348 NATIVES OF EASTERN BRITISH EAST AFRICA part hi 



send raiding parties to attack it. Two months after I had passed 

 through Nzaoi on the journey into the interior, a large force of El-Moran 

 dashed into the valley and obtained a rich booty in cattle, and in the 

 following year (1894) a Masai party attacked the British fort; so that 

 it is still hopeless for the Wa-kamba to attempt to use the rich plains 

 upon their frontier. 



If they could do this, the population would no doubt materially 

 increase. Mr. Ainsworth estimates that of the Iveti Mountain district 

 (i.e. the rectangular area between Nzaoi, Kavaluki, Machakos, and 

 Maka) at about one million, giving an average of only 150 to the 

 square mile. This is more than the average for Africa, which is 

 estimated by Ravenstein ^ at 1 2 to the square mile, but it is far less 

 than the country could support. 



The political system of the Wa-kamba is based on the family. 

 The people live in kraals or villages, each of which contains, as a rule, 

 about fifty inhabitants, and is ruled over by an elder or niwanto mere. 

 Each kraal contains practically a single family, and several are grouped 

 together under a chief. Some of the chiefs have only two or three 

 kraals, but others have more. Nzibu, for example, who is the Mwanto 

 Mineni, or big chief, of the Machakos district, is lord over fifty. 



Each kraal has its own plantations, the boundaries of which are 

 marked by hedges, banks, ditches, or occasional heaps of stone. 

 The ditches also act as irrigation channels, which are especially 

 necessary for the fields of sugar-cane. The whole of the produce 

 is the property of the kraal, and each member has a share of food 

 served out from the common stock. The surplus supplies are sold, 

 and the goods received in exchange belong to the kraal. There is 

 apparently no definite ownership of private property, except clothes 

 and weapons. The industrial system is therefore socialistic rather 

 than patriarchal. The family is certainly the unit, but the head 

 of the family has less absolute power than in typical patriarchal 

 communities. 



Order is kept in the tribe by the enforcement of a kind of common 

 law, the unwritten rules of which are applied by a jury of elders. In 

 trials for crime, precedent is rigidly followed. Capital punishment is 

 apparently only inflicted for a second act of rape. The accused is 

 tried by a jury of his fellows, before a judicial committee of elders. 

 The latter sit on their stools in a group; the warriors or mwaniki 

 stand round in a circle. The accused is confronted with his accuser, 

 and is allowed to make any defence he can. If the crime is proved, 

 the elders ask the imvaniki if the sin is bad, and they reply "Very." 

 The elders then ask if the man deserves punishment. " He does," 

 say the ?nwafiiki, and the elders tell the warriors to flog him, an order 

 which is carried out until some of the criminal's bones are broken. 

 For a second offence, the man's throat is cut. 



^ In J. S. Keltic's Partition of Africa, 2nd ed. 1895, P- S^i- 



