742 BANTU NEGROES 



which its throat is cut. Goats and sheep are killed by suffocation. The 

 snout is seized and firmly held until the creature expires from want of 

 breath. The Kavirondo are inordinately fond of their cattle, and a chief 

 will frequently bemoan the loss of one of his cows with more genuine 

 and heartfelt grief than he would display if he lost a wife or a child. 

 Some of these people depart from ordinary negro custom in being slightly 

 inclined to tame and domesticate birds and beasts. I have already 

 mentioned that quails are kept in cages to decoy other quails into the 

 snares. These little birds are carefully fed, and will sometimes live for 

 several years in captivity. Crowned cranes often haunt the precincts of 

 Kavirondo villages, and are protected, if not tame. One chief kept a 

 couple of hen ostriches in his village. Apiculture is carried on by most 

 of the Kavirondo, who take great trouble about housing their bees. In 

 districts where trees are scarce the hives (which are cylinders of wood or 

 bark) are placed on the roofs of the huts. The flavour of the honey is 

 often spoilt through a custom of boiling it, which is done (amongst other 

 reasons) to extract the wax mixed up in the honey. 



Before the advent of the British power the various clans and tribes 

 into which the Bantu Kavirondo are divided were constantly at war one 

 with the other. The Kavirondo also had to withstand attacks from the 

 Masai, Nandi, ancf Lango people, so that, although compared to other 

 peoples in the east and north of the Protectorate they may be termed 

 a pjeaceful race of genial savages, they were still inured to warfare, and 

 could often turn out sturdy warriors. Their weapjons are spears with 

 rather long, fiat blades without blood-courses, and also spears with a short, 

 leaf-shaped blade, bows and arrows, and wooden clubs. Their broad- 

 bladed swords (tapering towards the hilt) were probably borrowed from 

 the Masai. The people speaking Kavirondo dialects on the islands 

 opposite the JNyala coast use slings, from which they hurl stones with 

 great force. These slings are similar to the ones used by the Bavuma. 

 They did not usually poison their arrows, except in the chase, to kill the 

 larger beasts. Shields are a long oval (vide Pig. 399) made of stiff, 

 thick leather, with a boss in front which is part of the handle behind. 

 The rim of the shield is turned back, and the shield is slightly convex 

 in shape. Formerly the hide used was that of the buffalo, which animal 

 is now to all intents and purposes extinct in the Kavirondo country. The 

 shields are now made from ox hide or from the skin of the Orycteropus 

 (ant bear). 



Of course many of the Kavirondo now possess guns, and the introduction 

 of this weapon has largely modified their warfare. I should think it 

 unlikely in the past that the Kavirondo ever undertook offensive operations 

 against tribes on their borders. They were content to live and let live, 



