girls for motherhood. The
third is that there is a steady increase of the
dreaded disease of syphilis among them, owing
to their habits of indolence which were brought
on by the prohibition of raiding and warfare.
It is pitiful to see how few children there are
in the various kraals or villages. The village
in which we stayed for a week was composed
of about thirty huts, each hut representing a
woman of mature age and a wife of a Masai
elder. Of the thirty wives there were only
three who had children under the age of nine.
The chief himself had two children by the four
wives who were living in that particular vil-
lage. The other twentj^ wives who were living
elsewhere but always under his control and
consequently unable to have children by other
men, may have been barren or not, but they
could no longer be counted on as producers of
the human race. Furthermore, there were
only five other men in the whole village, among
whom the other women were distributed.
Some of these men were too old to reproduce
and some of the women were also past produc-
tion.
The younger men and warriors who
visited the village during the lion hunt made
140 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
their abode in the huts of the chief's wives and
other women's huts which were assigned to
them. These warriors enjoy the use of the
women whose hut they occupy for the time be-
ing, but the children which might be born of
such cohabitation never see the light of day out
of respect for the elders and the husbands of
the women in question. They would not dare
to let such children be bom for fear that the
husband might abandon them or for fear of
a worse fate which might befall them. There
were only two girls in the village between the
ages of fourteen and sixteen who were about
to be tm'ned loose in the Moran villages.
They were the central point of attraction in
the dance which was held the evening before
the lion hunt. They were coy and shy and it
seemed to me a pity that these girls were to be
sacrificed to so insane a policy which will make
them absolutely useless from the standpoint of
production of their o^vn kind.
This brings me to the second reason for the
extinction of the race; free love among the
warrior classes. This is not merely a theory;
it is an accomplished fact. In olden times the
arrival of a girl baby was not by any means
looked upon as a welcome intrusion. If she
happened to be one of twins she was killed.
THE MASAI 141
If she was in any way deformed or weakly,
the same fate awaited her, hence a scarcity of
women. Now, of course, they are all welcome.
Wliile formerly every father was looking for
warrior sons, now he is satisfied with girls,
because the need of sons is no longer felt so
keenly. But the fact remains that there are
scarcely girls enough to go round. Girls may
have lovers, but they must not be partial in
the bestowal of their affections on these lovers ;
girls are community property and they belong
to all so long as they are in the Moran kraals.
This promiscuity, of course, raises havoc with
their maternal proclivities and chance for
childbirth. The birth rate in these kraals, I
have been told, is practically at the zero point,
and that just at the time when the girls should
reproduce prolifically because of their excel-
lent physiques. If this question were looked
after with a little scientific organization, and
if the girls were married off without interfer-
ence from other men, the women would doubt-
less become mothers of as fine a race of men as
the African jungle can boast. Both men and
women are of fine physique and mentally well
developed. But, as it is, the chances of regen-
erating the race are nil. AVhat a fine chance
there would be for missionaries to do a work
142 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
which would immortalize their names not only
among the IMasai but in the world at large !
The third reason for the decrease in the con-
tinuation of the species is the fact that syphilis
is rampant among the Masai. I had heard
from government officials that the spread of
that disease was alarming, but when I came
among them it took only the opening of one
eye to find out that it was almost universal,
especially among the children. No sooner had
we arrived in the village than a number of
people, especially women, came to us to be
treated for their eyes. Among the children
there was not one who had healthy optics.
On the first day of my arrival I distributed a
quart of solution of boric acid, and I continued
this treatment until the end of our stay, when I
left them a copious quantity of the same medi-
cine. There was also an alarming prevalence
of rashes and sores on the head, which told their
own tale. Ulcers and sores on the legs and
arms were also plentiful, but they may have
been the result of the pernicious habit of wear-
ing those terrible arm bands and leglets, which
leave scars beyond description. I cannot say
that there were extreme cases such as I have
seen elsewhere, but the disease, so far as I
THE MASAI 143
could judge, was universal. I understand also
that miscarriages are the order of the day, and
this is ascribed principally to the spread of
this foul disease. Wliatever may be the causes
of the phenomenon, here is an opportunity
such as is not often found for the altruist and
the philanthropist to raise himself a monument
of lasting glory and utility. To rehabilitate
that wonderful tribe of the Masai by a thor-
ough education of these people would mean
more than a brilliant star in the diadem of a
king or queen.
I am told on good authority that there are "^^
at present only twenty thousand Masai left
in the country, and this figure is based on the
retm'ns of the tax list of the British East Afri-
can government officials, so that there is little
room left for doubt. At the present birth rate
it is for this present generation to buckle up
or go under, never to be heard of again in the
annals of African history of the future. Chris-
tianity seems to me the only remedy. The in-
stallation of good morals and hygienic princi-
ples would be the onlj" salvation for the race.
There is a good foundation on which to build
a Christian structure, because the people are
at heart honest, and their savage desire to kill
144 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
has abeady been curbed by the British govern-
ment. Theu' moral tendencies as far as sexual
relations are concerned would be just as well
served through monogamy as it is at present
through this absurd promiscuity.
The tradition by which this free love system
entered into the tribe hundreds of years ago
is so infantile that it would take a convincing
talker only a short time to show them the error
of their ways. That legend is the old story of
all African races that their original forefather
had one son and two daughters. They were at
war and the son had to take the cattle to a salt
lick. One of his sisters went with him, and on
various occasions he found tracks of strangers
leading up to the kraal which he had built.
The next day he took out his cattle and im-
mediately returned to hide himself near the
kraal. Then he crept up to the hut, where he
overheard his sister making We to an enemy,
and he killed the man and went back to the old
home to tell his father. Here it was decided
that it was better to have the system of free
love to preserve peace in the family. It was
considered, after this experience, that it was
safer to allow the girls to live with the warriors
in their kraals where they could make love,
sing and dance and be at the same time re-
THE MASAI 145
moved from the temptation of betraying the
stock of their parents.
Formerly when there were raids and wars,
and the warriors were at all times on the war-
path or raiding expeditions, there was little
time for excesses of sexual indulgence, but now
that wars and raids have stopped they find
their pastime more in these excesses than in
warlike occupations. Hence the dreadful
menace of being wiped out forever which now
hangs over the tribe.
That there are great difficulties to overcome
I will admit, but they are sm'mountable. So
far no missionary society has entered on the
field because the Masai are a nomadic tribe and
it would be necessary to follow them from
place to place, which was formerly impossible
owing to lack of roads or travehng facilities.
But now Africa is "Darkest Africa" no longer,
but "Africa lit up." There are passable roads
everywhere, and a missionary equipped with
an automobile would find himself capable of
traveling from kraal to kraal and installing
the principles of common sense and right liv-
ing, and would be welcomed by both the elders
and the warriors. We were the most welcome
strangers among them, and no sooner had we
arrived than a bullock was killed for the
146 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
strangers and the freedom of the kraal was
given to us. They were courteous and kind,
and when we left they were sincerely sorry.
I had a splendid example of Masai hunt-
ing on one of my many excursions from Nai-
robi to Anguruya's kraal. I was riding across
coimtry in a "Hup." The car was headed for
a large herd of Kongoni and Grants and a few
Zebras.
The Masai guide clicked his tongue and in
a low voice said, "Hiko!" ("There!") I
looked, as did the chauffeur. I saw a Kon-
goni, undecided whether to go or stay. Pres-
entty the chauffeur (a Eurasian) stopped the
car and got out. He walked slowly and cau-
tiously toward the Kongoni. The latter now
escaped, but still the chauffeur went on on
tiptoe. He was about to make a dash when
I saw a baby Kongoni get up and follow its
mother. The boy followed, but the fawn left
him far in the rear. The boy returned to the
car and started her going on the wildest run
I ever made in a motor car. He followed the
baby Kongoni, which began to run wild in
large circles. The Masai guide was alert,
watching the proceeding. I tried to stop the
mad rush, expecting every minute that the car
would be smashed on the big rocks in its path.
THE MASAI 147
But the boy had his Indian blood aroused and
took chances which no one but the reckless son
of an owner would take.
The baby Kongoni began to tire and emitted
a series of short clicks from its choking lungs,
sounding very much hke the "hoo" of a night
owl. It began to turn somersaults, but still
kept on. Now the Masai guide opened the
door, ready to jump and run after the little
fugitive. The man jumped and rolled over
twice, brought up against a rock, got up and
ran after the little deer. Run! He would
have taken the Marathon at any meeting, and
coming within reach, he never made an at-
tempt until the little fawn was well within his
grasp, and then made one dash for the right
bind leg and they rolled over — both baby Kon-
goni and its captor.
THE MASAI LION HUNT
When I used to give lectures in the U. S. A.
on African impressions I always mentioned
the Masai as the bravest of all British East
African tribes. For illustration, I used to ex-
plain how the Masai consider it the greatest
sport to surround a lion and to kill it with their
spears. Consequently, when I made up my
program of pictm*es for the expedition, I made
this one essential point to bring out, if at all
possible. Now I am glad to state that I have
vindicated my honor as a truthful man and
to have actually portrayed in a lasting record
that famous lion hunt with spears. I shall
here describe this most exciting of all my ex-
periences. But I am sure that my description
will fall short of the thrilling chase as it oc-
curred.
In order to make sure of the picture, I se-
cured a lion in captivity who had all the quali-
fications of the jungle king. He was full
grown, with a temper of his own, especially
148
THE MASAI LION HUNT 149
where native Africans were concerned. When,
therefore, I came to the Masai country I imme-
diately started out to find out what the natives
would do to the lion if I should bring him over
there. I met with the greatest encouragement
when I mentioned my plans. There were no
warriors or Morans in the village where I had
pitched my camp, but they were immediately
sent for from the Moran village, which was
over forty miles away. They had arrived be-
fore I had retm*ned from Nairobi with the
lion. As soon as they made one another's ac-
quaintance I saw that we were in for a most
interesting time. The lion in its cage growled
furiously at the Morans, and they, in turn,
were so wrought up over this beast, which they
instinctively hated, that we had a hard time
keeping one Moran from spearing the animal
in its cage. This gentleman got so hysterical
that they had to take his spear from him and
guard him till the moment of the hunt had
arrived.
We took great pains in arranging the arena
for the coming event. There was a grand spot
which had been picked out in my absence. The
scene was a flat stretch of dry swamp sur-
rounded by an edge of rushes and tules with a
jungle background. The cage was placed be-
150 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
tween the rushes, facing the flat arena. "When
all was ready for the operation the Masai war-
riors ranged themselves around two sides of
the circle, which was to seal the lion's fate.
It was a veritable Coliseum — only it was re-
versed in its use. Here the lion was to be the
victim and men his executioners. No gun was
allowed on the premises. Two American
ladies in the party and some other spectators
had taken refuge in nearby trees. The two
photographers with their machines had taken
up their post on a wagon thirty feet from the
center of the arena and I joined them with
my kodak. The keeper of the lion was to
lift the door at a signal given when every-
thing was in readiness for the critical mo-
ment.
The Morans were alert, with every muscle
and nerve of their splendid bodies taut. The
trapdoor rose slowly and creaking. The eyes
of the warriors were glued to the figure of the
lion, watching his every movement, their
spears and shields ready for the attack. The
lion appeared unconcerned. He lay down in
his cage. I had given orders that under no
circumstances must he be molested without
giving him a chance to defend himself. We
LION HUNT OF THE MASAI
Warriors arrive at elders village, greet Chief
Dance of victory around the lion's carcass
Queens welcoming lion hunters
THE MASAI LION HUNT 151
did not wait long before prodding him from
the other side, but he refused to enter into the
spirit of the moment.
Presently I gave orders to smoke him out,
and a fire was ht at the other side of the cage.
The smoke tm*ned away from him, and I gave
new orders to light one at the front. My or-
ders were not understood, and I had to move
over to the cage to have it done. No sooner
was a bunch of flaming grass put under his
nose than he jumped out of the cage, and com-
ing out in the open, he turned around to
measure his chances of escape. There were no
Morans in sight at either side of the cage, so
he turned to the right and broke cover, leap-
ing up in a bound, and he was off for the chase.
We had not reckoned on this eventuality, but
the Morans had. They went after him and
soon overtook him. He was, however, out of
sight of the camera, and quicker than it takes
to relate, all of us were after him with cameras
and all paraphernalia necessary. The Morans
nearest to the beast were ready to seal his fate
there and then because he was running toward
the village. But fortunately for us, Mr. Klein
from New Jersey, who knew the game thor-
oughly and who spoke the language very well,
152 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
warned the natives not to use their spears until
the camera had come up.
They brought him to bay in a copse sur-
rounding him from two sides. We had the
camera trained on him again in short order,
and now I gave the Morans the signal to at-
tack. The lion, however, had anticipated my
signal by a fraction of a second and charged
with a loud roar at the first chck of the camera.
He crouched on his belty and leapt up in the
air, all his savage nature intent on going after
the steel monster shining in the brilliant sun.
He advanced from one side, the Morans from
the other. It was a question who was going
to be the first to attack. But the Masai are
too old at the game to give the lion a chance.
At a distance of tw^enty feet the first spear
was thrown; it missed. The second, following
closely, hit the poor animal squarely on the
forehead, piercing through the brain and cut-
ting its way clear through till it reached the left
shoulder blade. Five more spears were thrown
in rapid succession, and all landed, most of
them in vital spots. The beast charged di-
rectly toward the camera, and vv^hen he was
struck by the second spear, which killed him
almost instantly, he looked dazed, and as it
happened, he looked me straight in the eye as
THE MASAI LION HUNT 153
if asking, "Wlmt did I do to you to deserve
this fate?"
The event was so short of duration that it
seemed as if it had not been worth all the
trouble and expense. But to see the Masai
in action was a thing that only few white men
have had the privilege of seeing, and a good
many of them never lived to tell the tale be-
cause their spears are as effective as rifles in
the hands of the ordinary "askari."
On this occasion the Morans were wonder-
ful. They are not a muscular race — if any-
thing, they look soft — but they are lithe and
wiry, of great endurance and indomitable
courage, which, combined with a true sportlike
instinct, makes them what they call themselves
— an independent, unconquered race. They
look you straight in the eye ; thej'' do not cringe
like other natives. They look stoical. They
march up silently, always with spear in hand.
When they arrive at a village of elders they
shake the hand of the chief, their father, and
pass on to the middle of the village, where they
await the greeting of the women of the chief's
harem. This done, they disperse as if they
were dismissed from drill, and each seeks
the hut in which he is to be lodged dm*ing his
stay in the village. In action they are quick
154 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
and sure of their movements. Fearless, with
determination in their eyes, they go to the at-
tack with one aim only — to get the other fellow
first. And they usually do. That made them
v/hat they are at present, a tribe of uncon-
quered heroes, conscious of the admiration
which every white man in Africa has for them.
Before they depart on a military or serious
hunting errand the Aigwanian, or leader of
their circumcision class, addresses them and
lays down the policy to follow. He gives them
strategic instructions and orders which no
Moran may dare disobey. They listen without
a murmur. There is a tone of decision mixed
with a complete abandonment to fate in their
bearing when they walk toward the scene of
the coming battle. Once there, they arrange
themselves without a word and await develop-
ments. But when the critical moment has ar-
rived they are ready, and it is surprising how
much strength is hidden behind their seeming
physical weakness. The spears which were
thrown at the lion had so much steam behind
them that they pierced his body clear througli,
and it was only with the greatest difficulty
that they could be extracted. Two of the
spears were bent at an angle of 45 degrees
when they had been drawn out of the carcass
THE MASAI LION HUNT 155
with almost superhuman efforts. Another
spear was broken at the hilt and had to be cut
out from where it had lodged.
What makes the Morans especially proud
of their achievement on the hunting ground
and on the battlefield is the fact that after
they have speared an enemy or a lion they are
entitled to marry. No Masai girl would look
at one until such an event has crowned his
military and hunting prowess. Such a vic-
tor}^ naturally makes the men supremely
happy, and they are willing to lay down their
lives for the attempt and a bid for the fair
woman's favor. The height of their excite-
ment before the battle is only evidenced by
their frantic expressions of joy after the finish.
