751 



BANTU NEGROES 



of dance is given after some kind of sexual initiation ceremony, at which 

 men and women dance together.* Each dancer has a stick from which 

 the hark has been removed in alternate rings. The people dance in a 

 circle, shake their shoulders, and slowly revolve with abrupt movements- 

 and much stamping. After a wedding there is a dance in which women 

 alone perform. Finally, it is said that a dance takes place in seasons of 

 drought to propitiate the good spirit and bring down rain. 



In language the Kavirondo are closely allied to the ugly Masaba 



?!%**•.* «^ 



402. A DANCE IN KAVIRONDO 



people of West Elgon, but in physique they are almost typically Bantu — 

 so far us any Bantu type of Negro can be defined. They almost certainly 

 entered their present habitat a long while ago from the north or north- 

 west. They did not, as Mr. Hobley thinks, advance to their present sites- 

 from the south end of Lake Victoria, and the supposition on which this 

 theory is based — namely, special relationship between the Kavirondo and 

 Kinyamwezi dialects — is an incorrect one. All the Kavirondo dialects are- 

 much more closely related to Luganda and Urunyoro than they are to- 



■ Mr. Hobley says "circumcision," but as the Kavirondo do not circumcise he 

 possibly means some ceremony connected with the arrival at puberty of boys or 



girls. 



