BANTU NEGROES 



627 



the smoke of the fire soon assume a glossy dark brown tint. The clay 

 covering of a chiefs house is sometimes extended under the verandah 

 into clay settles. The clay chosen is usually of a dark or bluish colour, 

 and is decorated by bold designs in white kaolin. These designs are 

 usually cut into the black mud and painted with the white clay. The 

 floor of the chief's house is covered with clean grass. The bed is merely 

 a raised block of hard mud, which is shut off from the rest of the house 

 by a screen of reeds. A chiefs house is always placed inside a cattle 



349. HIM A AND 1KO SPEAKS 



fence, and is generally surrounded in addition by a roughly built enclosure 

 of reeds similar, but much inferior, to the " bisikati " of Uganda. 



The spear is the principal weapon of the Muhima. The type peculiar 

 to this race, and which is found everywhere in East Central Africa where 

 they or their influence have penetrated, has a long wooden shaft and a 

 spear-head with two blood-courses on either side of the central rib. In 

 this point they differ from the spears of the Bairo, which are of much 

 ruder construction, with a depression in the middle on one side which 

 answers to a ridge down the middle on the other side. The accompanying 



