_Native Races of the British Empire_
THE NATIVE RACES
OF EAST AFRICA
BY
W. D. HAMBLY, F.R.A.I., B.Sc.
(RESEARCH DEGREE, OXON.)
OXFORD DIPLOMA IN ANTHROPOLOGY
ASSISTANT ANATOMIST IN THE WELLCOME RESEARCH EXPEDITION
TO THE ANGLO-EGYPTIAN SUDAN, 1913-14
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON, EDINBURGH, GLASGOW
TORONTO, MELBOURNE, CAPE TOWN, BOMBAY
1920
[Illustration: MASAI WARRIOR WITH LION-SKIN HEAD-DRESS.]
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
MORRISON & GIBB LTD., EDINBURGH
PREFACE
During recent years there has been a very happy tendency to change the
nature of geographical teaching from a monotonous memorising of the
names of natural features to a subject of living interest.
In the endeavour to effect this change there has been a serious
omission in our failure to appeal to natural interests of children by
making the human element a central feature of geographical work.
A study of the picturesque lives of native races of the British
Empire is an absolute essential if the teacher wishes to impart the
appropriate colour and setting to a subsequent course of economic,
regional, and political geography.
The sharp contrast between European beliefs and customs and those of
primitive people is in itself an incentive to study and interest.
In addition to this, a sympathetic understanding of the many native
races who are controlled by English statesmanship is necessary for the
material and moral progress of dominions in the British Empire.
W. D. HAMBLY.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION 9
CHAPTER II
THE FIGHTING MASAI 17
CHAPTER III
MASAI STORIES AND BELIEFS 28
CHAPTER IV
THE AKIKUYU PEOPLE 33
CHAPTER V
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE AKIKUYU 38
CHAPTER VI
THE BAGANDA TRIBE OF UGANDA 41
CHAPTER VII
SOCIAL LIFE OF THE BAGANDA 46
CHAPTER VIII
STORIES TOLD BY THE BAGANDA 49
[Illustration: EAST AFRICA]
THE NATIVE RACES OF EAST AFRICA
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
A few years ago two dwarfs or Pygmies from the trackless forests of
Uganda were bold enough to allow themselves to be brought to London,
where they were exhibited and photographed. Unfortunately these little
people had no one who could interpret their language, or what a
wonderful story they might have told concerning life in an equatorial
forest, where the foliage is in places so dense as to shut out the
powerful glare of a tropical sun.
Many years ago these dwarfs were known to the highly civilised
inhabitants of Ancient Egypt, and as early as 3000 B.C. the leaders of
expeditions into the Sudan were charged by the Pharaohs of Egypt to
return with gold dust, ivory, ornamental woods, and leopard skins; but
above all these forms of wealth King Pepy II. desired a Pygmy “alive
and well.”
These tiny folk, whose height is rarely more than four feet nine
inches, live the simple life of hunters, almost devoid of clothing,
possessing neither basket-work nor pottery, and armed only with
flint-tipped spears and small poisoned arrows. Of agriculture they
have no knowledge, for their time is wholly occupied by the dangerous
pursuit of large and small game.
What a sharp contrast to these pygmies are the giant tribes of the
Upper Nile, where the Shilluks are usually six feet four inches in
height, and a man of only six feet would be regarded as short!
Many centuries ago, but at what time in the world’s history it is
impossible to say, a tall, dark-skinned people named Hamites entered
Africa from the direction of Arabia, and so fierce were these invaders
that they were able to push before them the negroes, who retreated
south and west. These fighting Hamites are now represented by the
Somali, Danakil, and Galla who inhabit the “Horn of Africa,” where they
subsist chiefly by cattle rearing; that is to say, they are a pastoral
people, who move from one well and piece of grass land to another,
driving before them large herds of sheep, goats, camels, and perhaps a
few horses.
Of course the Hamites mixed with the true negroes to some extent,
so forming the great Bantu race which inhabits most of our Uganda
Protectorate. The dreaded Masai of British East Africa are probably a
cross between the Negro and the Galla. Arab tribes have for centuries
wandered through East Africa as traders and slave raiders, so we have
to consider a very mixed people.
What a variety of country, too, in the British territories called the
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Uganda, and British East Africa!
[Illustration: WOMAN CRUSHING GRAIN ON A CONCAVE STONE WITH AN OVAL
STONE ROLLER.]
