BANTU NEGROES (51)7 



It has always seemed to me a remarkable characteristic of the Negro 

 race, as contrasted with the Asiatic or the European, that beyond a slight 

 interest in the sun or moon so little notice was taken of the heav'enlv 

 bodies. I have never encountered a race of purely Negro blood that took 

 much interest in the stars. The Hottentots are said to have names for 

 the Pleiades and one or two other constellations, but these names seldom, 

 if ever, occur amongst Bantu or West African Negroes. The average 

 native of Uganda likewise takes little or no interest in the stars. They 

 know the constellation of the Great Bear, but their only name for it 

 means "six stars." Orion they call "the three stars.'' Sirius is simply 

 "Munyenye," or ^' the star."' I believe they have names for Ju[)iter and 

 Venus, but I have not been iihle to find a native wlio could repeat 

 them to me. 



Their knowledge of (jeograijhy before the Arab and the European 

 came within their cognisance was very limited. On the north it extended 

 to the Acholi and Luru countries, beyond Lake Albert, and thence through 

 the Acholi and Lango tribes to Mount Elgon. They had })erhai)s a 

 glimmering knowledge, a vague legendary tradition, that far to the north- 

 east of Mount Elgon there was a big salt lake (Lake Kudolf), and Ijeyond 

 that again a land — Galaland or Abyssinia — in which people like tlieir own 

 Bahima dwelt ; otherwise their knowledge of an outer world did not extend 

 beyond the plateau occupied by the Nandi and Masai. South-west they 

 knew of the Unyamwezi country and of the existence of Lake Tanganyika. 

 Westwards their knowledge was entirely bounded by the great wall of the 

 Congo Forest. They were vaguely aware that the high \ eaks of the great 

 mountain ridge (Ruwenzori), which they called Ganiharagara, were covered 

 with a mysterious white stuff. They had heard of or had seen the 

 active \olcanoes of Urtiufumhiro and Kirunga. These were the bounds 

 of their knowledge before 1850, or 1848. when a runaway l^aluch trader, 

 Isiau, from Zanzibar, took refuge in Uganda, and first enliglitened its 

 king (Suna) as to the existence of other worlds outside the lands of the 

 Victoria Nvanza. 



The love of music on the i)art of the Baganda has liecn insisted on 

 by many tra\'ellers. The musical scale adopted is generally the Pentatonic. 

 One air sung to a flute accompaniment I took down on the phonogra})h. 

 It had the following notation : — 





Gwe to-ya-ku- la Xte-be ya- mbala di - ba One to-ya-ko-la 'Xtebg ya luba - la-a-a 



(You who don't work at Entebbe ! (Go and) wear skins ! 

 You who don't work at Entebbe ! (Go and) wea-a-a-r . . . ! ) 



