776 



NILOTIC NEGROES 



423. GROUND FLAX OF AN AC'HOLI HOUSE 



low order of architecture, with 

 interior arrangements showing 

 no attempt at comfort or order- 

 liness. The Acholi always make 

 beds of skins on the top of the 

 raised sleeping platform, but 

 the Bari frequently sleep on 

 the bare mud. 



Nearly all the Nile villages 

 are surrounded by thorn hedges. 

 In the Lango and Acholi 

 countries there is a good deal 

 of stockading with stout poles. 

 The Madi dig a deep trench 

 round their villages, throwing 

 up the earth on the inner side 

 into a parapet. All along the 

 top of this parapet is planted 

 a stout stockade of poles. 

 Outside the Madi villages there is always a smooth dancing place, in 

 the middle of which a flagstaff is planted. 



The food of these Nile peoples is largely vegetable, and they are all 

 industrious agriculturists. They cultivate the red sorghum, and, to a 

 lesser extent, the white; the ground-nut (in very large quantities), 

 sesamuni (the oil of which is much used), the eleusine grain, and also 

 a true millet which penetrates very rarely to the regions nearer the 

 Victoria Nyanza. They cultivate two or three kinds of beans and peas 

 like the Indian "dhal." Sweet potatoes are abundantly grown in Lango, 

 where there are as many as six different varieties. Maize is cultivated 

 in many parts, and pumpkins and gourds are universal. No sugar- 

 cane is met with. Most of the Nile peoples make much use in their 

 diet of wild fruits, which they obtain from the thin, scattered forests of 

 the open country. There is a wild vine the grapes of which are eaten. 

 Tobacco is universally cultivated, but, when dry. it is mixed with cow- 

 dung, and this somewhat evil-smelling combination is smoked in pipes. 

 It is not taken as snuff except amongst the Lango. 



The Nile peoples, like most Central African Negroes, are very fond of 

 white ants as food when the males are in the winged stage. 



The Bari do not hunt at all. except hippopotamuses, which they 

 attempt to spear in the water from rafts of ambatch. The Bari do a 

 great deal of fishing, and amongst other ways of procuring fish they visit 

 sh;dl.»w creeks and inlets of rivers, cut off the neck of the inlet with a 



