BANTU NEGKOES 



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stalwart sons, each of whom lias become the father of a large family ; so 

 that Luba, when he dies, will probably be the progenitor of a thousand 

 children. Another old chief of Nilotic race in the north, Liada. is now 

 past ninety, and is said to have been the father of a thousand children, 

 more or less. It has been, in fact, very much the custom in Busoga for 

 the chiefs— who, being at all times well nourished, were well suited to be 

 "sires" — to impress all the young women of the district into their harims. 

 After a girl had borne one or two children the chief would marry her off 

 to his dependents or to his elder sons. Among the peasants infant 

 mortality is terrible. It is rare that a peasant woman succeeds in 

 rearing more than one child. The influence of the two missionary societies 

 in Busoga is restraining the excessive polygamy of the chiefs, and the 

 better conditions of life among the common people which now prevail 

 under the European control of the country, are together equalising the 

 production of children, and will no doubt tend in time to a marked 

 increase in the population. 