They walk around the carcass, brandishing
their spears and holding their shields high up
in the air over their heads, and they dance
and jump and act like so many maniacs let
loose. Only when they are called to order by
their Waignanian, or headman, do they fall in
line and now they perform a march of victory
in an ensemble, the shields still over their heads
and the spears straight up like a huge steel
bristle, like an ominous warning which must
have looked a fearful augury for a routed en-
emy in bygone days.
156 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
It took very little imagination to visualize
on that occasion former feats of arms of these
Morans, who know no bounds to their con-
quests. Formerly in battle with their enemies,
even if they were outnumbered they would at-
tack again after a defeat until the last man had
dropped.
That they do not take any chances was
shown by the way they rendered the animal
incapable of fm'ther harm by severing the
spine with a slash of the knife. They made a
terrible gash, cutting the spine in two. All this
was done in the twinkling of an eye. The
whole scene did not take more than a minute.
In this case they were fortunate that none
of their number had been mauled. Some-
times it happens that the lion is quicker than
they are, and one of them is sat upon by the
lion before he can get away after throwing
his spear. In such a case one of the Morans
gets behind the animal and catches him by
the tail to divert his attention from the man
who is down. They twist the tail and the other
warriors assist the first tail-catcher to lift the
brute by the hindlegs off the victim. The
others then take a thrust at the beast with their
spears, or, if he be too dangerous, with a knife
THE MASAI LION HUNT 157
or dagger, thus preventing accidents to the
surrounding group of fighters.
We all feel very proud and very happy over
the successful taking of the picture. This may
be better understood when it is known that
the attempt to get this picture has been made
many a time by different photographers, who
never got a foot of film out of their efforts.
Mr. Klein of New York, for instance, who wit-
nessed our hunt, told me that he had made nine
attempts and every one was unsuccessful. He
tried it on three tame lions and on six wild
kings of the jungle, but through some acci-
dent or other unforeseen event not one picture
was taken.
THE WAKAVIRONDO
After we had left the Masai and returned
north to Nairobi I was anxious to proceed to
the Kavirondo country, which hes about 300
miles west of Nairobi, the capital city of Brit-
ish East Africa. This desire was prompted
by various motives. First of all, it was the
country where I had suffered most during my
missionary career, when I was suffering from
acute malaria, half chronic, half intermittent,
until finally I had to leave Africa for good in
July, 1905. I had always wondered if the
game had been worth the candle, and both from
correspondence and reports in the annals of the
foreign missions I had learned that the work
was bearing great and wonderful results.
Secondly, when I first arrived on this expe-
dition at the Port of Mombasa I had visited
the Catholic Mission on Sunday morning,
and to my great surprise I found a very large
congregation gathered around the church on
the mission grounds. This was all the more
158
THE WAKAVIRONDO 159
surprising because when I had left Mombasa
in 1905 there was an exceedingly small num-
ber of Catholic negroes in that mission. Nor
did the clergy of this church have great hopes
of making headway among the Swahilis, or
Coast natives, who were mostly Mohamme-
dans. Imagine, therefore, my surprise when I
found some 600 well-di-essed natives in and
outside that church. I called, therefore, on
Father Lutz, the pastor, not only to pay my
respects, but to congratulate him on his won-
derful success in so difficult a territory. Wlien
I mentioned the miraculous transformation of
the Swahilis the genial old gentleman smiled
and corrected me with a reflective "Tut tut;
they are not Swahilis; they are Kavirondos."
It was my turn to be surprised beyond
words, and I remonstrated, "Not these people;
the> are too well dressed and too clean to be
Wakavirondo. Besides, they do not show the
fallen-in underlips as a result of the missing
lower incisors."
"I see you are acquainted with the Wakavi-
rondo," replied the good old missionary.
"I ought to be, considering that I was the
first missionary among them in 1904," I an-
swered.
"Then go back among them and look them
160 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
over," he said ; "although a great number have
all their teeth intact."
I returned without delay to examine them,
and collecting the few words which I remem-
bered of my vocabulary of 2,000 words which
I had composed in 1904-5, I sprung a surprise
among a few groups. They returned my salu-
tations in kind and opened their eyes wide with
wonder how I knew their greetings whilst they
did not remember my face. Presently one fine
stalwart of about 30 years of age jumped out
of a nearby group, and taking my hand and
shaking it wildly and excitedly, asked, "Aren't
you Pere Bellagi?"
"That used to be my name in Uganda," I
replied. "And aren't you Ojole's son?"
"Indeed I am," he said in Kiswahili, notic-
ing that I had retained little of the Luo lan-
guage. Whilst he grinned, I noticed that his
six lower incisors were missing. (This is a
tribal mark of the Wakavirondo. Boys and
girls have them extracted at the age of 10-12,
with a coarse, small iron spike by the medicine
man. The father of the boy keeps both arms
pinioned, and whilst a stick is placed between
the two jaws of the boy, in order to hold his
mouth open, the "dentist" jars out the teeth
with a forcible jerk, the one after the other,
THE WAKAVIRONDO 161
the boy screaming holy murder and bleeding
profusely. )
"How is it that you all are so well dressed
when last I saw you you even refused to fre-
quent the mission because I insisted on your
wearing clothes?"
"Oh, all that is changed in Kisumu, although
in the country the Shenzi (pagans) still go
naked," he laughed. "There are very many
Catholic people there now," which I found
later was correct, because there are well over
30,000 of these savages converted and active
members of the CathoHc Church.
All of this made me impatient to see with
"mine own eyes" the reported metamorphosis
of this scene of my earlier efforts again. Con-
sequently the three hundred mile ride on the
Uganda Raih-oad was all too slow for me, and
I siiook myself out of my dusty couch early
in the morning, when at 7 A. M. we steamed
into the Kisumu railroad yard to get a first
glimpse of the old town broiling on the slopes
of the Nandi Hills and shimmering in the re-
flecting rays of a burning sun cast back by
the placid expanse of the Victoria Nyanza.
No wonder, then, that the Kavirondo peo-
ple have always been a great favorite with me
for the reason that I started the first mission
162 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
among them in 1904. And what savages they
were then ! Well do I remember how I strug-
gled to get them to wear clothes. The ter-
minal station at Kismiiu (then called Port
Florence) had been established in 1902, and
even then, two years later, the men and women
used to crowd the platform stark naked.
White people were begimiing to pour into
Uganda and the embarrassing situation which
arose when ladies or Sisters arrived was acute.
I well remember how I used to clothe a
dozen to fifteen young women every Sunday
in the attempt to kill two birds with one stone,
showing them the necessity of clothing and the
difference of the Sunday and week days. My
boy finally stopped me by showing me that the
girls went straight from my camp into the
market, where thej'' disposed of my cloth for
a bit of meat or fish to the Swahih traders,
who were the only beneficiaries of my bounty.
Then I tried the government, which was well
disposed to me. I asked them to let me clothe
2,000 people and thereafter make a law that
no "Omera" should enter the city limits naked.
I was referred to Sir Charles Elliott, who was
then the Commissioner of the British East
African Protectorate. I awaited his arrival
and laid the project before him. He scorned
1
THE WAKAVIRONDO 163
the idea, and after a long argument he asked
me, as a clinching climax, "Did not Adam and
Eve go about the same way in the Garden of
Eden?" And I rephed that I had always been
under the impression that the British govern-
ment brought civilization wherever they
planted the Union Jack, but if he had been
sent there to introduce the more primitive cus-
toms of the Adam and Eve period I had no
more to say, and began to work in my own
quiet way. I was there eighteen months, the
last eight of which I was so ill that finally I
had to evacuate and go home, but the work
went on and imagine my surprise.
What struck me as ahnost remarkable in
my researches among the Wakavirondo was
the almost miraculous transformation which
liad converted the natives from the irresponsi-
ble, irresponsive, savage and almost animal
horde which occupied the eastern quarter of
the Victoria Nyanza into a useful and indus-
trious people. In 1904, when I first came upon
them, they were a nude and filthy population.
They were primitive to the point of eating
their food raw. They had no occupation save
that of fishing and bartering grains — which
they did not grow themselves — for cattle.
The natives wore no clothes, greased their
164 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
bodies with a mixture of cow-dung, ashes and
butter in order to prevent their skins from
cracking in the merciless rays of the sun. And
yet the women were not free from the feminine
characteristics of their betters in the U. S. A.
and Europe; that is, vanity and a great pas-
sion for fanciful designs. Only in Kavirondo,
having no clothes, silk, velvet or even calico to
embroider them on they have them cicatrized
or cut into their skins. On the reverse page
you will find a good example of such a scari-
fication. The poor vain creature had this
artistic pattern cut into the stomach with a
crude knife. The upper incisions carved a
gash of a quarter inch deep in her flesh, whilst
the walls of the incision were turned over with
a buttonhook in order to raise the base of the
wound to form a "haut rehef" ridge as a head
ornament of the living escutcheon gradually
tapering down till it faded away on the nether
abdomen. Such mutilations are very common
among the women, whilst the men usually con-
tent themselves with slight notches on the face
or the breast and shoulders.
They always were a strong and well built
race. They were strangers to disease and
venereal ravages because, for all their filth,
immorality was not one of their shortcomings.
THE WAKAVIRONDO 165
They were moral to a degree unheard of
among the surromiding tribes, most of which
were dying out as a result of their promiscuity
and sexual excesses. The Wakavirondo then,
as now, were moral, however we may regard
the motives for their code. AVliether we as-
cribe the purity of their young women to a
commercial spirit — for they are considered less
valuable as matrimonial commodities when
they have lost their virginity — or whether we
credit them with a refined fundamental moral-
ity, the fact remains that they have preserved
physical conditions which have assisted them
in raising large families of sturdy children.
Physically above the average of Africans
on the Equator line, the Wakavirondo are tall,
muscular, wiry and capable of unusual feats of
endurance.
This quality was well demonstrated diu-ing
the war, when, according to all critics, they
were by far the best porters and did more to
conquer German East Africa than any other
three tribes combined. At present one may
see them scattered along the line from Mom-
basa to their home in Kavirondo, doing good
work as askaries, road builders, mechanics and
artisans of every description. They are in
gi*eat demand on fanns and in industrial insti-
166 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
tutions, for with their dociHty and desire for
learning they are apt pupils in every branch
of endeavor. Having learned to clothe them-
selves, they have abandoned their unsanitary
habits and they even wash and bathe wherever
they come in contact with Europeans. They
stand aloof from the other tribes and conse-
quently do not adopt the evil ways of their
neighbors. They are honest, and for that rea-
son they are more popular as servants than any
of their competitors from other tribes. They
are willing, courteous, and always cheerful, if
somewhat reticent; they lack the grasping de-
sire for "baccees" which makes the other natives
so objectionable. Thej" are willing "to pay
their own way," even where missionary work is
concerned, to buy what they wish and even to
contribute their mite to institutions from which
they derive educational benefits or other cul-
tural advantages.
They are independent by nature, but not
aggressive or warlike. Still, they could not be
called cowards, and they are able to give a good
account of themselves when attacked, without
going out of their way to make life unpleasant
for their neighbors. Their amiability is so well
known that they are called the "Bamera" (our
THE WAKAVIRONDO 167
friends) by the Kakamega, and other neigh-
boring tribes.
The Wakavirondo are not what one might
call a good-looking tribe. On the contrary,
they are unattractive in appearance, owing
chiefly to their ridiculous habit of breaking
out the incisors of the lower jaw. The loss of
six lower teeth makes the under lip fall in and
gives the natives the appearance of prema-
turely aged people. The reason for this habit
coincides with that of other tribes who affect
similar dental vagaries, viz., the wish to be pre-
pared against starvation when attacked by
tetanus.
The Kavirondo call themselves "Luo" and
resent being labeled Kavirondo, whatever that
name may mean. It is supposed by some that
this name was given to them by the Arabs, who
1 egan trading with them in the early fifties.
The same authorities maintain that the name
was derived from the name of Ondo, who was
the ancestor of the tribe. However, the people
themselves have no well-defined idea of their
imm origin, and it would be presumption for
any anthropologist to set down a hard and
fast theory of his o^vn and to float it for what
it is worth. The river cannot rise above its
168 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
source, nor can scientists or ethnologists go
beyond the information obtainable from the
natives, who are after all their own historians
and more interested in their own traditions
than any of us can be. They have no written
legends or any tangible historical knowledge
of their own; therefore I assert that their own
stories, interwoven though they be with in-
numerable fictions, must be the only authority
on which to build a true record of their past.
Their history seems to be as follows: Cen-
turies ago they lived north of their present ter-
ritory, some claim in the lower Soudan.* Com-
ing down, they migrated in a body and fought
* Since I wrote this article in Kavirondo I pushed farther
north and following the Nile I came to a tribe called the
Alur, who inhabit the northern part of the Albert Nyanza.
They are very similar in physical build and features to the
Kavirondo and speak a language almost the same as the Luo
language of the Kavirondo natives, from which discovery I
would rather conclude that they must be branches of the
same race. And since I was informed in that country that
the Alur descended from the lower Soudanese territories, it
is quite likely that the Kavirondo peoples originated from
there. Although I never traveled through the Bakeddi coun-
try, I learned from missionaries who resided in that country
for years that some of the local tribes in that district are
very much like the Alur and the Kavirondo, which would
suggest the idea that this exodus from the lower Soudan was
split up on various occasions, although it is hard to believe
that the Kavirondo should have migrated as far as the
western point of the Berkeley Bay or the Victoria Nyanza.
And yet, having left the vicinity of large stretches of water
such as the Nile base, the Albert Nyanza and the Lake
Kyoga, they could be expected to wander southward until
they found another large sheet of water such as the northeast
arm of the Victoria Nyanza.
THE WAKAVIRONDO 169
their way through the Bantu tribes which they
encountered. Their numerical strength over-
came all resistance, and the Bantu were unable
to make a united stand against them, owing to
the fact that they themselves were always en-
gaged in intertribal conflicts. The conquering
band of Nilotic adventurers finally settled
down on the east border of Lake Victoria, their
present home. ^Vliy they should have selected
their barren and stony location is difficult to
understand, considering that they passed
through such fine territory as that now occu-
pied by the Nandi and the Washa Ngishu. At
any rate, they congregated about Kavirondo,
where they split up into numerous clans and
sectional groups.
On second thought, I would say that maybe
the Nandi and Washa Ngishu plateaux might
have been too cold for them, being of so much
higher elevation and the fact that they
swarmed down from the lower Soudan. Most
likely they sought an elevation milder in tem-
perature to that which they had abandoned.
Having settled doMTi in their new territory,
they began to breed cattle, in which occupation
they were most successful, especially in the
region bordering immediately upon the lake.
Here the land, rocky and unfit for agriculture.
170 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
is well adapted for pasturing, and the natives
became OAvners of immense herds of cattle.
The land higher up was more fertile and the
natives who squatted in that district were able
to grow good crops of various grains, which
the Luo around the lake bought from them
with their cattle. Consequently the Kavirondo
are not exclusive meat eaters like some other
Nilotic tribes, as, for instance, the Masai or
Nandi. Rinderpest and other diseases of cat-
tle decimated the herds time and again, and at
the present time their holdings are small com-
pared to what they once were. Now they keep
only enough cattle to furnish meat and milk
and to use as barter in the purchase of wives.
The Luo, like all other Nilotic tribes, of
course, indulge in polygamy on a large scale.
