620 BANTU NEGROES 



ornaments, they probably wore skin mantles exclusively in early days. 

 The men display little or no anxiety to cover the pudenda. The women 

 covered themselves most elaborately with skins (especially out of doors) 

 in the days before either bark-cloth or the calico of Europe and Asia was 

 used among them. Ever since the Arab traders of Zanzibar came to these 

 countries (first in about 1845), the use of Bombay, American, or Manchester 

 cotton goods has spread widely amongst the Bahima, especially among their 

 women. In parts of Southern Ankole, however, the girls customarily go 

 quite naked until married. The married women at their poorest wear a 

 short skirt or apron of palm fibre or grass, an illustration of which is given 

 amongst the Hima weapons on p. 625. Men and women both wear 

 charms round the neck hung on strings. These consist of little pieces of 

 polished wood which have been blessed by the medicine man, or else other 

 substances supposed to have magical qualities, which are tied up in closely 

 wound leather thongs. Iron, copper, and brass wire are beaten out to make 

 necklaces, which are hung with kauris or large beads. They also make 

 armlets of wire, and bracelets of ivory, iron, copper, brass, and anklets of 

 the same materials. Tight wire armlets are often fastened round the upper 

 part of the left arm, and below the knee of each leg. Necklaces and head- 

 rings are also made of innumerable fine circles cut from the shells of 

 water molluscs. The women not infrequently employ kauris to decorate 

 these head- and neck-rings. The Bahima men when herding cattle will — 

 like the Masai and other cattle-keeping tribes in the east of the Protectorate 

 — cover themselves all over with white kaolin till they look like lepers, 

 for some purpose I have not been able to understand. 



The food of the true-blooded Bahima is, as a rule, restricted to the milk 

 of their cows, and the flesh of such cattle, sheep, and goats as they kill. 

 Barren cows are generally fattened up for killing. In default of such meat, 

 where disease or misfortune in warfare has brought about the loss of their 

 herds, they will eat (reluctantly) unripe bananas or even the sorghum corn. 

 Besides milk, they drink largely two forms of alcoholic beverage. One is 

 " museru," a thick beer made from grain (sorghum or eleusine), and the other 

 " marwa," the fermented juice of the ripe banana. The Bahima never, under 

 any circumstances, till the soil. All agriculture which may be carried on 

 in the countries they inhabit is the work of the Bantu negroes who live 

 with them as subjects or friends. Besides cattle, sheep, and 'goats, the 

 Bahima keep a few dogs, and occasionally possess fowls, though both the 

 dog and the fowl are much more commonly kept by their subject negro 

 peoples. The Bahima, in fact, take little interest in any creatures but their 

 cattle, which they almost worship. The Hima ox is of that Ofala type 

 already referred to several times in this book. The pure breed has a straight 

 back without a hump, and is of a fawn, dun, grey, or white colour, sometimes 



