352 NA TIVES OF EASTERN BRITISH EAST AFRICA part hi 



Hamitic elements. They are therefore here included among the 

 Negroid races. 



Von Hohnel ^ has given such an admirable account of this tribe that 

 I do not propose to describe them in detail, but only refer to the 

 points that serve to indicate the infusion of Nilotic blood. 



Their physical features are in many ways intermediate between the 

 Masai and Bantu ; the chin, for example, is less prognathic than in the 

 latter. In their mode of life they more resemble the Bantu, as they 

 are mainly agriculturists. They have some food plants, which are 

 not possessed by the ordinary Bantu tribes, and which they cannot 

 apparently have acquired from these. Thus they grow a millet which 

 Schweinfurth identifies as Panicum italicum, L., and which he thinks 

 must have been introduced from India before the time of Mohammed. 

 It is true that the Wa-kamba now also cultivate it, but it is possible 

 that they obtained it from their Kikuyu neighbours. 



In their arms and equipments they resemble the Masai more than 

 the Wa-kamba. In fighting they trust more to the spear and shield than 

 to the bow and poisoned arrow, though these are used by the natives 

 of the southern part of their country, who have much intercourse with 

 the Wa-kamba. Kikuyu spears differ in shape from those of the Masai, 

 for they are ovate rather than linear-lanceolate ; they agree in this, how- 

 ever, with the Njempsians, who are certainly Nilotic Hamites and not 

 Bantu. Their shields, swords, and trinkets are almost the same as 

 those of the Masai. They dress in the same manner, the women 

 being clad in roughly-tanned skins, and the men wearing flaps of 

 leather over the shoulder, or hanging like a tail behind. The 

 method of circumcision — a point of great systematic importance 

 among these tribes — is the same as that of the Masai.- 



Another point by which they differ from most of the inland Bantu 

 tribes in East Africa, and resemble the Negroid and Soudanese races 

 of the west coast, is that they have an elaborate series of religious 

 rites, to which they attach considerable importance, and the obliga- 

 tions of which they scrupulously fulfil. Some of these are described 

 in Chap. XL (pp. 189-194). 



The Kikuyu language is very little known. It is certainly not 

 Bantu, and is allied to Masai. The list of geographical terms on 

 page 350 shows how different the language is from either Masai or 

 Ki-kamba.^ 



The temperament of the people, with their excitable, irritable 

 ways — their thievish propensities, their hostility to strangers, and their 



1 Zum Rudolf-See, pp. 386-395. 



2 It has been described in a Latin footnote by H. H. Johnston, The Kilima-Njaro 

 Expedition (1886), pp. 412-413. 



^ Von Hohnel quotes one of the elders as addressing his comrades as Wa-kekoyo. 

 The Wa- is generally a Bantu prefix, but is also Hamitic. In this case it may have 

 been attributed to the language by a misunderstanding, or been adopted from Suahili 

 caravans. 