A man may have ten, twenty, or even thirty
wives, according to his means and tempera-
ment. The manner in which a Kavirondo ob-
tains his additional wives and at the same time
builds up a village is rather peculiar. A man
having married for the first time usually lives
in his father's village until the time has come
when he is able to set up an establishment of
his own. ^ATien he has acquired enough head
of cattle to treat himself to a few additional
spouses he begins to cut down and collect a
WAKAVIRONDO SAVAGERY
Hut with part of inmates outside
Feminine curiosity watching the camera
Minstrel in Wakavirondo
THE WAKAVIRONDO 171
certain amount of wooden poles and sticks with
which to build the huts required for the rest
of his harem, in the construction of which he
is assisted by his relatives. A suitable place
is sought. as near as possible to his father's
kraal, and the first hut is erected. Gradually
as he collects wives new huts arise successively,
according to an established diagram, which
may be represented as follows:
975312468 10
When he has more than ten wives a new vil-
lage is erected for the next ten.
Wife A represents the first (1) hut, and
always remains the principal wife, her hut
forming the nucleus of the village. All the
cattle are attached to the first hut, and it is
with these cattle that the husband buys his new
wives. When the first wife has brought forth
her first-born she is thought to. need an assist-
ant. Since the second wife is bought with the
cattle attached to wife A's hut and the cattle
buy the wife, wife A, in the Kavirondo law,
buys the second wife and a new hut is built for
wife B at the right of wife A's hut. How-
ever, as time goes on, wife A requires more
assistants, and it may be that wife B is in the
same predicament. Wife A therefore buys
172 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
still another wife with the cattle attached to
her hut and wife C has a hut built on the left
side of wife A. When wife B needs help she
"buys" another wife — ^D — ^with the cattle at-
tached to her own hut, and so the system car-
ries on until a full complement of ten has been
obtained. Wife B and wife C are known as
the sisters of wife A, and their children form
one large family.
Similarly, wife D, paid for by wife B, lives
by the side of B in hut 4, and is known as the
daughter of B. Near evening the husband
sends his chair, which is a sort of milk stool,
to the wife whose company he wishes to enjoy
during the coming night. This self-invitation
is sent out in advance so that the chosen wife
may prepare for her lord's entertainment.
Around the village is raised a protective
fence made of Euphorbia and in this fence
there is only one opening, which is made
directly in front of hut number 1. On the
inside of this fence the brothers of the hus-
band may build their huts and those of their
wives, provided that they have not too many.
The open space in the area of the village is
reserved for a cattle pen. The goats, sheep and
calves are sheltered in the owner's hut unless
they be too numerous, in which case a separate
THE WAKAVIRONDO 173
structure is made for them. The pen is sur-
rounded by a fence of sticks and thorn bushes,
with a small apertm-e. This entrance is closed
at about 6 :30 P. M. Should the owner go out
in the evening to attend a sociable di'inking
bout the entrance is left open just a trifle for
his highness.
About 6 A. M. the village gate is opened,
and half an hour later the cattle gate is let
down. In the meantime the smaller animals
have been released from their huts and the
calves immediately seek their mothers. The
calves are allowed to take their breakfast be-
fore the boy attempts to milk the cow. A
curious thing about the African cow is that
she will not permit herself to be milked until
the calf has started the milk flow.
The milk is caught in an earthenware vessel,
or sometimes in a scooped-out chunk of wood.
These receptacles are cleansed with liquids ob-
tained from the cow; but an account of the
production and collection of the fluid involved
might be too realistic, for which reason I for-
bear a more detailed description. Women are
not permitted to milk cows, owing to the
nudity of the cow. The milk is used to make
a gi'uel for the mutama (a coarse grain) , which
sometimes is augmented by a slight quantity
174 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
of blood. This blood is caught at the killing
of an animal, and if no animal is killed they
follow the method of the Wakamba and bleed
the animal — after having pierced its artery
with an arrow. The Kavirondo are very skill-
ful at this operation and bleed the bull until
he is ready to drop. They repeat the process
on the same bull as often as three times a year.
After the milking, the inhabitants of the
village repair to their various duties, their
herding, their cultivation and their small game
hunting. In these villages everybody works
but father, and he sits around all day in the
"Abila," or rest hut, which is built in the mid-
dle of the cattle boma, or near it. Here the
elders have their pow-wows and drink their
beer. There is another important hut in the
village, and that is for boys over six years old.
As soon as any of the sons is old enough he
builds a hut for himself, and all the boys who
have reached six years live with him. At the
same age the girls leave their mother's hut and
live with their paternal grandmother. I need
hardly say that the supervision of the grand-
mother is rather inadequate, and that it does
not prevent the girls from slipping away to
spend the night with the boys. Nevertheless,
the chastity of the girls is rarely impaired by
THE WAKAVmONDO 175
this practice, but should an offense occur the
boy in the case is fined a cow.
In the afternoon at two all return from their
work and make preparations for the big meal
of the day, which is scheduled for five-thirty.
First they fetch water from the lake or from
the village waterhole. To see them balance
the round jars of water is a sight only found
in Kavirondo. First there will be a long line
of them, chattering as they go, the leaders
gossiping with the vanguard forty yards away
and all of them smoking their long-stemmed
pipes. All of the village scandal is chewed
over on those occasions, because there are no
other opportunities for general converse. The
water which they draw is beyond description,
because the cows drink from the same well,
standing knee deep in the water; the children
bathe in it ; the goats and sheep fight in it, and
the water is so putrid and so rank that the mere
odor of it would impair a white man's diges-
tion.
The evening milking ends the day of the
Luo braves. Their routine is the same day in
and day out, and monotonous as it seems, it
pleases the natives. It often occurred to me
that it is ahnost a shame to interrupt their
happy-go-lucky mode of living with our "mod-
176 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
ern" European ideas, which create needs and
wants of which thej^ formerly were unaware.
Sometimes it seems to me as though the intro-
duction of ciiaHzation has been detrimental to
their happy dispositions and to their one-time
complete contentment with life.
They have begun to use every inch of the
ground for agriculture and their chief product
is mutama, of which there are twenty different
varieties. AVhen planting time draws near the
young men clear the brush and prepare the
soil; the actual tilling and seeding is done by
the women and girls. The latter do the weed-
ing whenever necessary, and harvest the crop.
The gi-ains mature in four months, and the
women cut off the ears one by one and gather
them in big baskets. These receptacles are
taken to the village and deposited in stationary
baskets which look like miniature huts. They
are raised three feet above the ground to pre-
vent the rain and ants from spoiling the un-
threshed gi-ain. The grain is kept unthreshed,
for when it is in this condition a weasel cannot
do much harm. A sort of manliole is left near
the top of the wall so that the grain may be
removed, and sometimes it is necessary to push
a boy through the opening to obtain the con-
tents of the hut. These granaries are built of
THE WAKAVIRONDO 177
stalks and twigs and are renovated frequently.
The grain is threshed on a smooth level which
is kept smooth by a copious application of fer-
tilizer. After the threshing of the grain it is
ground by hand on two stones placed in the
veranda in the hut. The stationary grinding-
stone tapers down into a small hole, which is
smoothed on the inside with the usual Kavi-
rondo lubricant. This receptacle is scooped
out again and again, and the flour is collected
in baskets.
The cooking is crude. Culinary operations
are performed in cooking pots which have a
half-inch crust accumulated on the inside from
former preparations which have fermented the
boiling mutama. Stirring v/ith a stick or a
wooden ladle does not improve the combina-
tion of the old and new leaven, but the gruel
or mush does not seem to suffer from the in-
fusion of the old crust, judging by the avidity
with which the natives attack it. The real
gourmands make their mutama more tooth-
some by an addition of a gravy drawn from
meat or chicken, which is ladled out into small
dishes. The "bon vivant" takes a lump of
mutama, which he kneads with his fingers and
forms into a little ball, in which he makes a
depression. Then he dips the mouthful in the
178 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
gravy dish, filling the little depression, and
with resonant gusto the concoction is devoured,
although the first tablespoonful would have
afflicted a white man with ptomaine poisoning.
The woman who dishes up the food must
not walk sti-aight up to the waiting dinner
party, but slides in from the side. Nor is she
allowed to eat wdth them, as the Bantu w^omen
do. The children also eat by themselves or
with their mothers, although kindhearted
fathers may occasionally toss them a bone from
which the meat has been picked. After the
meal has been disposed of the men wash their
hands and take a drink of water, the first
mouthful of which they spit out and the other
of which they keep in their mouths, washing
their teeth with their fingers.
Another grain which is commonly grown
is the wimbi, a product very similar to canary
seed. The wimbi is used principally in the
brewing of beer and of other and stronger
alcoholic drinks. Some of these beverages are
kept standing for a year and make a potion
which would set the oldest white toper reeling
after the first glass. At present the Kavirondo
utilizes every patch of ground which will grow
a bunch of grass for their beans, sweet pota-
toes, pulse, maize and sim-sim, the latter two
THE WAKAVmONDO 179
being produced only for trading purposes. In
some parts where the soil is rich they also grow
tobacco, but not extensively. This tobacco is
allowed to ferment under stones, after which
process it is cut. However, most of the to-
bacco is imported. Formerly only women
smoked tobacco, the men preferring hemp,
which has the same effect as opium. The
British Government has stamped out the hemp
habit, and now men also smoke tobacco. Their
pipes are made from the same clay used for
their pottery and they are baked in small
bowls. The stem is made of iron, which is
obtained from the Indians. Formerly the
pipestems were constructed of reeds. The
pipe is passed from friend to friend so that all
may get a smoke. The pipe is more or less of
a community property, and it is hard to break
the natives of this unsatisfactory practice.
The natives of Kavirondo, owing to their
traditional antecedents, are naturally fond of
fish. The surroundings of their ancestors must
have lent themselves to the fish industry, living
as they were on the banks of the various
branches of the Nile, if not on the border of
Rudolf Nyanza. Reference is made in an-
other part of this volume to their probable
relationship with the Alur tribe, which occu-
180 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
pies the northwestern portion of the Albert
Nyanza and along the Nile, flowing out from
this lake. It may therefore be presumed that
they do not derive their fondness of fish from
strangers.
Most likely proximity to an abundant fish
supply in Berkeley Bay did more than any
other motive to decide their settlement in
Kavirondo. This conclusion seems very plaus-
ible because they have occupied the fringes of
the eastern section of the Victoria Nyanza,
spreading themselves over as long a coast line
as possible, in preference to penetrating deeper
into the mainland.
There is a peculiar interest attached to their
fishing methods, owing to the large scale on
which they operate. Of course, the material
used for this purpose is close at hand and in-
geniously utilized.
Students of Egyptology are aware of the
two principal symbols (the lotus and the
papyrus) found in archeological relics of the
ancient Pharaohs. The extent of the influence
of these ancient autocrats over the lower
Soudan is characterized by the papyrus plant
on all presentations, referring to their power.
And aptly so, because the papyrus is the out-
standing feature of the upper Nile. From
QUIET VILLAGE LIFE IN WAKAVIRONDO
An average village. Village goss.pcrs
Cattle released in the morning.
FISHING INDUSTRY IN WAKAVIRONDO
Weaving the dragnet of papyrus stalks
Weaving the trap of papyrus fibre
The dragnet placed in the Victoria Nyanza
THE WAKAVIRONDO 181
Fashoda up to the Albert and Vietoria Ny-
anza the stately papyrus stalk is ubiquitous,
bowing its graeefully plumed head with an
alluring welcome which has tempted many a
white intruder to an early grave with its deadly
breath hidden in a limitless ocean of Sud. The
Nile is not so treacherous to its own native
sons ; on the contrary, the ever-ready papyrus
stalk, as the native product of the Nile, fur-
nishes the network, baskets and drive mesh of
their fisheries. It is not merely an industry,
but partly a sport of which the Luo are very
fond. They prepare their nets with consum-
mate skill and admirable patience. Large
bundles of papyrus stalks are collected and
strung on a vertical line of the same material,
taking great care to twist the plmiies below the
waterline of the drive net. This net is too
bulky and heavy to di'ag. For this reason they
manufacture cone-shaped traps, which are in-
serted in the net at intervals of from twenty
to thirty feet. Drivers encircle the base of the
net around a semicircular line in boats and
floats, driving the fish in the direction of the
net. The fish, finding their flight cut off, fol-
low the net, which looks more like a submerged
papyi'us fence than a net, and seek safety in
the large openings of the traps, in which they
182 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
are caught and slowly gathered in to shore.
The great bulk of the fish is dried and smoked
for the market of Usoga, Uganda and other
parts of the interior.
Prohibition has not yet been suggested to
the Luo, and I wonder how they would receive
it. \Vliy should they worry about it so long as
their beer is not up to the 2.75 mark? Al-
though they indulge frequently and copiously,
they cannot be accused of drunkenness or of
great excesses. Their beer contains little alco-
hol, and is more of a food than an intoxicant.
It is made from the unground mutama, which
is poured into a large urn of water. The grain
is allowed to ferment for a day, and in order
to promote the process they add a few ashes
from the fireplace. The following morning
the grain is skimmed from the urn and put in
a basket, which is tied up with leaves. Here
it remains for three days to allow the fermen-
tation to continue until the grain becomes very
soft. A papyrus mat is then spread on the
floor and the grain is put out to dry so that it
may be ground. The ground grain or flour is
now boiled, and it is stirred continuously, so
that it will not burn. Now it is ready for the
filter, which is a large sack of grass. For a
second time it is boiled, and when the mixture
THE WAKAVIRONDO 183
has reached the boiling point the beer is ready
for use. Needless to say, the beer is not Ijot-
tled or drunk out of glasses, but the urn, or
"nsuwa," is placed in the middle of the hut and
the guests array themselves about it and im-
bibe through a long reed. The reeds are passed
round, and when the beer is about to be ex-
hausted, they add more boihng water.
There is another kind of beer made of canary
seed which contains more alcohol and keeps
longer. This they store and use for the gi'eat
occasions, such as births, marriages, funerals
and other state ceremonies.
Their economic and judiciary system is
somewhat patriarchal. The whole family
grows up together and settles down around
the paternal home. All their cattle are herded
together, and all property, such as cattle, flocks
and personal belongings, are communal. The
older men and elders used to settle all differ-
ences whenever and wherever they might
arise. The British Government has changed
the mode of procedure by appointing certain
chiefs, to whom they have given large districts
as their spheres of jm-isdiction. These chiefs
are assisted by overseers.
This system, however, is not satisfactory,
because many of these leaders do not belong
184 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
to what might be called the nobility or elite of
the tribe. It is the duty of the chiefs and over-
seers in concert to settle all native disputes
concerning the ownership of women, cattle,
land and other matters. In case no decision
can be reached the action is appealed to the
higher court of white men — the government
officials of the district. When a fine is im-
posed in such cases the money goes to the
treasury as part of the public revenue.
Bribery, of course, exists on an extensive scale
among the natiA^es.
The Wakavirondo have no modified statutes
or laws, but they have an unwi'itten law de-
rived from traditions and customs "to which
the memory of man runneth not to the con-
trary." For instance, to have killed a man in
a quarrel is a great honor; to steal a cow or
something more valuable is deemed a clever
performance if "you can get away with it."
Adultery, in the strict sense of the word, is
punished very severely, and rape or seduction
may be the cause of intertribal warfare. A
man apprehended in an act of bestiality prac-
tically becomes an outcast, and one who com-
mits suicide is buried outside the village as
a token of utter disgrace. At one time suicide
among women was quite common.
THE WAKAVIRONDO 185
Wakavirondo marriages are exogamous.
They must not marry within the same clan or
within a certain degree of relationship. As
with all Africans, obtaining a wife is a question
of barter and sale. The price paid for a woman
in the Luo tribes is from ten to fifteen head of
cattle and the bride is not consulted in the
transaction. However, the full price is not
paid at the beginning of the marriage rites.
As exogamy is strictly enforced, a man must
seek out a girl in a village far distant from his
own. Before the arrival of the Europeans it
was not safe to venture far from home into
unknown villages, and the custom arose which
made a wife-hunter go to the village of a friend
to look over the local marriage market. If the
fastidious young man was not suited, his friend
took him to a more distant village, and so the
suitor proceeded on an almost endless chain
until he found an acceptable candidate.
Having been accepted by the fortunate
young woman, he would go to her father or
eldest brother and make formal application
for her hand. His friends, who accompanied
him on his quest, also went with him to the
parents of the girl. The financial details set-
tled, the girl left her people with the bride-
groom after she had taken off her fringes (the
186 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
only garment she wore) and accompanied him
without a stitch of clothing.
