848 MASAI, TURKANA, SUK, NANDI, ETC. 



the whole length of the head, from the forehead to the nape of the neck. 

 There is evidently a close affinity, not only in language,* but in physical 

 type, adornments of the body, manners, and customs, between the Silk and 

 Turkana, who might almost be described as one people. The Suk and 

 Turkana men carry about with them generally long tobacco receptacles 

 made of the horn of the oryx (Beisa) antelope, and a small — I might almost 

 write tiny — stool with three legs. This is really cut out of the forking 

 branch of a tree. It is about eight inches long, and is hollowed out for 

 sitting on (vide Fig. 474). 



The houses of the Turkana are usually ramshackle huts of the most 

 primitive description. The sides of these huts are made by sticking long, 

 smooth branches into the ground round a circle, and bending the upper 



ends slightly inward. 

 On top of this is placed 

 a rough framework of 

 sticks or palm frond 

 stems, on which grass is 

 thrown and heaped with 

 little or no attempt at 

 thatching. The houses 

 of the Suk in the 

 mountains are rather 

 more elaborate; in fact, 

 they resemble in material, 

 though not in shape, the 

 huts of the Sabei and 

 Masaba people on the 



474. A SUK STOOL r x 



northern slopes of Mount 

 Elgon. The sides of the circular dwellings are made of long billets of 

 hewn wood fixed tightly in the ground close to one another. The roof 

 is tall and conical, like an extinguisher, and constructed of stalks of 

 sorghum. 



Both Suk and Turkana are fond of tobacco, which they chew and take 

 as snuff. They will eat almost anything, animal or vegetable, even the 

 flesh of dogs. The western Suk, who dwell in the mountains north of the 

 Nandi Plateau and south-east of the Karamojo country, are painstaking 

 agriculturists, growing chiefly sorghum, pumpkins and gourds, eleusine, 

 sweet potatoes, beans, and tobacco. Their country is generally a little 

 too dry for bananas. The Turkana and the Silk dwelling in the plains 

 to the north of Baringo cultivate but little, owing to the capricious nature of 

 the rainfall and a constant succession of disastrous droughts with which the 

 * Which, however, in the Suk shows considerable Nandi influence. 



