BORANA DWELLINGS 



elucidation a far more intimate knowledge of their 

 respective languages than we possess at present. It 

 is always a very difficult matter for a European to 

 converse with such natives, for, unless the words are 

 correctly pronounced, they will not try to understand. 

 This may be explained perhaps by the fact that, their 

 language being unwritten, they can only recognise 

 one unvarying pronunciation of a word, and if this 

 is departed from, they are not able to recognise it, 

 believing it to be in a foreign tongue. This is not 

 unnatural, but at the same time it is very irritating. 



Like the Somali, the Tufi Borana are a nomadic 

 people ; but they inhabit a less arid region than the 

 former and therefore they are not compelled to wander 

 so far afield in search of pasture. Moreover, they are 

 more sedentary by inclination, and the range of their 

 movements is as restricted as the exigencies of the 

 water-supply permit. They will often therefore 

 remain in the same locality for weeks and even 

 months, so long as there is a sufficiency of feed for 

 their cattle, but in spite of this, their huts are of a 

 primitive and non-permanent type. 



These dwellings are of a beehive shape, and are 

 built by placing over a light framework of branches 

 tied together with fibre a thick thatching of dried 

 grass, reeds and bush, above which a goat's skin or 

 ox-hide is securely lashed. They are not more than 

 6 or 7 feet high, and are much more fiimsy and 

 insecure than the Somali "gurgi." In those that I 

 inspected, the fire was on the left-hand side of the 

 entrance, and the right-hand portion of the interior 

 was reserved for the sleeping apartment ; in the day- 

 time, at any rate, there was no division between the 

 two parts of the hut. Round each boma there is 



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