Toward evening her sisters and other female
relations set out after her, singing to the ac-
companiment of the harp. When they reached
the bridegroom's temporary dwelling place
they entered and spread a hide on the floor,
placing the bride upon the skin. The boys
then put the bridegroom down the same way
and all left the hut with the exception of two
girls and two boys, who remained to witness the
consummation of the marriage. At the con-
clusion of the ceremony the four young people
gave a signal by raising their voices loudly, and
the guests outside sang the praises of the young
couple, who were now solenmly betrothed.
The next morning the female relations of the
bride went home and on entering the village
strew ashes on the heads of the bride's parents
as a symbol of sorrow at the departure of the
girl. The mother gave the girls a meal of sim-
sim and presented them with some mutama,
from which thej^ prepared a delicious broth.
With the fat which they had received the girls
smeared their bodies.
In the meantime the bride, who has stayed
with the bridegroom, has been presented by
him with a tassel made of the core of papyrus.
THE WAKAVIRONDO 187
This she fastens on a sort of belt and lets it
dangle from her back instead of in front, as
she wore the fringes before she was married.
Her only clothes before marriage are her
fringes, which are six inches long and two
inches wide, and after marriage her costume
is confined to the plume of papyrus fiber about
five inches long dangling from the back. x\n-
other gift from the bridegroom is a little piece
of iron, well polished, which the bride hangs
from her waist only during her bridal days.
(She is only a bride and is not called "wife"
until the day when she begins to cook for her
husband.) After ten days the father of the
bride prepares a banquet of goat meat, which
the boy and girl friends take to the newlyweds ;
the boys carry the uncooked legs, the girls
bring the balance of the meat cooked. Old
women who may wish to join in the feast must
bring the drinks. This feast is called "Myasi."
After this first feast the girls are joined by
the bride's mother to take the bride home.
Here the father prepares another feast, to
which the villagers contribute their modicum
in the form of boiled meat, and all partake.
When the mother returns the bridegroom
sends two of his boy friends with an animal
to the father-in-law as the first installment of
188 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the marriage price. Hereafter the bride doffs
both the tassel and the fringes and goes about
nude until it is time to go permanently to her
husband.
The bridegroom now presents a goat to the
bride's sister, who has fixed a tassel for the
bride. If he overlooks this ceremony he will
be punished at his death by the wailing of all
the women, wearing their tassels as a sign of
contempt.
When the greater part of the dowry has
been paid the bridegroom kills a bull and car-
ries the legs, ribs and half the breast to the
bride's relations, who convey the offering to
the father of the bride. The remainder of the
meat is consumed by the bridegroom, neigh-
bors and relations.
From now on the bride lives with her hus-
band and begins to cook for him, as well as
doing her housewifely duties. Only once more
does she leave him, and this time he offers an-
other cow to her mother. Thereupon she re-
turns and settles down.
There is one ceremony of a very impressive
nature which the bride's father performs be-
fore the girl leaves him for all time. He takes
a quail and makes an incision in its beak. He
ties the quail around her neck with a string
THE WAKAVIRONDO 189
provided with some shells. He kills a goat
to provide a parting feast, and the girl, be-
decked with quail and shells, goes back to her
husband for better or for worse.
Another ceremony worthy of note occurs
three or four years after marriage, when the
bridegroom is called upon to kill a bull in honor
of his father-in-law. He notifies all his friends
and they accompany him to join in the feast.
They drive the bull before them and follow in
small groups. Arriving at the father-in-law's
village, they adjourn to the banquet and sing
extravagant praises of the bride and bride-
groom. They paint and grease their bodies
fantastically and make the night merry with
their dancing and singing. This ceremony is
called "Kiscra," and the "morning after" all
disperse.
These ceremonies are observed for every
marriage regardless of how many wives a man
may have.
Divorce is very common among the Luo.
\Anien a man sends his wife away, or when she
leaves him, however slight the provocation, all
of his cattle are returned. The restitution may
be a prolonged process, because frequently the
brothers of the bride have used the cattle to
purchase wives. The children of the marriage
190 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
belong to the father. One or two heads of
cattle are left as remuneration for the relatives
of the wife.
Apart from marriage there are certain oc-
casions on which, according to Kavirondo cus-
tom, the girls may make love to the boys with-
out contracting or promising any further rela-
tion of marriage or serious attachment. How-
ever, it is the opinion of the best authorities
that there is no actual conjugal relationship
or its equivalent going on during such seances.
The fun is conducted in the following man-
ner: The girls, prettily oiled and arrayed in
their Sunday best — a new tassel and fringes —
proceed to a district where one of their rela-
tions lives. Here they are met by the boys,
who likewise are greased and painted pictur-
esquely. Upon accosting one another they
shakQ hands, a process which, according to
their custom, consists of a series of hand gym-
nastics. Following this introduction the girls
retire a few paces and begin to sing and dance
the praises and the attractive features of the
boys. The boys in turn retire and sing and
dance, repeating their evolutions constantly.
Presently both sides dance in concert, and
slowly but surely they sidle up to one another.
When a boy finally has decided upon a certain
THE WAKAVIRONDO 191
girl he approaches her and taps her gently
on the head with his club. If the girl is agree-
able the young couple retire from the crowd
and make arrangements to spend the night to-
gether. The dance continues until all of the
boys and all of the girls have mated off. Of
course, the consequences of these adventures
are not serious and lovemaking is merely a
form of polite diversion. The girls stay with
the boys for about three days, after which they
return home.
There is another way of making love. He
and she will have a long talk together, and if
his sentiment is reciprocated they will agree
to marry. The boy then takes a blade of grass
and the girl breaks it as a pledge. This is
called "Muma." Should either party be un-
faithful to this pledge he or she will have evil
fortune in later life, and to prevent this catas-
trophe the girl's father and the father of the
boy, mellowed by a social drink, will arrange
for the marriage of their children. Frequently
such a marriage is a failure, because the young
couple arranged it only on an impulse and
later went through with the ceremony so that
no disaster would overtake them. In this in-
stance, when the boy and the girl do not marry
officially they may live together with the "ben-
192 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
efit of clergy." Elopements are rare, and
when they occur the parents of the girl try to
recover their daughter. Should they fail, they
try vigorously to extort a few heads of cattle
from the male eloper's family in payment of
a dowry.
It sometimes happens that a man or a boy
induces a married woman to leave her husband
and marry the interloper. In this case the first
husband generallj'' bewitches his wandering
spouse by taking something which belonged to
her, such as a lock of hair, a piece of finger-
nail, a rag or some other article which has come
in contact with her, and hangs it up in a large
oval-shaped calabash. So long as this spell
is continued she wiU never thrive, and as a rule
such women waste away until they are dead.
To prevent her death she often consults a witch
doctor, who sacrifices a goat, the entrails of
which he examines while mumbling some
prayers, and after this he will produce the
article which the first husband has suspended
in his hut. The spell, however, is so potent
that in one authentic case where the husband's
talisman was actually identified by the guilty
woman she never recovered, and died a few
days later.
The birth of a child is anticipated with the
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THE WAKAVIRONDO 193
greatest anxiety both by the father and mother,
the former hoping it will be a boy and the lat-
ter praying that it will be a girl. A barren
woman is despised among the Luo, and not in-
frequently a marriage contract is broken off
when it is found that the woman will be
childless.
The Wakavirondo reckon ten lunar months
from the time of conception to the date of birth
and on that great day a woman too old to bear
children is called in to nurse the prospective
mother. If the baby is a boy he is washed by
his grandmother and by the midwife. The
cold water used for this initial ablution is
poured into an earthenware pot and an ax is
put in the pot to signify that the boy will help
his father in the building of huts. There is no
such ceremony for a girl. Before a woman
has borne a child or if she lias borne only girls
to her husband no ax is allowed inside the hut
because the wife has not given her husband an
assistant builder. The ax is left outside the
house, or in the granary until the first male
child is born.
Immediately after the child is born it re-
ceives a name which as a rule is decided upon
as a result of some di-eams which the father or
mother had had during the time of pregnancy.
194 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
If there has been no dream the witch doctor is
called in to name the child. He consults the
pebbles and the calabash, which he shakes and
rattles until the name is revealed to him.
Usually he finds the name of an ancestor and
tells the parents to call the child by that name.
For this service he receives a basket of mu-
tama. If the woman is a second or later wife,
she receives from her mother (we must recall
that the Wakavirondo refer to the first wife as
the sister or mother of the others ) a razor with
which to shave the head of the baby after fom*
days. The father's head is also shaved with this
implement. This razor is kept religiously in a
calabash. If the baby is a boy two horse beans
are fastened between the legs of the child to
notify the world at large that he is a boy, after
the naming and shaving ceremonies. AVhen
the baby is a girl a string made of the core of
papyrus is tied around her waist to proclaim
her sex.
The names of the new-born Luo formerly
were designed to indicate certain events during
which the child was born. For instance, the
prefix "O" was attached to the name of the
event for the boy and the prefix "A" for a girl.
Hence Olwenyo was the name of a boy born
in war-time, Lwenyo meaning war, and Aye
THE WAKAVIRONDO 195
ivas the name of a girl born on the road, Yo
meaning road; Otieno was a boy born in the
night — and so on.
Wlien a woman is barren the witch doctor
is consulted, and he orders the sacrifice of a
goat, a chicken or a cow. The chosen animal
must be sheltered in the same hut with the
woman. If a goat has been selected the top of
his ear is cut off and a hole is pierced through
the fragment, which the poor woman must
carry suspended from her neck. If a chicken
is chosen the center claw is cut off and worn
similarly. The cow is not touched. The ani-
mal must never be killed, and when the goat
grows too old one of its kids is substituted.
This remarkable fetish is kept up for years,
and through generations, so that, even when
the first cause of the sacrifice has passed, the
relatives of the woman still continue the prac-
tice.
Twins are despised, and when a pair is bom
the parents must stay in the hut for at least
a month, never going out even for the most
necessary human needs. The first of the twins
is called Apigo and the second Agongo irre-
spective of their sex. The songs which are
sung on this occasion are not fit to be heard
nor even recorded. The father, the mother
196 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
and even the other children if there are any,
tie leaves of morning glory on their backs
above their waists and all the time drums are
beaten.
At the end of the month the ashes and dirt
accmiiulated in the house are put on the ver-
anda outside and the hut is ready to be re-
opened. ^^^len the inhabitants have emerged
they immediately prepare a great feast to
which their neighbors and friends are invited.
The guests bring presents of food, drink, wine
and beads. Beer is brewed in great quantities
and at night the dance of the twins is per-
formed. This dance is so orgiastic that even
among the pagans the boys and girls are not
permitted to witness the display. However,
the dance settles the fate of the twins. The dirt
and ashes which have been taken out of the hut
are now covered over, the supposition being
that all who step on the refuse will rot away
slowly. After these ceremonies there can be
no more twins in the family.
A similar ceremony takes place when a
woman who has been suffering from certain
irregularities conceives. ^Vhen the child is
born the parents are again shut in their hut
but for a shorter period of time. The same
ceremony is followed although not on so
THE WAKAVIRONDO 197
elaborate a scale as when twins are born.
Nevertheless, here is another occasion for the
exchange of presents and for a drinking and
dancing bout.
Kavirondo is noted for the strange and un-
canny rites which mark the burial services of
the dead members of the tribe. Wailing occurs
in all the tribes as a manifestation of sorrow
but owing to the close proximity of the villages
Kavirondo is a nuisance for a white man to
live in owing to the fact that there seems to
be a wake all the year round. The long
cadences of the wailing dirge are particularly
annoying and disturbing at night especially
since they are accompanied by a monotonous
muffled sound of drums. "\^niat made me in-
vestigate in a detailed manner into these
funeral rites was a discovery I made of a grue-
some custom in Mumias.
It was a sultry day when I started out for
Mumias, hot and suffocating. In the morn-
ing we had a little excitement in the form of
a Vimy Vichy aeroplane sailing into Kisumu
where the natives, no longer astonished at any-
thing the white man might do, took the aerial
monster for a big bird (ndegge) and promptly
proceeded to dance around it as if it were a
festival occasion for which they had been
198 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
waiting for a long time. It was not only the
first aeroplane which had come into that part
of the comitry, but the first one to make an
attempt to cross the African continent from
north to south or from Cairo to the Cape.
Leaving the big monster to the admiration
of the Kavirondo I started west on this long
hot trip to get some routine customs of the
tribe but what was my surprise when I found
one of the best records awaiting me at the
other side. We had a barrel of trouble but it
was worth all that and more. My chauffeur
even was arrested for ignoring the commands
of His Majesty, a snobbish young English
police sergeant. But even that was forgotten
and contributed to the arrogant ambition of
John Bull's surplusage of his aristocratic poor
relations. Wliat we got was an excellent
record of the Kavirondo method of burying
their dead in a sitting position with the head
left above the ground.
The death and burial of a Kavirondo differs
completely from that in any other tribe with
which I am acquainted. AMien the death of a
native is expected he is put on the bare floor.
All of his clothes, if he possessed any, are taken
from him, he is stripped of his ornaments and
he is left alone to fight his last struggle with
A WAKAVIRONDO VILLAGE CHIEF
Sugar loaf hat is his distinctive headgear.
THE WAKAVIRONDO 199
death. The Kavirondo are careful to deprive
hmi of his ornaments for fear that the evil
spirit will haunt his relatives and friends and
that the victim himself never will have peace
after the fatal hour. His last breath is not al-
lowed to escape him before his relatives begin
to push his legs up against his chin, and fold
his arms, with the hands upward. As soon as
he has breathed his last, the women and girls of
the village begin the death wail, which can be
heard far away; the dead man's warbomiet is
hoisted up on a flagpole placed near his hut.
At this signal the neighboring boys prepare
for the funeral rites, and early the next morn-
ing they journey to the next village where the
dead man lived. They drive the cattle out to
graze for themselves, while they paint them-
selves for the occasion. The boys put on full
war costmnes with spears in hand and head
gear to crown their nakedness. The hats are
monstrous apparitions, and ought to rouse the
dead from their graves. They are large
sugar-loaf-shaped creations, covered with a
monkey skin or ostrich feathers and with
ostrich plumes jabbed into them from all sides.
If no crown is available the boys stick feathers
all over their hair, which fashion makes them
appear fantastically absurd. From their arms
200 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
they suspend the ends of cow tails, which are
allowed to trail along the ground. They
fasten fetlocks made of strips of skin around
their ankles. Their heads are smeared with a
reddish clay or with greased ashes, which give
them a ghastly appearance and their faces are
covered with a paint of various ochers, which
gives them a fearfully war-like appearance.
Formerly on the death of a prominent man
they used to make a raid on some neighboring
village whose inhabitants were supposed to
have brought do^vn on them this calamity.
Now they roam about the countryside until
eleven o'clock in the morning when they arrive
at the village where the death occurred.
On hearing the horns of the boys the women
increase their wailing and some of the boys now
enter the hut and carry the corpse, depositing
it outside the hut near the entrance. The
mourners on their arrival join in the chorus of
lamentation, and even the cattle seem to take
up the strain by lowing. Indeed, the noise is
maddening. The boys finally squat down on
the ground and the burial takes place, the
grave having been dug. If the father, mother
or oldest child dies, the grave is dug inside the
hut, but the younger children are buried out-
side the house under the veranda. Sometimes
THE WAKAVIllONDO 201
when an old and revered inhabitant has died,
the natives build a new hut as a mausoleum to
rest in. The wife, assisted by some women
and one man, digs the gi-ave for her dead hus-
band, and the husband, assisted by some
women, does the same for his deceased wife.
Young boys help the father to bury the son,
and young girls and the mother lay away the
daughter. The grave is patterned somewhat
in the shape of a box, nan'ow at the feet and
broadening out at the shoulders. The head
rests on a cushion formed of earth, and in
many cases it is laid in a sort of alcove, dug
away from the main grave. A man's head
rests on his right arm, and the woman's is
placed on the left of her body.
