CHAPTER 11 



THE CENTRAL PBOVINCE AX J) THE VIC TO Til A 



NYANZA 



THE Ontral Province contains the Klgon, Karainojo, Jvohoi-, Pukedi, 

 and Busoga Districts. 



The Elgon District includes tlie northern lialf of" the Ka\ir(aido 

 countr}'. It is difficuh to locate this word "Kavirondo." It is p)-ohably 

 of Bantu origin, but although it is recognised to some extent bv the 

 natives as a word indicating the north-east coast-lands of the Victoria 

 Nyanza, it is nowhere actually applied by the natives to themselves; while 

 the people loosely styled " Kavirondo " by the first travellers in these 

 regions, though they ])ossess in common a liking for complete nuditv in 

 both sexes, and a certain general resemblance in physique * and in manners 

 and customs, yet are divided sharply into two sections by the languages 

 which they speak. The people of Northei-n Kavirondo nse closely related 

 dialects of the Bantu family ; those of Southern Kavirondo (already 

 alluded to as the Ja-luo in the preceding chapter) speak a dialect of the 

 Acholi language of the Upper Nile. The word " Kavirondo " was not originally 

 known to the Baganda before recent years; they spoke of this district, in 

 common witli other parts of the Central Province where the people wear 

 no clothes, as " Bukedi " ("The Land of Nakedness ") or " Bugaya." The 

 term " Kavirondo " will prolmbly be always perpetuated now as the jnost 

 convenient general nanie for all those natives speaking ]kntu dialects 

 west of Busoga and north of Kavirondo Bay. 



The Kavirondo country, which thus forms the southern part of the 

 Elgon District, is an extremely fertde land, traversed by the only three 

 rivers which enter the northern half of the A'ictoria Xyanza, eastwnids of 

 Western Uganda. (It must be observed as a remarkalile geogr;iphical 

 feature that jtractically no running stream enters the Victoria Nyanza 

 along the whole of its northern coast between Berkeley Bay on the north- 

 east and the mouth of the Katonga on the south-west. Along all this 

 coast the lake is bordered with high downs and hills, and from the back 



* Di-. Shrubsalk however, pronounces the Kavirondo divided iiliysically into 

 Bantu and Nilotic tyi)es. 



