//li 



NILOTIC NEGROES 



women are jiarticular about con- 

 coaling the pudenda, wliereas the 

 ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^— men are ostentatiously naked. 



■k JHRi^^^^H- ^^^^^^^H Tiie Baganda hold nudity in the 



^^B jy ^^^Hp ^^ male to l)e such an abhorrent 



^^B ^XW/tfL. ^J^^wit thing tliat for centuries they 



^^B '^'1^^^^^^WSMk0'^ have referred with scorn and 



W^^ ■L^y'^^^^^" ^ disgust to tlie Nile Negroes as the 



I ^^^Ki ^ i "Ba-kedi," or '-Naked People." 



i^^^^Hv, Speke includes all regions to the 



.-^^^HiF*'^»v^ J. north and east of Uganda and 



f^^^^ T^iH Tnyoro as "• Kidi " (a misrender- 



^ Jr ^SO ' ingoftheroot "kedi" — "naked"), 



and to this day the word has be- 

 come so rooted as a geographical 

 term that one of the districts 

 of the Uganda Protectorate is 

 styled " Bukedi," or the '• Land 

 of Nakedness." This condition 

 ()f male nudity extends north- 

 west to within some 200 miles of 

 Khartum, or, in fact, wherever 

 the Nile Negroes of the Dinka- 

 Aclioli stock inhal)it the country. 

 The style of house built by 

 the Nile Negroes is as character- 

 istic of them as the attitude of 

 standing on one leg. The hut 

 is circular in shajje, and the sides 

 may lie made of reeds. There 

 is great uniformity amongst the 

 Nile Negroes in the style of tliatcJiing their huts. Their houses are the 

 round beehives built of reeds or wattle and daub, but the peaked roof is 

 a high one, extending over the framework of the house nearly to the 

 ground, and is thatched in a series of flounces. Wherever the Nile people 

 have carried their languages tliis -flounced" thatching appears, with the 

 excejition, perhaps, of Karamojo (where the people, being of Bantu origin, 

 appear to have retained the smooth-thatched huts) and among the 

 Ja-luo, whose houses are built just like those of the Bantu Kavirondo. 

 The Masai group, however, though allied in origin and language to the 

 Nile Negroes, does not adopt tliis style of thatch. As will be seen in the 

 next chapter, they eitlier bnihl houses like those of the Bantu Negroes 



419. ALURU \VOM.\N AND CHILD FROM WADELAI 