The relations who live in the village where
the person has died do not cook their food or
milk their cows for three days, but receive their
food and milk from friends who sj^mpathize
with the bereaved. The first evening after the
death they kiU a sheep to pacify the spirit of
the departed. The skin of the sheep is cut into
small strips which the girls and children tie
around their wrists and ankles, while the boys
make rings for their little fingers. After the
dead person has been in his grave for three
days, the house is swept and all the villagers
202 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
walk up the path leading to the house, and are
shaved. When the father dies the oldest son is
put on the father's chair, and some article used
by his parent as a hoe, a stick, or a pipe is given
to the son to signify that he is the legal heir and
successor. ^
The ceremonies have now begun in real
earnest and presently the boys and the men,
decked out in full war paraphernalia riding on
or walking behind their pet cows, begin to
gather. The women and girls also come up
slowly in their invisible costumes, greased
liberally, all of them anxious to join in the
funeral service. All walk together to the
house where the burial is taking place and in
procession they march to a large open space,
where they give vent to their feelings of sorrow
in the most violent manner. It looks more
like a tom-nament than a funeral service. The
men and boys array themselves in two lines,
and run up and down furiously, until finally
they begin to charge at one another as in battle.
"^ATien they come together the clash does not
materialize, they stick their spears in the
ground with a flourish, and draw them out to
return to a new charge. This sham battle con-
tinues for a long time until the women's turn
has come. Wlien the sign is given, women
THE WAKAVIRONDO 203
and girls raise a most unearthly howl, beating
the air and stamping their feet on the gi'ound
like a mob of maniacs. They continue their
efforts for three-quarters of an hour, after
which they are completely exhausted. At
three o'clock in the afternoon they retire and
go home. If the deceased is a person of im-
portance this service will be repeated after a
few months.
A woman bewails her husband for two or
three months and her child for one month.
The men and boys finish their mourning in a
few days. If death takes too large a toll the
Kavirondo abandon their village and build
elsewhere because the evil spirits have gotten
control of the place. In this case they pile
stones on the graves so that other people will
not cultivate the ground. They revere the
dead, and offer up many sacrifices for them in
order to pacify their spirits which are supposed
to roam about. Suicides, many of whom are
women, used to be buried outside the village
and a sheep was killed and offered as a sacri-
fice by throwing a small portion of its flesh
toward the sun. They scourged the tree on
which the suicide had hung himself with the
entrails of a sheep, after which they dug up the
tree w ith all its roots ; it was then left so that
204 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
it could be easily bm-ned. If a person hanged
himself in the house, the same sacrifice of the
sheep was performed, and the sheep skin cut
into strips which the women wore around their
necks. The body was buried under the ver-
anda, and the house abandoned and shunned
until it fell down and only then was another
one built.
I mentioned above that I found practised
in Mumias (the northwest corner of the
Kavirondo district) a custom of burying the
body of a dead chief with the head protruding
above the ground. Of this I saw an example
of a chief (the brother of the famous Mumia)
who had died in September, 1917. The de-
tails of the custom call for the evacuation of
the hut in which he died by everybody except
his two favorite wives. The latter guard the
remains in the hut where he is buried with his
head above the ground. This head or skull
they grease with butter daily until the fleshy
substance has disappeared. During all this
time they cover the head with an earthenware
cooking pot after the dressing. When finally
the bare bony skull only remains the head is
wrenched from the vertebrae and buried with
the balance of the remains. About that time
the hut also falls into ruins and the two widows
^'jt- j,?^,'s
^piW ^^^B^
ENJOYING NATURE DRINKS
Light refreshment during the dance
Two topers enjoying their home brew
THE WAKAVIRONDO 205
have another hut or two built close by where
they live out the balance of their days dutifully
guarding the spot where once the "Master"
lived.
A murderer used to be considered a hero and
honored as such. When a group of men had
killed an enemy clansman the murderers would
go to the nearest village having painted their
right cheeks with a reddish ocher and their left
with a whitish — a confession of the crime. A
male sheep was killed and the skin was cut into
long strips which the murderers wore sus-
pended from their arms. In the meantime
some charms composed of certain woods were
collected and sprinkled over the neighboring
villages as though a blessing were being im-
parted. If a murderer had not blessed the
village and he met a person of that village the
person he encountered would die.
Formerly when a mui'der was committed by
a single party the murderer received in each
village which he entered a chicken or an-
other gift of similar value. A day or two
after a murder all went to the village where the
murder had been committed and sang the
praises of the murderer. After four days the
villagers used to go to the river to wash them-
selves, threw strips of sheep skin into the river,
206 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
and suspended from their necks owls whose
beaks had been cut. Now murderers go to the
paths leading to the market from the villages
and receive the offerings of men and women
going to the market. These offerings consist
of grain, flour, meats, and the like. A mur-
der was often followed by tribal and clan wars,
but for this reason the British government has
lately managed to stamp out most of the in-
centives to this crime.
THE CONGO
Having completed our work in Kavirondo
our party took the S. S. Winifred to Ntebbe,
the governmental headquarters of Uganda.
On the Victoria Nyanza many memories
crowded each other into the background as we
sailed along smoothly on the mirrorlike surface
of this Mid-African lake on which not a ripple
broke the brilliant sheet of reflected sun-
light.
My first voyage on the little Ruwenzori
came vividly before my revision of the past
when, in 1897, I had skipped from island to
island and occasionally to a banana plantation
on the mainland to seek for night shelter or
food. When the Bavuma Islands hove into
sight I remembered the times when I had been
rowed from the borders of Kyagwe in native
canoes manned by a dozen or more strong
muscled oarsmen, whose rhj^thmic strokes, ac-
companied by monotonous if loud songs of
spontaneous composition, moved the frail
207
208 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
shivering excuse for a boat with marvelous
speed towards their fishing hamlets.
The sight of the now deserted Kome Islands
recalled the deplorable ravages of sleeping
sickness which, in less than two years, had laid
waste a thickly populated group of thriving
fishermen's communities, leaving only sad
memories to the missionaries whose efforts had
built up such promising missions. I could al-
most feel the graveyard silence which hovered
over the fertile and luxurious wilderness of
their dark green forests, bleeding with nature's
own abundant rubber supply. The sad mem-
ories of the hundreds of natives whom I had
silently witnessed sleeping their lives away
into unconscious extinction almost seared my
soul. I could see my old friend Mumbo even
now standing before me with his jubilant court,
when he announced his elevation to the chief-
tainship of these Kome Islands, which he only
governed a couple of years before the great
catastrophe spread its sure but silent talons
over the little archipelago to crush out every
living soul of its prosperous units.
Skipping away from this group of islands,
I glued my glasses on the next, comprising
the Sesse Islands which, although I had never
visited them, yet will always bring back to me
THE CONGO 209
the poor misguided rivaby between the French
Cathobc and Engbsh Protestant missionaries
of the late eighties and early nineties, when
finally a long brooding spirit of jealousy
culminated in the fierce war of the Bangereza
and Bafaraza (English and French) ; when
Bishop Hirth had been fired upon by Captain
Williams when he escaped with King Mwanga
of Uganda across this very sheet of water
which I now traversed. And yet again this
very rivaby had worked its own way to make
the native partisans loyal to the cause they had
espoused and made them use all their influence
on their friends, which precipitated the almost
general choice of religion in Uganda so that
this central tribe in Africa may now be classed
as a Christian tribe amid the surrounding riot
of paganism.
Crossing from port to starboard, I now
gazed on the well known hills of Uganda,
among which my happiest years were spent.
My very soul was stirring when I recognized
Nakasero's long straight sky line around
whose sloping curves I crawled on that never-
to-be-forgotten September night in '97 when
I had been recalled from my inland mission
to join the slender European forces against the
700 well armed Soudanese mutineers. Con-
210 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
flicting native reports had it that the mutineers
had surrounded Kampala from the Northeast
and strung a chain of outposts across my
path leading into the capitol, and guided
by a Muganda Mussu hunter I had been
led silently through the high elephant-grass-
covered mitala into Kampala, only to find out
that the mutineers were held on the other side
of the Nile. But that night and the succeed-
ing ten days of suspense and the long guerilla
war following, when 700 guns and practically
all available ammmiition were in the hands of
the Nubians and we were cut off from all as-
sistance by more than a thousand miles, when
there were only 40 whites in the whole Protec-
torate ; those long night vigils in solitary posts
where silent hostile scouts crouching toward
the white centrals were forever on search for
one's life like leopards of the dark; when one
only could rely upon the bravest and most
faithful of one's mission boys and all others
had fled to safetj'^; when Nanganga had sur-
rounded me three times at night and I was at
his mercy, having not one gun on the premises,
and he, the old elephant hunter, supported
with 40 rifles, and I had outmaneuvered him by
having the war drums beaten with scarcely a
dozen unarmed boys around me ; all these remi-
THE CONGO 211
niscences passed my memory as in a parade of
black ogres. But amidst them rose my Bagan-
da friends, whom I was now about to visit
again after an absence of 17 years.
Having landed at Ntebbe, an agent of
Childs and Joseph, a New York firm, whisked
me now in a motor car to Kampala on splendid
roads where, on the night of 13th May, 1897,
Father Biermans (now Bishop of Uganda)
had led me by the hand through narrow foot-
paths when I was blind from the effects of the
tick fever and together, strangers in a strange
land guided by a mission boy, we arrived un-
announced at the reed gate of the Nsambya
mission at 2 A. M. after traveling six months
and seven days from London to this our des-
tination. "Mengo of the Seven Hills" came
into view and with it my seven years of hard
service and successful efforts shot into the ret-
ina of my eyes like a vivid living picture as
I had seen them onlj^ in my dreams and dis-
stant contemplations during this long period
of absence. Wliat blissful memories surged
into my very being physically shaking my
frame with their absorbing thrills such as only
pioneers may lay claim to !
I wish I had time and space here to set down
the pleasant experiences of the next four
212 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
weeks in Uganda, but I must leave them for
another chapter or maybe a book on the
Baganda whom I must now only mention "en
passant" and in transit to the Congo.
Leaving Uganda we wended our way part
by road and part by steamer to Jinja, the
source of the Nile in Usoga. Here we fol-
lowed the Nile as far as the lake Kyoga which
we crossed on a comfortable fiat-bottom steam-
boat. It is worth mentioning here as a
digression that the Nile is 3,461 miles long
whilst the elevation of Jinja is 3,462 feet, leav-
ing the Nile a fall of one foot per mile on its
long journey to Alexandria on the Mediter-
ranean.
There are two features in the illustrations of
this collection which are foreign to the contents
of the book, but the pictures are too rare to
cast them aside, and a little explanation will
be necessary to elucidate their meaning.
The hippopotamus picture was taken by
Mr. Klein, who killed it. The name of the
"horse of the Nile" which really belongs to
the pig family rather than to the equine genus,
is a mistaken nomenclature for which the early
philologicians are more to blame than the bi-
ologists. The Nile is teeming with them, and
we saw schools of 50 and 60 of the beasts from
A "HIPPO" IS A GIFT OF THE NILE
Light spot showing hippo coming up for a breath
The carcass is rolled up the bank
Saffari boys enjoying the leatherlike meat
THE CONGO 213
the railing of the Ccdsar, which took us from
Rajaff to Karthum.
The porters of a caravan are very fond of
"hippo" meat, although it is altogether too
tough a task for our white digestions to tackle.
The Shilluck are a Nilotic tribe who live on
the west bank of the Nile in and around
Fashoda, of Colonel Marchant fame. Whilst
the Pigmies in the Congo Forest are the
smallest race in Africa, so are the Shilluck the
tallest. Of the hundred and more Shilluck I
saw there were at least four who measured over
7 feet, whilst there was not one under 6 feet.
The men have a peculiar mode of hair-
dressing. They spread out the hair on the
crown or tonsure in the form of a matted flat
surface very similar to our collegiate caps.
The impression of this fanciful design topping
an otherwise totally naked appearance looks
very ridiculous. The Shilluck are fearsome
warriors with long shields made of crocodile
hides and long spears which at rest are
planted in the ground, head down. Their
dance is more like a warlike attack than a
"gyratic" performance.
After crossing the Kyoga Lake on another
flat-bottom stern-wheeler we landed at Port
Masindi in Bmiyoro, where we started on an-
214 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
other cross-country jaunt, part by motor truck
and part on foot, to Butyaba on the east coast
of the Albert Nyanza.
The Congo had alwa3^s been an alluring
mystery to me. Now we were so near that I
could not withstand the spell of the forest and
I decided to lift that enigmatic veil which had
always hung over this far-famed wilderness.
The Pigmies particularly were fairytale
phantoms whom I longed to see in the flesh,
however far they might be removed from the
public eye. Their elusiveness seemed to grow
in reverse proportion to our distance from
them, and this only whetted my appetite.
We had been through Uganda and Busoga,
and since I had planned to go back by the Nile
route, we made arrangements to include a visit
to the Pigmies. The most peculiar thing about
the route to the Congo is that no one in British
East Africa seems to know much about it, and
I had given up trying to find out anything
definite as to time tables or the direction in
which we had to travel. I discovered in
Uganda that there were tw^o routes open, the
Kasenyi and the Mahagi entree. These two
ports on the western shore of the Lake Albert
were the only certain guideposts of which we
could learn. As to plans for further traveling
THE CONGO 215
or data concerning the shortest routes to the
Pigmies, there were so many different opinions
— mostly supi^orted by hearsay only — that I
made up my mind to trust in chance.
Therefore I sent half of our party on to
Nimuli to finish whatever exposed film had not
been developed, and Dr. Shattuck and I
stepped ashore at Mahagi Port the day after
we landed in Butyaba. I had tried to get
transportation to Kasenyi, which is the south-
most port on the Albert, by rowboat or sailing
vessel, but the commander of the ports raised
all sorts of objections on account of the rough-
ness of the lake. I remonstrated that the dan-
gers were ours, not his, but this made the old
seadog all the more stubborn. I then tried the
Provincial Commissioner, who I was told,
might secure me a native canoe with enough
rowers to get us to the Congo from Butyaba
in three days.
Here I struck a new objection — that of the
sleeping sickness, which is still raging along
the shore of the Albert Nyanza. A number of
formalities would have to be gone through
which would take more time than we could
save by taking the southern route. So at the
eleventh hour we decided to go to INIahagi, the
port of call of that week, and had to add an-
216 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
other two weeks to our already long trip
through these inhospitable regions. I had
hoped that we might be able to get down from
Mahagi to the Forest and back again in time
to catch the next week's steamer from Kasenyi
back to Butyaba and Nimuli, but little did I
then know what problems confronted us.
No sooner had we reached Mahagi than the
plot began to thicken. We seemed fortunate
in meeting two Belgian Government officials
who had been in the country for a long time
and who, I supposed, would be better able
than any one to give us definite information.
Nothing was further from the mark. They
contradicted all the information that we had
obtained so far and contradicted one another.
It seemed that there was no definite informa-
tion to be had or that there was an under-
standing between these officials to keep out
intruders at all costs. This theory has become
a conidction since then. "^Vliy is it that we
received contradictory information from all
these people unless it was to bewilder us and
to dissuade us from going into the forest?
As a matter of fact, all of them advised us
not to attempt the trip. But we were not to
be discouraged so easily.
Then came another bolt from a clear sky.
THE CONGO 2ir
Although we were merely transient visitors
for as short a time as possible, we were told
that we would have to pay the full amount of
customs duty and the full fee for the use of
our rifles — or even for possessing them.
Bonded guarantees for the safe return of all
the dutiable articles were not suggested until
I had shown that no imposition could deter
me from entering the Great Forest. I called
every bluff, and finally we were told of the
best way to achieve our ends.
But again we found that we had been de-
ceived, either intentionally or otherwise.