Everywhere along the banks of the Nile there is fertile country, but
in the Sudan territories of Kordofan, Sennar, and other provinces,
are seemingly boundless tracts of desert, broken here and there by
rocky hills or “gebels,” which perhaps attain a height of three or
four hundred feet. In such places large dog-faced baboons abound,
hyenas shelter in the caves, and near to the wells, usually found
among the rocks, are native encampments, where dwell Arabs, Taishi,
and Baggara people, who fought so determinedly against the English
in 1885. Now, however, they are quite friendly, and the traveller
may be invited into the “zereba,” an enclosure containing a number of
circular huts with pointed roofs, and here refreshment of coffee and
milk is provided. Thin miserable dogs bark defiance at the stranger,
who keeps them at bay with his whip of rhinoceros hide. Little naked
children play about in much the same way as white youngsters amuse
themselves, but they are more delighted than their white cousins would
be by the gift of a wire bracelet or a string of beads. Outside the
huts kneeling women crush the grain--“dhurra”--on slabs of stone; and
what an enormous pile of this crushed grain a Sudanese will eat! Seldom
does he enjoy the luxury of meat. A whitish, muddy-looking liquid
may be offered to the visitor; this he had better avoid, for it is
native beer, made by allowing soaked “dhurra” to stand in the sunshine
for several days. If the village population has reached two or three
thousand, there are sure to be a few Arab merchants who have brought
their calico, dried dates, and other wares all the way from Khartoum
or Wad Medani. There they sit by the goods, which are laid out on the
ground, possibly reading a chapter from the “Koran” or Mohammedan
Bible, while a small group of natives gather round and decide how to
spend the money which they have only recently learned to use, instead
of bartering, that is, changing one article for another.
In many parts of the Sudan natives are employed on irrigation works or
railways, where the workmen are paid with Egyptian coins. Even now a
native prefers to have a lot of little coins, and would at any time
receive several small coins rather than one silver piece.
Uganda and British East Africa can show enormous tracts of park land,
where European enterprise is engaged in cattle rearing, and native
tribes such as the Masai rely on their flocks and herds for a living.
In no part of the world, not even in the Amazon valley, are the forests
more dense than those of Uganda, where the traveller finds Bantu tribes
existing much as they have done for thousands of years.
When reading of railways connecting Port Sudan, on the Red Sea, with
Khartoum, or of a line from Nairobi in British East Africa to Port
Florence on Victoria Nyanza thence to the great port of Mombasa, one
is apt to think that these East African Protectorates must be very
advanced in civilisation, but this is not the case.
In a journey from Khartoum southward into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan,
or from Port Sudan to Khartoum, the traveller is very much impressed
with the luxury of the train in which he travels through the wildest
scenery, comprising dense prickly bush, dreary wastes of sand, and
rocky hills. Native children run away screaming on the approach of
a train. In the journey from Khartoum to the Red Sea one encounters
the Hadendoa people, who make themselves appear very tall and wild by
allowing their hair to grow perpendicularly in a huge bush on the top
of the head. In Uganda and British East Africa the traveller may have
the experience of having his train charged by a buffalo, rhinoceros, or
elephant, who mistakes it for some powerful rival, come to settle in
the tropical forest which he has enjoyed undisturbed for so many years.
[Illustration:
1, 2. Throwing-clubs from the Nile Valley.
3. Pot from which victims for sacrifice were made to drink a magic
draught to “kill” their souls, and thus prevent their “ghosts” from
returning to punish their murderers.
4. Conventional hoe-blades used as money (Upper Nile).
5. Small shield of the Hamites, west of Victoria Nyanza (Uganda).
6, 7. Old and modern Masai spears.
8, 9. Fighting bracelets (Upper Nile).
10. A Dorobo elephant harpoon (East Africa Protectorate). The arrow
shaft fits loosely into the haft, which falls away when the animal is
struck.
11. Spear of the Hamitic tribes.
12, 13, 14. Pottery vases blackened with plumbago. One is in the form
of a gourd (Baganda, Uganda).
15. Ivory armlet, Shilluk tribe (Upper Nile).
16, 17. Tobacco pipes (Upper Nile).]
The savage peoples of East Africa are in many ways much more advanced
in civilisation than the native tribes of Australia. The latter are
simple hunters, possessing no clothing, no dwellings, no knowledge of
metals, pottery making, or basket weaving. On the other hand, native
inhabitants of East Africa have left the Stone Age far behind, and
almost everywhere a knowledge of iron ore, smelting, and manufacture
of spear-heads has been acquired. Ancient stone implements are found
in all parts of Africa, but it is generally supposed that knowledge of
iron came to the “Dark Continent” at a fairly early date in the history
of civilisation.
Everywhere the Negro is an agriculturist, whose women folk cultivate
the yam, maize, or banana, whereas a simple hunting tribe in Australia
will rely entirely for vegetable foods on what can be collected in the
way of wild fruits and berries.
With respect to clothing, weapons, dwellings, pottery, basketry,
agriculture, and other forms of manufacture and enterprise, the
inhabitants of East Africa are well advanced, while everywhere there
is a great system of exchange or barter, which is not always found
among more primitive savages, such as the Australian native tribes.
Naturally, in so vast an area there are thousands of tribes, hence in
this small book there will be space to tell only of a few of the most
interesting inhabitants, who had their home in the “Dark Continent”
long before the explorers Livingstone, Stanley, Mungo Park, Baker,
Burton, Speke, or even early voyagers like Father Lado, Hanno, and the
centurions of Nero ventured to penetrate the wilds.