346 NA TIVES OF EASTERN BRITISH EAST AFRICA part hi 



spear-heads, hoes, and knives they buy from the coast. The principal 

 industrial achievement is the carving of their maus or canoes. These 

 are made of the wood of the sycamore,^ a tree known to the natives 

 as the mkuyii. The canoes are keelless, and are simply made by 

 burning and digging out straight portions of tree trunks. 



From the figs of the sycamore the natives make an intoxicating 

 beer, of which they are very fond. At the season when the fruit is 

 ripe, all the inhabitants of a village are sometimes found in a state 

 of drunken stupor. 



The Wa-pokomo suffer severely from skin diseases. One, which 

 the Suahili call leprosy - {iikoiiia), is very prevalent. I once went for 

 some hours down the Tana in a canoe with eight natives, five of whom 

 were disfigured by this malady. The Somali who ought to have gone 

 with me refused to enter the canoe, as they said the natives were 

 unclean, and we should catch the disease. 



The Wa-pokomo are fond of dancing and singing, but do not play 

 at the more elaborate games popular on the coast. The children 

 amuse themselves with " seki," which consists of knocking over two 

 opposite rows of grass stalks, by spinning a teetotum made of a 

 piece of gourd rind fastened on a wooden peg. In a game I watched 

 at Ngao, supposed to be a fight between Galla and Pokomo, the 

 four grass stalks on each side represented the chief, a headman, 

 an ox, and much cattle. The children were surrounded by a circle 

 of adults, who cheered every success of the Pokomo champion, and 

 failure of that of the Galla. 



As to the affinities of the Wa-pokomo, there can be no doubt 

 that the tribe is a branch of the Wa-nyika, which occurs along 

 the coast opposite Mombasa. The Wa-pokomo now occur in a 

 narrow belt on each side of the Tana from Kidori (i° S.) to within 

 ten miles of the sea at Charra (2° 30' S.) No doubt at one time 

 they occurred to the mouth of the Tana, and extended for some 

 distance along the coast in either direction. One colony of them 

 still lives in two or three villages at Wasagu, on the island of Pemba ; 

 while a creek named Pokomoni at the back of the island of Manda 

 indicates their former extension to the north. 



3. The Wa-kainba 



The study of the Suahili and the Wa-pokomo is subject to the 

 disadvantage that neither tribe has been allowed to develop naturally 

 along its own lines. The Suahili have been affected, both physically 

 and intellectually, by external influences ; the Pokomo spirit has been 



^ This is the true sycamore [Fic7is Sycomorus, Linn.), not the maple, to which the 

 name is given in England. 



- Most of the people in the coast towns who are said to be lepers are only suffering 

 from leucodermia. True leprosy, however, also occurs. 