AVhen we arrived at the post where we were
supposed to find the best authority (a Belu-
chistan Indian by the name of Selmnani) we
found ourselves thwarted again, this time in an
almost disastrous manner. We traveled eco-
nomically and had obtained twenty porters for
our luggage. Thinking at the outset that we
Would reach the forest in three days, we had
counted on keeping these porters until our re-
turn. But when we found that we had to pro-
ceed to a town called Kilo — a matter of five
days more marching — ^the porters left us and
would not even come another day's trip with
us to Fataki, where we were sure to get other
porters. The Indian told us that we should
218 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
meet up with the "Wliite Fathers at Fataki
and that they were certain to be able not only
to provide us with porters, but to direct us
the proper way. We appealed to the local
chief, Julu, for porters, but this worthy had
not influence enough with his people to get us
a guide, not to mention twenty porters. Dr.
Shattuck volunteered to leave next morning
early to go to the A'VHiite Fathers and to send
back porters to take me and the luggage away
from where we were marooned. He started
early the next day, and I had just settled down
in the afternoon to compose a long article when
in walked Dr. Shattuck after a futile march
of seven hours and a half, sajang that he had
completed a circle.
T^ov/ it was up to me, footsore and disabled
as I was through a festering blister, to take
to the road and to make a five-hour journey
which turned out to be seven hours. At 8:30
P. M. I finally reached the priests. I was
tired, even more footsore and hungry, without
any baggage whatsoever, and they gave me
aU I needed and looked after my torn feet,
which pained me sadly. But all the hardships
were forgotten when they gave me the glad
tidings that I would surely find what I sought
THE CONGO 219
in another day's march from Kilo, which is the
nearest white settlement to the Mambuti.
The next morning at eight, twenty porters
were on their way to Dr. Shattuck, who ar-
rived at Fataki the day after. So here we are
to-day, a week after leaving Butyaba, still at
the mission of the AVliite Fathers at Fataki,
hoping to get away from here to-morrow, on
om* way to Kilo and the Forest. One thing
is accomplished: we have the information
which we had tried so hard to get, and there is
great probability of seeing the Pigmies. "VAHiat
seems stranger than anything else is that the
Fathers can win us an opportunity to film the
little fellows, whereas the officials gave us little
or no hope of picturing tliem. The influence
of the Fathers over the natives is beyond ques-
tion far greater than that of the officials.
A striking incident demonstrated this only
the day before yesterday. There was an engi-
neer, whom I met at a resthouse of Tsupu,
whose porters had run away. He had ordered
the local chief to get him twenty porters the
next morning. AVlien our porters passed the
camp he was still minus porters, and he seized
mine as well as the letter I had written to Dr.
Shattuck, and these porters were compelled to
220 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
carry his loads as far as Julu, where Dr. Shat-
tuck was waiting for them. Here, with all his
governmental influence, the engineer was un-
able to obtain other porters to carry him
further, but had to send to the nearest head-
quarters for another lot. The Fathers had no
difficulty in getting us porters, not only to go
and bring in Dr. Shattuck, but also for our
fm'ther trip to the forest. "There's a reason.'*
Now, some one will ask, is the filming of the
Pigmies worth all this trouble? More than
that! I have made a discovery which so far
I have never heard spoken of by any of the
authorities whom I have met, nor have I seen
any mention of it in any anthropological
authorities which I have consulted with re-
gard to the tribes of the Congo. Despite all
our mishaps and this long roundabout way to
Kilo, I have made this observation: that the
tribes which inhabit this district — some 70
miles wide and 140 miles long, between
Mahagi and Kilo and between the shores of
the Albert Nyanza and a northern branch of
the great forest — were gradually decreasing
in height as we went along. The Walur, who
inhabit the district between Mahagi Port and
Mahagi Station and for twenty miles further
southwest, are above average size. They are
THE CONGO 221
a brother tribe of the Wakavirondo and are
of Nilotic origin. They also speak the same
language as the Kavirondo. This was my first
find and rather a sm-prise, for there is a dis-
tance of some six hundred miles between the
two branches, not to mention two lakes, the
Kyoga and the Albert Nyanza.
The next tribe bordering on the Walur are
called the Walendu, who are purer Nilotic
than the Walur, and who are nearly a foot
shorter in stature. They are decidedly less
intelligent, and altogether below the normal
scale of mentality, even as compared with their
neighbors, the Walur, who in turn are inferior
to their brothers, the Kavirondo. Besides, the
Walendu are abnormally cruel in their deal-
ings with each other. Incidents showing this
cruelty happen here almost every week. Thej''
seem to take a delight in cutting one another's
throats and still more in disemboweling their
victims at the slightest provocation. The worst
of this barbarity is that the culprit flees after
the deed and leaves his nearest of male kin to
pay for the damage that he has done. It is the
custom of these natives to seize the brother,
who may be absolutely innocent of his kins-
man's crime, and to visit on him the same afflic-
tion which the criminal has visited on his vie-
222 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
tim. The language of the Walendu is still a
greater manifestation of their low intellect.
It is a language of monosyllables without a
trace of syntax, articles or even pronouns. One
word or syllable has from five to ten different
meanings, distinguished from one another only
by a variation of inton-ation and accent. Gen-
ders are unkno'svn in this tongue, nor is there
declension of nouns or conjugation of verbs.
It is said that there is a similar language to be
found in the Soudan, and hence some maintain
that the Walendu are originally from the Sou-
dan. But the lower jaws of these strange na-
tives are so prominent and proti'uding that
they could scarcely claim relationship with
those tribes whose lower jaws are distinctly
recessive. Moreover, the Soudanese are not
of short stature. However, this is a question
for an anthropologist of authority to decide,
and I would merely suggest that here is a field
open for investigation for the ethnologist which
will reveal new and wonderfully interesting
material.
The next tribe to the southwest of the
Walendu is another race entirely — ^the Wan-
yari, which belongs to the Bantu family, and
which is again a gi-ade shorter than the
Walendu. There are, therefore, within a
THE CONGO 223
radius of 140 miles, four different tribes, each
of them decreasing in stature as they come
nearer to the great forest — the Walur, the
Walendu, the Wanyari, and finally the Mam-
buti. The picture shows four good types of
these taken from a mixed congregation of
1,200 people at the Mission of Kilo. I was
careful to include no extremes except the
Mambuti, who was the only one there and
rather tall among his tribesmen. None of
these tribes is very numerous in population,
for there are only 60,000 Walendu and 12,000
Wanyari. In their turn the Wanyari are much
smaller than the Walendu, and they attain a
height between the Walendu and the Pigmies.
They are not all of the same stature, but their
average length would probably be four feet
and a half.
The strange feature is that there is
quite a sprinkling of taller people among
them, and this would logically suggest that
they are a mixture of Pigmies and Bantu.
And yet this is not in accordance with some
facts which are known of old. For instance,
there is a tradition which claims that the Pig-
mies and the Wanyari traded with one another
in a most original fashion. The Wanyari
would bring their products, such as salt,
224 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
bananas and other commodities, to a certain
spot on a certain set date of the month, and
the Pigmies would come the day after or dur-
ing the night, when the Wanj^ari had retired
to their villages. The httle men then would
select what they needed or fancied and leave
their goods, such as ivory and forest products,
for the Wanyari to take away the next day.
This would seem to exclude the idea of inter-
breeding between them in days gone by.
There is another striking difference be-
tween the races on the east shores of the lakes
and those on the west. "VVliile there is a great
reverence among the peasants for the chiefs
and the kings even in so sophisticated a tribe
as the Baganda, that characteristic is abso-
lutely lacking among their western brother
ti'ibes. The chiefs of the Walur, the Walendu
and the Wanyari have no power whatsoever
over their subjects. Each native seems to be
his own chief here. Wliether this is owing to
the lack of government on the part of the Bel-
gians or an ancient custom seems to be a
mooted question with those who have labored
among them for a number of years. Be this
as it may, the fact remains that when the
white man needs assistance he goes naturally
to the chief. The chief, desirous of making a
THE CONGO 225
good impression, does all that he can to exert
a certain amount of authority over his subjects,
but the results are always nil, as we have dis-
covered again and again vvhen we needed por-
ters. The only man who has any authority
over the natives is the Padri, or "Mopera," as
they fondly call him. He wields his power by
kindness and probabl}" the medicine which he
provides, as well as by the fact that the native
recognizes him as his best friend. "WHiatever
the cause, here is a phenomenon which is worth
investigating. ^\niether the Walendu chiefs
ever had the power over life and death as did
the Baganda and other kings and chiefs, or
whether the true patriarchal or monarchial
system has never been kno^vTi here is a ques-
tion of great importance. The very fact that
this is so different from the Soudanese system
would argue that these natives never came
from that region.
That, at best, they are a decadent race seems
to be certain. Childbirth is fast decreasing.
Premature births and the consequent deaths
of children are very common and on the in-
crease. Abortive births are as high as twenty-
five per cent. Xor is this the wish of the
mother. Promiscuity or inbreeding are not
the causes. To the contrary, no man can take
226 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
as bride a girl who lives in the same village
as he. This exclusion is so far-reaching that
when a girl lives in a viUage where the pro-
spective bridegroom has a relative the pro-
posed match is ipso facto nullified. This
tendency is so pronounced that the clergy of
the Catholic Church are not at all concerned
about the danger of consanguinity for the very
reason that the natives themselves have great
horror of such unions. What, then, can be
the reason? Although the extinction of the
tribes would not be a gi-eat loss to civilization
or to the human race, this is a question well
worth studying, even if humanitarian consid-
erations were excluded.
A people of so many vices and so few virtues
would be no loss to the world, but we may learn
from them lessons which might be applied
profitably to our own conditions. It is strange
to find the same complaint here as we found in
the east, although there the cases are more pro-
nounced and easily traceable. I am told that
statistics even of the Kavirondo, who seemed so
prolific a tribe, show that there is a tremendous
margin on the wi-ong side between the death
rate and the birth rate. Some tribes have only
themselves to blame, promiscuity being the
great evil among all of them. But why should
THE CONGO 227
this same condition exist where promiscuity is
frowned upon and actually abstained from?
The Wanj^ari have lost recently more than 800
through meningitis, 1,100 through Spanish in-
fluenza, and 700 through smallpox. The Mam-
buti were reduced by 50 per cent through
influenza.
There is one other very pronounced fact
which stares one in the face when reaching the
Congo and traveling through its vastnesses.
The beginning of the administration of the
Congo by the Belgians and that of the British
in East Africa and Uganda is about contem-
poraneous, but observe the difference in re-
sults. Belgium has taken out treasures and
given nothing in return. England has paid
out money and fortunes and is still looking
for returns; but traveling in Uganda and
British East Africa is a pleasure ; in the Congo
it is a hardship. The British government sta-
tions, the roads, railways, the steamers, the
opening of the country to settlers, all indicate
so superior an administration that no compari-
son can be made. The British seem to delight
in making the countries under their protector-
ates a civilized world from the outset, whereas
the Belgians do not care so long as there is a
good margin of revenue to be had.
228 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
The schools, soldiers, police and educational
institutions of the Belgians are prominent
through their absence, except where the mis-
sionaries have taken up the work. The cloth-
ing of their askaries (native soldiers and
police), and especially of the natives in the
villages, is the best sign of the total ab-
sence of pride in the tribes which they
govern. Their soldiers are ragged in the ex-
treme, and they seem to be possessed of the
same spirit of graft which their masters exhibit
wherever and whenever they come in contact
with a victim whom they can hold up. For
example I shall quote only a question of ex-
change. We had to get francs because rupees
were not legal tender here. The actual ex-
change is seven francs for the rupee, when you
wish to convert francs into rupees, but when
you wish to get francs they offer you three
for the rupee. So they have you coming and
going. Even the Indian traders are not quite
such Shylocks as the government officials. I
had an exchange from them at the rate of four
francs to the rupee. It is the same with cus-
toms duty. A^Hiether they delight in harass-
ing the Americans or whether they wish to
keep them out of their country for fear of un-
pleasant publicity, who shall say?
ROYAL FENCE AROUND THE KING'S ENCLOSURE
THE CONGO 229
As I said before, the Belgian Government
works the country for all available resources
and gives nothing in return. For instance,
there are the Kilo gold mines. There are four
mining districts in the Kilo territory, and be-
tween them they produce something like
20,000,000 francs per annum. With a little
more organization they could treble the out-
put, but native labor is so scarce and the natives
are so much left to their own devices that the
officials cannot get more black labor to assist
them. Now in this same territory the roads
are in so abominable a condition that travel
is almost impossible. The roads cannot even
be utilized for a bicycle; a motorcycle is en-
tirely out of the question. To make matters
even worse, the question of exchange is not
at all affected in this territory for the reason
that gold, which was formerly worth three
francs and a half the gram, commands now
more than twenty. It would be imagined that
since gold has gone up in price as well as ex-
change, the gold produced here would be
utilized for the expansion of the country or for
the purchase of goods and necessary commod-
ities, but nothing of the kind is happening.
The commodities which formerly were ordered
from Nairobi in British East Africa are no
230 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
longer ordered there, nominally because the
exchange of the rupee is too high. As a mat-
ter of fact, such is not the case. Their gold
is worth more now at present exchange rates
than it was in normal times, and gold would
buy more now than it did then. Do they take
advantage of this for the benefit of the coun-
try? No; the gold is shipped home and the
country is drained of the necessities of life to
such an extent tliat at the time of writing it is
impossible to buy sugar, petrol, canned goods
of any description, cloth, candles or other
staples. Even the officials have to go with-
out all these things, which are absolute neces-
sities for the barest comfort.
The officials are paid at the present rate of
exchange and the franc does not buy them a
fourth of what it did formerly. It is not
strange, therefore, that the officials are hope-
lessly inefiicient. This fact is so potent that
the government cannot even induce Belgians
to take these posts, but employs all manner
0(f adventurers from other nations, such as
Greeks and Armenians. That, of course, en-
tails its own drawback and diminishes the re-
spect not only of foreigners but of men of
their own country, not to mention that of the
natives.
THE CONGO 231
Officials whose names I could mention admit
that merchants and heads of commercial houses
actually "bum meals" from officials and mis-
sionaries because they are not allowed to im-
port from British East Africa and cannot get
any supplies from Stanleyville, which is out
of reach — 45 days' march from Kilo. Officials
are the only white men here who have sufficient,
and they have no surplus; the Wliite Fathers
grow their own staples and are supplied from
the headquarters in Uganda. We ourselves
could get no tea, no curry, no milk, no petrol,
no canned meats, no pickles, or anything
needed for our chop box.
There is yet another incongruity which
shows that they go from one extreme to the
other. About fifteen years ago, 1905-1906, as
will be remembered, there was a great outcry
against the Belgian atrocities in England and
.\merica. Unheard of cruelties were laid at
the door of the Belgians, and it does not mat-
ter whether or not we took stock in those
charges at the time. I, for one, stood up for
them and maintained that there were as many
cases of mutilation to be found in Uganda as
there were in the Congo. It was merely a
question of the natives and their old customs,
according to which "an eye for an eye and a
232 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
tooth for a tooth" was the unwritten law.
There was, of course, the old tradition among
the natives that those in authority had power
not only over life and death, but also the right
to mutilate — a common practice. The Bel-
gians were no more to be blamed for those
mutilations in the Congo than the British were
for those in Uganda.
However, that is old history, and I merely
repeat it here to emphasize my proposition
that the Belgians reversed their attitude
completely. Now it is a question of lax-
ity and neglect rather than one of harsh-
ness. The regulations for the officials are such
at the present writing — 1920 — that under no
circumstances or provocation may they use
the lash. Even to shoot a gun from a distance
as a warning when there is trouble is forbidden
because it means a menace to the native. When
an official slaps a native in the fac6 for insub-
ordination or for any other cause he is sent to
jail for four days and imprisonment means
revocation of his commission and dismissal
from the service. All of these measures are
taken to pacify their critics, who assailed the
Belgians on the score of atrocities in former
days.
