234 THE LAND OF THE LION 



All the community keep within doors for two days, the women 

 crying loudly. They honour a mother in this respect, as 

 they do a father. If anyone dies childless, the body is drawn 

 into the bushes and left to the fece and birds. 



The one thing that impressed me above all others in 

 meeting and questioning the Elgoa and Cherangang is 

 their high regard for the truth. No one but an ignorant 

 and most unobservant man could possibly speak of those 

 tribes, who are still uninfluenced by the white man, as 

 untruthful. Very much the reverse is the case. A man 

 questioned by you will pause and take evident pains to be 

 accurate. A Swahili, a man of very mixed race, or a porter 

 who has been for years round a town or boma, may lie if 

 you confuse him or make him afraid, though this is not nearly 

 so common a thing as it would be among ourselves). But 

 a native East African, even if the truth be to his manifest 

 disadvantage, scarcely ever lies. Confuse him (he is easily 

 confused) and he may try to say what he fancies his bwana 

 wants him to say, but be patient with him, let him tell his 

 story in his own roundabout way, and from beginning to 

 end he will so tell it as to Jo accurate justice, so far as he 

 knows, to his adversary as well as to himself.. 



I have been deeply touched often, as I watched these 

 poor fellows witnessing truthfully to their own expected 

 hurt (I speak of all East African natives). 



In Elgoa the liar is a doubly branded man. If he is 

 known to have lied in any important matter, he is officially 

 driven from the community. 



Take the matter of their dearly loved cattle as an illus- 

 tration. If they accept the care of some cows or goats 

 for a stranger, years may pass before that outsider can 

 claim his own; he may, however, depend on an accurate 

 accounting for every calf or kid born during the interval, 

 no matter how long it be ; no one, from chief to herd boy, 

 but will tell him all the truth. Fancy what the result of 



