CHAPTER VII 

 HIS TO BY OF THE FEOTECTORATE TEBBITOBIES 



ON certain ancient village sites in Northern Kavirondo — namely, in 

 that country which lies between Blount Elgon and the Victoria 

 Nyanza — there are found in the surface soil curious blue beads and large 

 pear-shaped ear-rings of jasper and chalcedony. The blue bead is a dull, 

 opaque, crystalline substance, deriving its turquoise colour, no doubt, from 

 some infusion of copper. The beads are pierced with large holes, the 

 chalcedony or jasper ear-drojjs with a finely drilled hole. The Ja-luo, or 

 Nilotic Kavirondo, wear these beads and ear-drops, and attach verv great 

 value to them. They are believed to come from the far north-west. 

 ]Mr. Hobley, who first discovered the peculiar nature of these ornam.ents, 

 and the fact that thev differed widely 

 from the glass beads of commerce, is of 

 opinion that they came from Nul)ia or 

 Upper Egypt. These beads, and the 

 custom of building clay walls with arched 

 doorways round the villages,* may possibly 

 indicate that in ancient times representa- 

 tives of a superior, not wholly negro, race 

 may have come down from the north, 

 and have dwelt as traders, miners, or 

 settlers in these countries to the south 

 of Mount Elgon. We know by the 

 Egyptian paintings and bas-reliefs that 

 they had sufficient trading intercourse 

 with the countries of the Upper Nile and 

 the Western Sudan (as distinguished from 

 Somaliland or the Land of Punt) to have 

 derived thence specimens of the Congo 



* Tliovigh this is more characteristic of the 

 Bantu Kavirondo and of the Elgonyi (Nandi), 

 than of the Ja-luo. 



yoL. I. 209 



169. jslue beads ix a ja-luo's ear 

 (kavikoxdo) 



14 