This, I maintain, is an absurd situation
THE CONGO 233
in which the one extreme is worse than the
fii'st, and in which the remedy is worse than
the disease. It shows a weakness in the gov-
ernment which not only works harm to the
native but which mihtates against any chances
of estabhshing good government and order in
the future. So marked is the lack of govern-
ment that the vices of the natives will never
be stamped out under the present regime.
Take, for instance, the cruelty of the Walendu,
who, as I have mentioned, cut one another up
on the slightest provocation, or lack of it. The
ojfficials permit the natives to take the law into
their own hands and to punish an innocent
person, such as the nearest relative or brother
of the criminal. This goes on from year to
year and the first law of colonial government —
to improve native customs where they are det-
rimental— is obviously ignored.
The improvement in the material aspect of
the country suffers similarly. Thei'e is no law
or regulation to enforce labor; taxes are woe-
fully inadequate ; education is not even thought
of ; public work and industries, good roads, im-
provements in the form of buildings, agricul-
ture and plantations, transportation facilities,
measures for the sanitation of the people,
formation of troops and police, defense for
234 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
and protection of the Europeans, commercial
prosperity, even the very elements of civiliza-
tion, are suffering. I am speaking of the East-
ern Congo, especially the Ituria district. The
only "raison d'etre" for a colonial or protective
government would be the establishment of
these very essentials, which the officials over-
look. To please a critical public or watchful
foreign powers may be a justifiable desire, but
it is altogether out of place to neglect govern-
mental func^jions in order to placate critics.
If we heard the reason for this wholesale
inefficiency, pronounced once, we heard it at
least a hundred times. That is the fear that
either England or America was anxious to
seize the Congo. And it seemed futile to ar-
gue, that we, in America, were not condemn-
ing Belgimn for the alleged outrages under
Leopold. As a matter of fact, I believe that
the ostensible explanation was merely a lame
excuse for the present policy of listless "laissez
faire," and a poor apology for the present
lackadaisical and negligent regime. The ex
pressions of suspicion of the British Govern-
ment of Uganda and British East Africa and
the Anglophobic fear that the English are only
waiting to annex this country are absurd.
More than once we were asked whether tb
THE CONGO 235
American Government had no intentions of
taking over the Congo. And it seemed not
to pacify them at all when we asserted that the
United States did not entertain any imperial
aspirations whatsoever.
That seems to be the bugbear and the
great fear among all of the officials. And
to a gi'eat extent I believe that this is at
the bottom of their present policy of keep-
ing down expenses and of taking all out
of the country without putting anything into
it. The possibilities are no doubt enormous
and if this country were made to yield accord-
ing to its resources and capabilities by a sys-
tematic process which worked mutuallj^ for the
benefit of the governors and the governed,
there is not the slightest doubt that this terri-
tory would be a winner in a very short time, a
land able to show a profit that might even help
to pay off Belgium's national debt. But to
take all and return nothing is a policy that will
antagonize other nations, and if the Belgians
cannot be induced to mend matters the Congo
should be taken out of their hands or a trus-
tee appointed to see that they administer it
properly.
How often did we say to one another that
if the United States had this country what
236 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
a vast difference it would make in a very short
time. Turn loose a few American engineers
in these vastnesses and the railroads would be
carrying ivory, gold, rubber and coffee in such
quantities as to flood the markets of the world,
and American prosperity would make the Con-
golese smile from ear to ear as well as make
them a happy people instead of the stooping,
resentful and totally uncivilized and ragged
"niggers" that they are now.
I am told that the epidemics in this country
are worse than in any other known native dis-
trict. One seems to follow the other. Small-
pox, sleeping sickness, plague, cholera, menin-
gitis and famine follow each other in rapid suc-
cession, and now a new disease has broken out
to which no name has yet been given. I was
told by the official of Djugu that he had found
that a whole viUage had died of a complaint,
the symptoms of which were a continual hem-
orrhage from the lungs for two days, followed
quickly by death. Not a patient recovered
after the first hemorrhage had seized him, and
of a village of more than 200 people there is not
one sm'vivor. So far it has not spread to any
other village, but a report had been sent to
the District Medical Officer.
The Pigmies, or Mambuti, as they call them-
K'K'
(
:W"'
:t^-
A MAMBUTI (PIGMY) ARCHER
THE CONGO 237
selves, and as the other native tribes in the
Congo call them, claim to be the oldest race
in the eastern part of the Cong*. Originally
they had a free hand in this country and
roamed about as they pleased, occupying a
stretch of open land now and then, or retiring
to the forest, as the sj^irit moved theni. They
resented the settlement of the Wanyari in their
territory to such an extent that even now they
kill the Wanyari whenever they feel so inclined
if intruders dare to enter the domains of thp
Pigmy forest. This they do only by sniping,
because they dare not fight their fo^ irithe
open, where they know that they would not be
the equal to the Wanj^'ari. They lie in wait for
them in the forest, and from ambush it is an
easy matter, comparatively, to land one of
their poisoned arrows in the anatomy of their
hated enemies.
At present, however, the Pigmies are
not, as a race, quite so hostile to the
Wanyari. They have taken their ejection
philosophically for the past half century, and
now they not only look upon the Wanyari as
a race of conquerors, but almost as friends in
general. But they do not soon forget a per-
sonal slight or injustice; hence occasional
vendettas. The Wanyari on their side do not
238 . THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
ma'ke such cases of revenge a "casus belli,'*
well knowing that it would be futile for them
to pursue the Pigmies into their native haunts,
the forest. There the Pigmies are monarchs
of all they survey, and they can live in the
forest until further orders; indeed, it is their
instinct.
They live as close to the monkey as it
is possible for hmnan beings to do. They
eat the produce of the forest; they shelter
under trees and boughs; they make huts of
the twigs and leaves of the forest; they need
no open space or sunshine; and they are as
happy without cover or shelter as they are
under it.
Who shall dare to attempt to give a history
of their origin or even a reason for their under-
sized stature? Theories have been advanced
by the dozens, and although they doubtless
have a certain amount of foundation on scien-
tific and phj^sical grounds, other peoples have
lived under the same conditions and thrived.
Consider, for instance, the Algonquins and the
Mohawks in the vast forests of North America.
They lived in the dark recesses of the forests,
they hunted under the branches of the trees,
hid for protection, shrunk to shield themselves
against the low-hanging boughs and foliage of
THE CONGO 239
the ubiquitous forest growth. They avoided
the saphngs which seem to affect their muscles
and nerves. They rarely saw the sun and felt
as much at home sleeping on the pine needles
as do the Pigmies on and under the leaves.
The French Canadian is one of the giant
specimens of the extreme north of the Ameri-
can continent. True, he lives in a different and
colder climate, while the Pigmy lives on the
Equator. But nevertheless an analogy refutes
the idea that it is the darkness of the forest
and the continual bowing under the branches
of the trees that makes them what they are —
the smallest race of the human family.
Lack of sunlight and prowling about in a
stooping position are the most forceful argu-
ment for their size, in my estimation. Food
conditions are another; but there are other
races who are principally vegetarians and one
could scarcely call the Pigmies vegetarians
pm-e and simple. They live by their arrows
as well as by the fruits of trees and roots.
There would, therefore, be more reason for the
Indians in Asiatic countries to be diminutive
in size than for the Pigmies.
Another favorite theory of mine was ex-
ploded with an equally loud detonation. I
had always advanced the hypothesis that the
240 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
negroes were black chiefly on account of the
unmerciful sun which shone upon them from
the cradle to the grave. But although the
Pigmy is somewhat lighter of complexion than
the negro, there are more black Pigmies than
there are yellow. And, strange to say, the
light color seems to run more among the
women than the men, although I have not seen
enough of them to postulate this as a fact. In
the two villages which we entered we saw sixty-
five in all, but they were the average Pigmy,
and some of them true types and small enough,
as can be seen by the pictures we took of them.
Even the lighter complexioned ones among
them are dark enough to be classed among the
negroes, if color were the criterion. Here,
then, goes my favorite notion that eternal sun-
shine makes negroes black, because the Pigmies
can under no stretch of imagination be said to
be living under the rays of the sun.
There is very little to say about the Pigmies,
and although they are, as it were, a freak of
nature and draw the attention of the world
by their low stature they are disappointing
when one has taken the trouble to march 200
miles to see them. They are clannish and live
among themselves without caring to mingle
with the rest of mankind. Even those who
THE CONGO 241
live on the fringes of the great Congo forest
mix very little with the tribes immediately
surromiding them. Some of the chiefs of the
Wanyari have, so to sx:)eak, adopted them, and
they are welcome in Wanyari villages, but
even here the IVIambuti prefer to have their
own villages in the neighboring forest and
emerge only occasionally to obtain a square
meal and they retui'n to their haunts as soon
as possible.
Nor have they their fixed abodes. They
never linger longer than a fortnight in
their villages, which are as diminutive as their
bodies. They cut a few branches, bend them
with both ends in the soil and gather enough
leaves to secure a cover without bothering
about protection against the rains or leaks.
There is no particular shajDe or architecture
which they follow, and they seem satisfied to
have their huts oval or in the form of a bread
loaf or beehive.
As with the Masai, the women do the^
construction and the men do not lift a
hand to aid them. The women select the
boughs and collect the leaves for the a^vnings.
It takes very little time, as the material is right
at hand wherever they go. They live there for
only two weeks at the longest — then they move/
242 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
again to more productive regions, because they
do not care to go far for a livelihood, and nat-
urally the birds of the forest are soon scared
away by their arrows and the eatable roots and
fruits of the trees are soon exhausted. The
small game are driven out by their arrival and
there remains little to eat; consequently the
Pigmies also move away from so inhospitable
a place.
/ There is another reason for which they leave
a location, and that is the killing of a Wanyari
or other tribesman. Then they move fast and
farther for fear of being caught. Thej^ leave
few or no trails, because they are so small and
light and used to travel in the forest that they
scarcely leave a footprint. They have no bag-
gage to remove and they never have any set
trails on which they go about. The principle
of the line of least resistance is understood
better by this little gentry than by any other
set of men, because they circle around a thickly
brushed area to gain a few feet on their way.
^ They naturally avoid swamps and rivers in the
forest because they could not wade in deeply,
and wherever necessary they jump from clus-
ter to cluster of papyrus or other swamp
vegetation.
When pursued by an animal which is
THE CONGO 243
too large for their arrow and too dangerously
quick on its feet, they climb a tree and follow
the principle of "watchful waiting," although
they have never even heard of the existence
of the author of the expression. This is a
favorite ruse when they happen on the trail
of an elephant. Wlien this occurs, the whole
tribe moves and follov/s its scouts for days and
days. They pepper the big brute with their
arrows and put their spears in the branches
of the trees so they will pierce the back of the
huge prey until it finally is exhausted or dies
of loss of blood. In this case they call in the
neighboring Pigmy settlements, and when
finally the trunked mass falls down, they climb
on top of it in swarms like ants over a bug.^
Such a day is a red letter day for the little
men and they feast on the elephant carcass for
weeks. They usually point out the tusks to a
friendly Wanyari chief in their neighborhood,
who sells them for the Pigmies at the best
price offered. They naturally do not ask for
the value in money, because they would not
know what to do with coin, but they sell it for
salt and tobacco and some arrowheads or
spears included in the bargain. It is particu-
larly puzzling how they can kill so large an
animal with their little arrows and with their
244 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
little bows. These articles of defense and at-
tack look more like the toys of our children
than like the formidable weapons which they
are in the hands of these miniature men. Their
spears also are in proportion to their size, and
there are few of these.
Withal, it is a mystery to me how they can
live except, as one official explained it, that
they are the nearest expressions of humans
living reduced to the fundamental require-
ments of hfe's sustenance. They do, as a mat-
ter of fact, live little beyond or above the
monkeys.
-^ The Pigmies are a Nuba race, or, as some
define them, of the Bushman genus. They
have probably preserved their national customs
better than any other race because they have
so few, and because of their size they have
little or no opportunity to intermarry and to
ally themselves with other races. The strangest
feature about them is that they are monoga-
mous. There is little danger of inbreeding, be-
cause every one knows who is who, and why.
Consequently there is no degeneration of the
breed and monogamy reduces venereal disease
to a minimum. At present there is a slight
tendency for them to consort with the Wanyari
because the extremes of the two races are close
THE CONGO 245
together, so far as size is concerned ; the short-
est specimens of the Wanyari being approxi-
mately of the same height as the tallest of the
Pigmies. But even here there are very few
cases of close alliances.
The odd part of it is that in such cases the
Mambuti, or Pigmy, women discard their na-
tive objections to competitors in the affections
of their spouses. They are glad to become
number two or even the third factor in the
husband's connubial establishment. Those
whom I have seen seemed to be glad to get
away from the forest and to enjoy God's own
sunshine. And so, at least for that one day,
did the population of a whole village which
we took out of their native surroundings in
order more easily to take pictures of them,
which was a hopeless case in their own environ-
ments. They all seemed to enjoy the sun, and
they danced in it to their hearts' content until
the perspiration was gushing down their little
limbs.
AVhy, one asks, do they not escape their cap-
tivity in the forest? That is a hard question
to answer. It may be on account of their in-
nate objection to work. They live like the
creeping things in the woods. They neither
sow nor harvest. There was not a hoe to be
246 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
found in the possession of any native of the
two villages we encountered. Theirs are not
the worries of trades or industry. No agri-
cultural instincts are to be found in their little
souls. Solomon's glory of wealth and raiment
has no attraction for them, and their babies are
well cared for when they have forest leaves or
sometimes a soft and shady banana leaf to
cover them from exposure to the elements.
^Vhat more would they want? Even the lat-
ter luxuries are borrowed from their more
fortunate brethren of the surrounding villages
of the Wanyari.
■^ Whenever we saw them dance their primitive
passes they seemed to be a supremely happy
crowd. The songs accompanying their dance
were a monotonous yodel without any words —
mere sounds. The women yodeled the chorus
while the men sang the drone. What they
seemed to enjoy especially was the open space
in the village, where they were the guests of
the chief; it was so smooth to dance on and so
wide — and they were used only to a narrow,
rough space between their little huts. The
women ran around making all sorts of grim-
aces. They were drunk with delight; they
swayed from side to side with fatigue un-
til they were ready to drop from sheer ex-
THE CONGO 247
haustion. Children around the Maypole never
had a better time; even women with children
at their breasts joined in the great hilarity.
And what was the reason of it all? Merely
the prospect of getting a little salt. Once we
had assured them of their safety through the
presence of the AVliite Father in charge of
the nearest Catholic mission, we could do with
them as we pleased. They knew he was their
friend, and the chief of the village vouched for
our harmless intentions: that was enough for
them and they threw themselves wholly into
the spirit of the occasion. We photographed
them to our hearts' content and they were more
docile than any of the tribes we had taken so
far. It was a red letter day for them, what "
with all the bananas and vegetables from the
Wanyari gardens and the salt and the tobacco.
We offered meat and fowls, but they refusedf^
because they must eat no meat which is not
killed by their own hands in the forest. That/
seemed to be their taboo.
Now why was it that everybody, even to
the last party we met on the road in search of
them, discouraged us by telling us that we
would not find any Mambuti, and that even if
we did find them they would run away from
us on account of their great timiditj^? I dis-
248 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
like to draw conclusions, but the fact that the
good priest who sponsored us drew them out
in great numbers and made them feel so happy
speaks volumes as against all the warnings, of ,
officials and merchants alike, that we should
fail in our mission.
What struck me as very strange in these
Mambuti is the fact that notwithstanding their
savage surroundings and the extremely low
ebb of their mentality and culture that they
should have a faith in one Supreme Being and
in a celestial reward after death. Father
Buyck, who took the opportunity to^ive them
a religious instruction in the Wanyari lan-
guage, asked them this question : In how many
gods did they believe? And those who under-
stood the question answered with one finger
pointing to heaven. They also pointed to
heaven when they were asked about the here-
after. The little woman who acted as inter-
preter put the question to the community and
several put up their hands toward the sky and
at the same time turned their fingers down to
the ground to express their belief that at death
part goes up to the sky and part down to earth,
which on further investigation was explained
by the little woman as a knowledge of the com-
AMONG THE PIGMIES
Two grizzly old Mambuti (Pigmy) hunters
Three Mambuti (Pigmy) males of the younger cct
THE CONGO 249
posite make-up of the human being of soul
and body. This she further emphasized by
mentioning the haunting ghosts of the forest.
