BRITISH EAST AFRICA 173 



sheath in which they slip their kerries. The Masai 

 nearly always carry them in their hands. The former 

 slit their ear-lobes when young and gradually distend 

 them to an enormous extent. I have seen ordinary 

 tin drinking-cups and small potted-meat jars slipped 

 through the loop thus formed. When not being used 

 to carry something they are looped over the top of the 

 ear. A guide I had had evidently been straining the 

 lobe of his right ear beyond its carrying capacity, as 

 the flesh was torn in two and only dangling strips re- 

 mained. They also pierce holes in the top of their ears, 

 and gradually enlarge these until they can fasten in 

 them pieces of stick about as big as a pencil and some 

 six inches in length, which flap freely when their 

 owner moves. This gives them a most extraordinary 

 appearance. The women do most of the work. They 

 ornament their wrists, arms, ankles, shins and thighs 

 with long coils of copper and iron wire ; though they 

 hardly carry this craze so far as do the fair sex among 

 the Masai. I have seen these women literally swathed 

 in metal coils until one wondered how they could move 

 naturally. Usually a huge coil round their necks, 

 allowed to hang loosely like a gigantic spring, finished 

 off their appearance. Among both tribes the gentler 

 sex are the regular hewers of wood and drawers of 

 water. In addition to the huge bundles which they 

 carry on their backs one can usually discover a small, 

 naked child, clinging frog-like, with shining back, to 

 some portion of its mother's anatomy. The dead are 

 not buried, and it is common to find human skulls, 



