January 6, 19 16] 



NATURE 



507 



It gives the result of the operation within i per 

 per cent., a serviceable degree of accuracy. If 

 it is as successful as it deserves to be, perhaps in 

 a new edition the publishers will consider whether 

 I somewhat larger scale is possible, and whether 

 ihe instructions can be made visible at the same 

 time as the chart. D. M. 



THE NORTHERN BANTU. 

 The Northern Bantu: an Account of some 

 Central African Tribes of the Uganda Protec- 

 torate. By the Rev. J. Roscoe. Pp. xii + 305. 

 (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1915.) 

 Price 125. 6d. net. 



MR. ROSCOE is too well known as an 

 ethnologist to require any introduction 

 to the readers of Nature, who if they are study- 

 ing the Negro people of Africa will read his new 

 book as eagerly as its predecessors, or those 

 admirable articles from his pen published in the 

 Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. 



The book under review deals with the physical 

 appearance, manners, customs, 'beliefs, numbers, 

 and to some extent birth-rate, of the following 

 (more or less) Bantu tribes of the Uganda Protec- 

 torate — the Banyoro, Ankole, Bakene, Basoga, 

 and Teso. The Teso are Nilotic in speech, and 

 their inclusion in a review of the Bantu-speaking 

 peoples of eastern Equatorial x\frica is only a 

 matter of propinquity. 



According to Mr. Roscoe, the Bantu area of 

 the Uganda Protectorate must be considerably 

 extended beyond what was accorded to it in 

 previous conceptions. He writes of the Bakene 

 as a most interesting Bantu tribe in the very 

 centre of the Uganda Protectorate, dwelling in 

 floating huts on the Mpologoma River, on Lake 

 Kioga, and on Lake Salisbury. He also adds, 

 "I believe, on Lake Rudolf." He does not give 

 us any reference for this last suggestion, which, 

 if well confirmed, would be most interesting, as 

 it would give us the farthest north known of any 

 Bantu or semi-Bantu tribe in eastern Equatorial 

 Africa. Oskar Neumann, who explored these 

 regions between Uganda and Abyssinia about 

 1898-99, contended that he had traced the Bantu 

 ■'type" as far north as southern Galaland (the 

 Omo River basin, etc.). Presumably he meant 

 "physical type," and so far as the Bantu have 

 any generalised physical type (though it is more 

 and more difficult to attribute such to them), it 

 is certainly to be met with in the country of 

 Karamojo west of Lake Rudolf. Moreover, not 

 a few place-names and tribal names in that region 

 NO. 2410, VOL. 96] 



suggest the previous existence of Bantu-speaking 

 people before a succession of conquests and 

 colonisations by the Nilotes. Mr. Roscoe says 

 that the Bakene of Lake Kioga are allied to the 

 Basoga, and speak a language or a dialect very 

 similar to Lusoga. Now Lusoga is so close to 

 Luganda that it cannot be accorded more than a 

 dialectal difference. Consequently, if his deduc- 

 tions regarding the Bakene (not supported, how- 

 ever, by any vocabulary) are correct, they are in 

 common with the Basoga and the Basese, out- 

 lying clans of the original Baganda nation. 



Mr. Roscoe attributes to the Bagesu of western 

 Mount Elgon the practice of eating a portion of 

 the corpses of their dead and throwing the rest 

 to the wild beasts. He rightly alludes to the very 

 " Negro " appearance of the Bagesu and their 

 low status in culture, and remarks on this as 

 being so extraordinary when they are surrounded 

 by both Bantu and Nilote people of handsome 

 physical development and rather remarkable 

 advance in native civilisation. I noted the same 

 fact in my "Uganda Protectorate," and gave 

 therein photographs of Bagesu types to illustrate 

 their physical resemblance to the Forest Negroes 

 and the Congo Pigmies. But my own visit to 

 their country, together with indications given by 

 Mr. C. W. Hobley, revealed the interesting fact 

 that the Bagesu speech may be cited as perhaps 

 the most archaic form of Bantu language. It is 

 one with very elaborate prefixes and pre- 

 prefixes, and is a highly developed speech, prob- 

 ably imposed on these forest savages at a com- 

 paratively ancient date by the first Bantu in- 

 vaders of eastern Equatorial Africa, just as the 

 Congo Pigmies and Forest Negroes of Central 

 Africa now speak for the most part Bantu tongues 

 or languages imposed on them by the Sudanic 

 negroes and negroids. 



Unfortunately, the photographs specially taken 

 by Mr. Roscoe for the illustration of this work 

 failed to materialise, owing to the breakdown of 

 his apparatus, and although the book contains a 

 number of interesting illustrations, they are not 

 always apposite to the author's descriptions. 

 Nevertheless, some of these are of great interest, 

 especially that of the King of Bunyoro wearing 

 the special hat for the "secret court." 



This last book by Mr. Roscoe will confirm 

 many in the impression that much indirect and 

 ancient Egyptian influence has penetrated to the 

 negroes of northern Equatorial Africa, especially 

 the Bantu, and has been the foundation of most 

 of their religious beliefs and customs. It would 

 almost seem as if from this and that deduction 

 there had been a former continuous tribe to tribe 