At the mention of this fact, wliich for further
information she put up to tlie little men, they
nodded as if in confirmation of what she had
explained to Father Buyck in the Wanyari
language. They looked at the good priest with
a sly fear in their eyes, as if he might have the
power of communication with these spirits.
This happened at the Zabu village, where we
found 26 Mambuti. It must be remembered
that we had a little stray Mambuti woman
who had married a Munyari as an inter-
preter. She had lived among the Wanyari
so long that she may be considered to have
been under the influence of the Wanyari par-
tial acceptance of Christianity, especially be-
cause Zabu himself was a CathoMc. This
became all the more apparent when we made
the same investigation in the next village,
where the result of our researches were totally
different.
In the next village, w^here there was a
gathering of over forty Mambuti, the
question of their belief in a Supreme Being
was met with a total blank stare, as if
250 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
they did not miderstand what was being talked
about. And since I was particularly anxious
to have this question decided, the question was
put again and again in different forms, but
the blank stare was as often repeated. The
little woman put up her hand toward the sky,
but there was no indication that the others
agreed with her when they were consulted. So
evidently the little woman in her dealings with
the Wanjari, one of whom she had married,
learned of the teachings of the Wliite Father
and anxious to please him indicated her knowl-
edge rather than that of the Mambuti as a
tribe. These answers and their monogamous
habits would indicate that they have not been
in contact with earlier civilization or with other
African tribes, most of which have some idea
about a Supreme Being.
"What struck me most forcibly was that they
are not void of an ethical and moral code. In-
deed, the contrast of their ideas of morality
with those of other African tribes is so great
as to be astounding. It has for some time
been a conviction with me that among most of
the African tribes, especially those with which
I have come in contact, there is almost a
complete absence of morality. Homicide,
adultery, theft and falsehood, which are the
THE CONGO 251
basic vices contrary to the coinmands of the
Decalogue, are considered by most of the tribes
as fundamentally opposed to the laws of na-
tui-e in theory. Tribal laws and customs pro-
vide for transgressions in a half-hearted man-
ner. But the observance of such laws are coun-
teracted by a strong and almost general incli-
nation to opportunism in practice. It is an
almost general conviction among Europeans
of long experience among the tribes of British
East Africa and Uganda that to "lie and
steal" are a second nature to the natives, one,
indeed, in which thej^ take a certain pride. To
commit adultery and to kill is considered un-
lawful; they nevertheless feel no qualms of
conscience about such acts. Only exteriorly
they are more careful to conceal such facts
for fear of reprisal or punishment. They do
not boast of such acts among themselves as
they do about falsehoods and theft, but as a
matter of conscience they do not worry about
them.
The sense of morality is stunted, warped or
whitewashed, if not totally absent, whatever
one may call the phenomenon. It borders on
unmorahty rather than immorality. The con-
scious admission of having done a wrong act
is lackin"' in their mental attitude toward such
252 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
acts. Referring back to the chapter on
Kikuyu, the natives of that tribe, which is one
of the most advanced in the order of native
philosophy, refer to adultery as "stealing,"
whilst the man who has killed an adversary is
looked upon as a hero at a public dance.
Among other tribes the latter two breaches
of the two first conclusions of the natural law,
homicide and adultery, are winked at. Among
the Luo or Kavirondo adultery is looked upon
with dismay, but rather from a commercial
standpoint than a moral one, because "dam-
aged goods" do not fetch the standard price
on the matrimonial market. And by the same
token, a murderer becomes almost a witch
whom all fear and admire and make the recipi-
ent of gifts and offerings.
For this reason I was, to say the least, sur-
prised to find the Mambuti imbued with such
high moral instincts. Stealing is so foreign to
their habits that the Wanyari chiefs give them
their goats and sheep to mind whenever a tribe
lingers for any length of time in the same local-
ity. This they do because they can rest more
easily having their flocks in the hands of the
Mambuti than in the hands of men of their
own villages. Adultery seems to be almost un-
THE CONGO 253
heard of among them. That thej^- do not in-
dulge in excesses we found out when they
received tobacco and native banana beer from
the chief. They drank the beer in moderate
quantities and they smoked of the tobacco very
frugally.
Their temperance habits were emphasized
when we asked the leader of the little dwarfs
to pose before us smoking with his pals. He
did so, and at the second draft which he took
at the pipe, which was as big as himself, he
turned over and became fearfully sick, to such
an extent that the perspiration gushed down
his wrinkled little skin. He was counted out
for the rest of the day. That experience also
showed us another trait in their character —
that they are very sympathetic with one an-
other. As soon as the little man showed a
sign of sickness his friends took him out of
the sun and laid him in a shaded hut without
walls so that he was out of the sunshine and
yet exposed to the open air. A little woman,
who evidently was his wife, ran for water and
plied him with plenty of it, both for drinking
and bathing purposes. And when we came to
the distribution of salt they took me down to
the little invalid and motioned to me not to
N
254 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
forget the tiny smoker. I was so gratified with
the attention that I gave him a double dose.
Their manners are veiy gentle and they have
a sense of delicacy. I am told also that they
do not kill among themselves, and my informa-
tion went so far as to 'state that the oldest
Mambuti of the two villages with which I came
in contact had never known of such an act be-
ing committed am.ong themselves. It is true
that a couple of Wanyari had become the vic-
tims of their poisoned arrows, but they were
explained as cases of warfare rather than homi-
cides, because they had intruded into the forest
which the dwarfs consider their inviolable do-
main. In cases where one Mambuti had
wounded another with a poisoned arrow they
had always applied an antidote in the making
of which they are experts.
y Their dietetic habits have been alluded to in
passing, but it would not be out of place to con-
sider them at somewhat greater length. They
live on anything and everything that the forest
produces and which is fit for human digestion.
Their digestive organs seemed to be developed
a great deal better than ours, for thej'' live on
roots which would give us dyspepsia for life.
I always thought that the African native
showed a wonderful digestive system by relish-
THE CONGO 255
ing the raw mohogo or manioc root, but to see
the Mambuti eat and gnaw away at roots of
the regular forest tree, the name of which is
unknown to me, but which seemed a very com-
mon species, threw the Wakavirondo and all
other husky tribes into the shadow. Nuts and
wild fruit in season are, of course, their stock
in trade, and they will migrate every now and
again to a district where they know such fruit
or nuts to be plentiful at the time. Young
and tender shoots and "radices" are a delicacy.
Fruits, potatoes, vegetables, etc., are indulged
in only when they are the guests of the Wan-
yari chiefs, because they do not cultivate fruits
or vegetables of any kind themselves. They
have certain herbs which they use for medicine
and they are better comioisseurs of the various
kinds than an educated botanist. As for meat,
they eat only that which the forest supplies
and which is killed by themselves or at the
killing of which they have assisted and shared
in tracking. Birds and small game are staples,
with delicacies thrown in, such as elephants,
rats, ants and caterpillars. They eat rodents
of all kinds, and of these there are many. The
rodents' name is legion. I might add that some
rodents called Sibili gnaw at an elephant tusk.
I noted this habit when a tusk was sho^vn me.
256 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
the pointed extreme end of whicli was eaten
away by rodents whose teeth marks were vis-
ible on the tusk.
A very curious trait of the Mambuti is their
courage in the hunting field. It sounds para-
doxical that the smallest people known in the
human family should have a special predilec-
tion in hunting down the largest type of ani-
mal life. I shall only mention their hunting
methods on gazelle in passing, because as a
forest race it is quite natural that they should
indulge in trapping whatever is plentiful and
secures a good supply of meat. Having no
cord or rope, they make their traps and nets
of vines and creepers in the form of very coarse
and irregular meshes. They place the traps in
undergrowth and bushes almost invisible to
the watchful gazelle, and having trapped one
they kill it with their arrows.
But what is a phenomenal feature in their
hunting methods is the long enduring patience
which they exhibit in going after elephants,
which, needless to say, only happens once in
a blue moon.
The fact is, however, that they are clever
trackers, and whenever they find a trail of a
big tusker they follow it up and the full quota
of available hunters is called upon to assist.
FATHER, MOTHER AND GODFATHER
Dr. Vanden Bergh and the shortest Mambuti (Pigmy) family in
the village. The husband is four feet four inches tall, the wife
is three feet eleven inches.
WOMAN CARRYING HER YEAR'S RESULT OF
COPRA ROPE MAKING TO THE MARKET
THE CONGO 257
Once they have met up with the elephant they
begin to pepper hiui from all directions from
the ground and from the heights of trees out
of reach of the long trunk. Their agility in
the forest enables them to move quicker than
the unwieldy mammoth. They know which
way he will turn, being guided by the con-
venient openings in the thick arborage which »■
their colossal prey naturally would look for.
One party keeps up the fight with arrows
whilst another detachment plants the available
spears overhead in the branches forming a nat-
m-al arch under which the pursued animal is
likely to pass. The spears are fixed head down
with the intention to lodge near the shoulders,
where they will do most liarm near the heart.
Once the spear sticks its point is driven farther
into the huge body until it sometimes reaches a
vital spot. I am told that they also use pois-
oned arrows which will kill the elephant with-
out affecting the meat for consumption.
They stay with their victim for weeks, until
finally the great monster collapses through ex-
haustion or owing to a fatal wound. Once he
is down they finish him in short order and call
the balance of the tribe together for the big
barbecue. They feast on its cai'cass, climbing
all over him like a swarm of ants, tearing aw^ay
258 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
at the best parts of the meat in great glee until
there is little left of the mountain of viands.
The tusks are hidden until they can dispose
of them to the Wanyari or Walendu chiefs,
who pay them in arrows, spears, salt and to-
bacco. I have an idea that these sly gentry,
who make enormous profits on the transaction,
keep the Mambuti away from contact with
white men, Indians and Arab traders because
the source of profit is too tempting to have it
exposed to a direct and open market. For
this reason thej^ tell the Mambuti that the
white man is very dangerous to meet, whilst
they hold off the white man by maintaining
that the Mambuti are so timid that they plunge
deeper into the recesses of the vast forest
whenever a white man is in the neighborhood.
In fact, I entertained a Belgian trader in
Zabu's village who had been in the district for
a number of years and had only seen two
Mambuti on the road; who immediately dived
into the forest when they saw him. Zabu, the
chief, also treated the trader with scant cour-
tesy and looked suspicious when he found the
man sitting at our table. He e\ndently was
afraid that we might introduce him to the
Mambuti.
THE CONGO 259
Thf Icimbuti, although they are very small
in size, are very well proportioned and physi-
cally very fit. AVhereas they lack the avoirdu-
pois of the larger negro and the brute strength
of their better developed brothers, their en-
durance and muscular development are re-
markable. I h:^.ve sjtn women of one meter
and twenty centimeters carry away a bunch
of bananas which almost reached the gi'ound,
suspended from their heads with a leather
strap. The men seemed to lift one another
with perfect ease, as a ^rrestler might. To
see them is a disappointment, liecause one
would expect some abnormal exhibits of limbs
and organs, but they show a proportion which
could leave nothing to hope for in perfection.^
There are three distinctive features which
they all show. The fii'st of these is their hairy
and woolly surface, which reaches from their
breasts down to the base of the abdomen.
Their legs and arms are also over-grown with
a plentiful crop of black wiry wool. The sec-
ond feature is the eye, which has a slant up-
ward abw^st like the INIongolian type. Their
eyelashes amil brows derive their slant from
the eye, and it makes them look weird and sus-
picious. WTiether or not their vision is affected
260 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
by the shape of the eye I have not ascertained,
but I should fancy it must do so, because their
natural position is contracted to such an extent
that the pupils are thrown out of line. The
third and the most appalling feature is their
upper jaw. This feature is almost apelike.
The upper lip is stretched almost to a bursting
point over their prominent jaw and upper row
of teeth. The mouth is wide and reaches al-
most to the center of their cheeks, giving their
face in profile a monkeyish expression. The
receding nose emphasizes this feature through
its almost flat appearance, with widely ex-
tended nostrils. The upper jawbone stands
out like a round facade, protruding over the
under jaw, and to perfect the apish appear-
ance their foreheads are low and slanting in
the extreme. It spoils the effect of the well-
shaped body entirely, and were it not for that
splendidly formed miniature human body one
would imagine that their protoparent, at least,
was allied to the monkey. Another feature
which is, however, not general enough to make
it an essential characteristic, is the light com-
plexion, especially of the women. Neverthe-
less, I should say that 50 per cent are as dark
as the average negro.
Their height ranges from one meter, eight-
THE CONGO 261
een centimeters, to one meter, thirty-five.
Among the women there seems to be
an unusual breast development, which be-
gins at an early age. One might men-
tion the large, almost unproportioned size of
their buttocks, which was noticeable among
the specimens we saw. That also seemed to
be more pronounced among the women than
the men. However, this is not so prominent
a variation from the ordinary negro as might
be imagined. I believe that most of the black
races have this in common, and I would think
that it is probably a result of carrying children
and loads of food, water and fuel, a burden
which bends their spines in order to keep a
balancing position when they are marching.
Sometimes they bear this double load for hours
and for days. In some cases a load is so great
that one would fear inward curvature of the
spine. The top of the head of the Mambuti
is almost flat, more so among the women than
the men. This might be explained by the re-
ceding forehead, which has little curve to off-
set the line of demarcation between the fore-
head and the upper skull, yet the lack of the
sudden curve of the forehead gives them a
distinctly flat-headed appearance, which only
a full crop of hair may give a different look.
262 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
Among those who had their heads shaven
lately the flat effect suggested itself most
strikingly.
Their minds seem to be proportioned to their
bodies. Their mental development keeps pace
with their low stature. That, in particular,
seems to be the cause of their lack of desire
and absence of intention to ameliorate their
condition in life. Socially they have no as-
pirations, and the fact that they are so small
and insignificant appears to affect their deal-
ings with other men and tribes. They even
look upon the Wanyari, who are their superi-
ors in height only by a few inches, as almost
perfect tj^pes of men. They quickly assume
an inferior position to any tribe which happens
to surround them or to border on their fron-
tiers. Upon these neighbors they depend for
their trading, and to them they go for exchange
of food in return for their ivory. In this case
they hide the ivory which they have accumu-
lated in the trunks of fallen trees, and when
they need food they make a bargain, of which
the other party always gets the benefit. They
seem to look upon the other tribe as their
patron, if not protector, when they go out into
the world or to seek the society of other tribes.
THE CONGO 203
They may occasionally be seen with a few
necklaces, armlets or rings, but these are all
from outside markets, and they are principally
trinkets discarded by other tribes.
The women sometimes wear amulets for
definite purposes. One is the thighbone of
a rodent found in the forest. This amulet,
when worn by a nursing mother, is a certain
guarantee of plenty of milk for the baby.
Tails of certain birds are worn by the men for
protection against bronchial trouble and pneu-
monic diseases. For protection against the
cold they have only their scanty huts and no
clothing whatsoever, •uring the night they
cuddle together on the unyielding ground and
pile on top of one another to obtain a certain
am.oimt of warmth. They have large families.
I saw one family of four children and spoke
with a mother who had raised nine. They have
gTcat respect for their elders, and in this con-
nection I noticed that a girl whom I pushed
ahead to lead a dance withdrew, made place
for the oldest woman in the party, and took her
own place near the rear of the line. The same
rank was in order with the men, the oldest
always in the lead, and when he fell out another
gray-haired elder took his place. "WHien we
264 THE TRAIL OF THE PIGMIES
went to their forest home a young woodsman
led the way, but he withdrew in favor of the
oldest in the village, who led us on and found
the intricate path which wound its way to their
abode.
THE END
27 4 t 5
■y
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