94 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



understood in Buganda. Although despised by the masses as 

 being wandering herdsmen, these "princes" enjoy royal privileges, 

 such as that of wearing brass and copper anklets, and their social 

 position supplies another proof that their Galla forefathers entered 

 the land as conquerors, and only gradually merged with the black 

 aborigines, a process, as we have seen, still everywhere going on 

 throughout East Central Africa. 



No direct relations appear to exist between the Lacustrians 



Bantu an d the WakikuyUj the Wakamba^ Wapokomo, 



peoples^ Wagweno, Wachaga, Wateita, Wataveita, and 



L. victoria others, who occupy the region east of Lake 



and the Coast. . . 



Victoria, between the lana, north-east frontier 

 of Bantuland, and the southern slopes of Kilimanjaro. Their 

 affinities seem to be rather with the Wanyika, Waboni, Waduruma, 

 Wagiryama, and the other coast tribes between the Tana and 

 Mombasa. 



We learn from Sir A. Hardinge 1 that in the British East 

 African Protectorate there are altogether as many as twenty-five 

 distinct tribes, generally at a low stage of culture, with a loose 

 tribal organisation, a fully-developed totemic system, and a 

 universal faith in magic ; but there are no priests, idols or temples, 

 or even distinctly recognised hereditary chiefs or communal 

 councils. The Gallas, who have crossed the Tana and here 

 encroached on Bantu territory, have reminiscences of a higher 

 civilisation and apparently of Christian traditions and observances, 

 derived no doubt from Abyssinia. They tell you that they had 

 once a sacred book, the observance of whose precepts made 

 them the first of nations. But it was left lying about, and so got 

 eaten by a cow, and since then when cows are killed their entrails 

 are carefully searched for the lost volume. 



Exceptional interest attaches to the Wagiryama, who are the 

 chief people between Mombasa and Melindi, the first trust- 

 worthy accounts of whom have been supplied by the Rev. W. E. 

 Taylor 2 , and Mr W. W. A. Fitzgerald 3 . Here again Bantus and 

 Gallas are found in close contact, and we learn that the Wagir- 



1 Official Report on the East African Protectorate, 1897. 



2 Vocabulary of the Giryama Language, S. P. C. K. 1897. 



3 Travels in the Coastlands of British East Africa, London, 1898, p. 103 sq. 



