BANTU NEGROES 



581 



to suffer from skin diseases, due possibly to poor food, much of their 

 sustenance being derived from sorghum porridge and eleusine * (" ruimbi "). 

 The Banyoro differ in physical appearance from the Batoro, the 

 Bakonjo, and the Bairo. This is due to a greater fundamental mixture 

 in the past between these negroes and Hamitic and Nilotic invaders of 

 Unvoro. As a rule the Banyoro are rather nice-looking negroes, tall and 

 well-proportioned, with faces which would be very pleasing were it not a 

 custom amongst them (a custom 

 which, as a rule, is not met with 

 south of Unvoro proper) to extract 

 the four lower incisors: this is a 

 practice learnt, no doubt, from the 

 neighbouring Nilotic tribes. As in- 

 dividuals of both sexes grow old, 

 their upper incisor teeth, having no 

 opposition, grow long and project 

 from the ram in a slanting manner, 

 which gives the mouth an ugly hippo- 

 potamine appearance. The Banyoro 

 do not circumcise, nor are they as 

 a rule given to ornamenting the 

 skin bv raising weals or cicatrises. 

 On the whole it may be said that 

 the Banyoro are not very dissimilar 

 in appearance to the average in- 

 habitant of Uganda, and, as will be 

 seen in Chapter XX., there is a 

 fairly close relationship between the 

 Urunyoro and Luganda languages. 

 They are not a naked people, but 

 wear much the same amount of 

 clothing as is worn in Uganda, 

 though the bark-cloth manufactured 

 is inferior in quality, and a much 



larger proportion of the people wear skins. Both skins and bark-cloth, 

 however, are rapidly being replaced bv the calico of India and America. 

 It is, however, still the custom in Unvoro that a man and woman of 

 whatever rank must, for at least four days after the marriage ceremony, 

 wear native-made bark-cloths. In the north of Unvoro, however, especially 

 amongst the Bachiope (Japalua), absolute nudity is the characteristic of 

 both sexes, no doubt owing to their Nilotic affinities and the influence of 



325. A WOMAN OF TOKO 



* ? Pennist turn. 



