NZOIA PLATEAU AND ITS TRIBES 235 
such truthfulness would be among our own western cattle 
owners! Ask the owners of small herds, that try to keep 
their property intact in the neighbourhood of great ones, 
ask the men who really know what goes on before the Indians 
are goaded into killing some rancher’s cattle, if they think 
western truthfulness approaches the standard of the “‘hea- 
then” Elgoa. 
If a case comes up, when the chief or old men doubt 
the truth of the story; if, for example, a homicide has gone 
to war, and comes home declaring he has killed three women, 
and so is absolved from the tribal “‘ban,”’ and his fellow 
soldiers doubt him or think he has killed but one or two at 
most, the matter comes before the chief. He sends the 
homicide to the woods to kill a hare. He then takes a piece 
of the hare’s skin and buries it in the earth at the door of 
the hut the suspected liar lives in. He then says, “‘ The goats 
will tread over that skin day and night for ten days; if you 
are a liar you will die before the tenth.” I could not find 
out from them what the significance of this “‘goat’s tread- 
ing,” etc., was. They simply said it had been their custom 
for ages, and that it was effectual, ‘“‘for the liar died.” I 
should think he probably did die. They often used the 
word God, pointing to the sky. They speak of God’s 
will, “if God is kind” to them they will get honey, kill 
elephant, escape death in war, or have no visitation of the 
cattle sickness, etc., etc. But further than that they seem 
to have no idea of the Divine. They have no religious 
ceremonies except the initiation of the young people. No 
idols or fetishes of any sort. There are some crags on Elgo 
highly metaliferous on which they believe no man can 
stand in a storm and live. ‘This, so far as I could find, 
is the only spot to which any of the tribe ascribe a sacred 
(if it could be so called) significance. 
I asked them what they meant by God. And how 
they knew there was a God and the old man said, “‘I fall 
