NILOTIC NEGIIOES 



769 



races between the Hamite and the Nile Negro, between the Hamite and 

 the Bantu, and a few Bantu races who are either verv niucli under the 



410. .MA1>1 WOMEN AT THEIK HAIK-UKES81.\(; 



influence of neighbouring Masai or Gala tribes or have still retained in 

 South Central Africa the impress of Bahima customs.* 



In their own homes in the de})th of the forest the Dwarfs are said to 

 neglect coverings for decency in the men as in the women, but certainly 

 when they emerge from the forest into the villages of the agricultural 

 Xegroas they are always observed to be wearing some small piece of bark- 

 cloth or skin or a bunch of leaves over the pudenda. Elsewhere in all 



* The only Bantu tribes which formerly were, or at the ]iresent day are, without 

 feelings of shame in regard to the exposure of the person in the rnale are the 

 A-kamba, A-kikuyu, Wa-chaga, and other tribes in British East Africa living in 

 close relations with the Masai or the Gala ; the Kavirondo, who were similarly influenced 

 by the Nile Negroes ; the Bakonjo of Euwenzori, who in this may have copied the 

 Hima customs ; the Barundi of North Tanganyika likewise ; the Nkonde tribes of 

 the north end of Lake Nyasa ; the Mashukuhunbwe and Batonga of the Central 

 Zambezi; and the Zulus of South and South Central Africa.: In Xhe case of all the 

 Bantu tribes mentioned, except those of North Nyasa, Central Zambezi, and Zulu- 

 land, it is easy to understand how this preference_ for nudity on the part of the male 

 may have arisen from contact Avith Nilotic, Masai, or Hamitic customs. It is less 

 easy for the same theory to explain it in the case of the Wankonde, the Central 

 Zambezi, or the Zulu Negroes, unless it be assumed that these races have "migrated 

 in relatively recent times from countries dominated by the Bahima. ' - ■ 



