CHAPTER XVII 

 BANTU NEGROES— (continued) 



(3) Kavirondo, Masaba, etc. 



THE Bantu-speaking Negroes to the east of Busoga, who dwell round 

 the north-eastern corner of the Victoria Nyanza, on the western 

 Hanks of Mount Elgon, and on and near the east coast of the Victoria 

 Nyanza, south of Kavirondo Bay, may perhaps be most conveniently 

 grouped together under the general term of " Kavirondo."' This word has 

 a Bantu sound, but no one has yet been able to throw any light on its 

 origin, or exactly to indicate the special patch of country that it covers. 

 The natives use it (generally pronounced as " Kafirondo "), but perhaps 

 only do so because they have picked it up from Swahili caravans and 

 Europeans. The word " Kavirondo " probably appeared first on the maps 

 drawn by Mr. E. Gr. Ravenstein at the end of the 'seventies from 

 information given to him by Mombasa missionaries, such as the late 

 Mr. Wakefield. It is certain that the Swahili and Arab caravans who 

 first reached the north-east coast of Lake Victoria Nyanza came back with 

 the impression that the people in that direction were styled " Kavirondo," 

 and communicated these views to Mr. Wakefield. But as the few words 

 of Kavirondo which Mr. Wakefield was able to quote from these and other 

 sources showed the dialect to be closely related to the Acholi — a Nilotic 

 language — it was considered that the Kavirondo were a Nilotic people, 

 and so in a sense they are ; for about half the so-called Kavirondo 

 country is inhabited by a race which is closely allied to the Aluru 

 and Lango (Acholi), from which they are only separated by about 100 

 miles of Bantu and Masai-speaking * people. But Joseph Thomson, when 

 he reached the north-east corner of the Victoria Nyanza in 1883, the 

 first of all Europeans to do so by way of Masailand, discovered to his 

 surprise that the northern Kavirondo spoke a language that was obviously 

 Bantu, and was easily understood by his Swahili porters. On the whole, 

 it is best to accept the established word " Kavirondo," and to take it to 



* This refers to the Elgumi, whose language is more related to the Masai group 

 than to the Nilotic family. 



