MASAI, TURKANA, SUK, XAXDI, ETC. 



843 



Masai may have staved 

 for some time in the 

 vicinity of Lake 

 Rudolf, have imposed 

 their language (since 

 much changed), and 

 have produced the 

 present gigantic race 

 of Turkana and Siik 

 by mingling with the 

 antecedent population 

 of Nilotic and Bantu 

 Negroes. It should 

 be noted that, accord- 

 ing to native tradition, 

 it is only some fifty 

 years ago since the 

 Burkeneji section of 

 the Masai were driven 

 from the Kerio Valley 

 west of Lake Rudolf 

 by the Turkana-Suk. 



The men among 

 the Silk and Turkana 

 affect absolute nudity, 

 wearing at most a 

 small leather cape over 

 the shoulders. Their 

 women are not much 

 more clothed. As 

 among the Masai, the 

 women shave the head. 

 but the men, on the 

 contrary, cultivate the 

 hair of the head into 

 enormous chignons. 



They begin as youths by straining their woolly locks as far as they 

 can pull them out from the surface of the skull. They rub them 

 with grease, clay, and cow-dung, to straighten the hair and stiffen it 

 into a kind of felt. This stiffening of fat, clay, and cow-dung thickly 

 coats the outer surface of the hair hag as it hangs down over the 

 neck. When a man dies, all the hair is carefully cut off his head. It is 



TALL SUK ELDEEE 



