4- 



NATURE 



[July 14, 19 10 



much disliked in many of these East African Bantu 

 dialects, and either dropped or changed into a y 

 sound. Certainly, according to the traditions of the 

 Akikuvu, their upland country was until a hundred 

 vears ago (more or less) a region of unbroken forest 

 (we may add, West African in its flora and fauna) 

 which was nourished by an exceedingly heavy rainfall. 

 This great equatorial forest of Africa obviously 

 extended at one period right across the continent to 

 the shores of the Indian Ocean. It has left traces of 

 its peculiar flora and even fauna in the islands of 

 Zanzibar and Pemba, and on the north coast of Lake 

 Nyasa. This must have been a forest which con- 

 tained not only the West African antelopes and pigs, 

 birds, spiders, and butterflies, still found in Kikuyu- 

 land, but the gorilla and chimpanzee, and other types 

 which once ranged uninterruptedly between \\'est 

 Africa and Further India. Consequently, Kikuyu- 



lfe?«- 



land, from the point of view of palaeontology, would, 

 if thtre were any Tertiary or alluvial deposits (dried- 

 up lakes, &c.), probably yield as interesting results in 

 its exploration from that point of view as in ethnology 

 and botany. 



The book under review, besides giving these in- 

 teresting details as to the traditions and chron- 

 ology "of the Akikuyu, describes the people 

 and their pursuits, their food and cookery, agri- 

 culture, domestic animals, arts and crafts, war- 

 fare and weapons, blood-drinking, betrothal and 

 marriage, and general position of women, dances, 

 initiation ceremonies, religion, conceptions of God, 

 notions as to life after death, medicine, folk-lore; and 

 also the position of this interesting people under the 

 new British Administration. The authors have re- 

 ceived much assistance from Mr. C. W. Hobley, one 

 of the principal officials of East Africa, who is so 



NO. 2134, VOL. 84] 



very well known for his own ethnographical and 

 linguistic studies of East African peoples. 



Specially noteworthy are the illustrations and 

 description of the Kikuyu "bull-roarer" used in 

 various ceremonies, the modelling of fetishes (human 

 figures), blacksmith's work, and initiation ceremonies, 

 with their appropriate dances and costumes. In the 

 interesting article on the medicine-man, the etymology 

 of his name — Mundu Mugu — is not quite rightly hit 

 ofl (in the quotation from Mr. McGregor). Mugii is 

 really a contraction of the prefix and root of the 

 widespread Bantu word Mu-logu, or Mu-logo, inean- 

 ing magician, either good or bad. This root -logo 

 ranges mainly over western Bantu Africa, and assumes 

 sometimes very altered forms, such as -doki, -lozi, 

 -roho. It is a parallel to the equally widespread root 

 nganga; but -logo has to do rather with the evil side 

 of magic or of spiritual influence, while nganga may 



well have been in 

 its origin applied 

 to some new 

 wisdom from the 

 north, something 

 to do with iron- 

 working or 

 superior k n o w- 

 li. dge of a prac- 

 tical, material 

 Icind. (For in- 

 stance, Bu-ngaiiga 

 ill some Ba.ncu 

 languages means 

 " gunpowder.") 



There is an ap- 

 pendix to the book 

 which gives an in- 

 teiesting note by 

 the late Colonel 

 j. A. Grant on 

 iron-smelting in 

 East Africa. 



In their biblio- 

 graphy dealing 

 with the Kikuyu 

 and their lan- 

 g u a g e, the 



authors omit any 

 reference to the 

 present writer's 

 yocabulary of Ki- 

 kuyu in his work 

 on the Uganda 

 Protectorate. For 

 various reasons, 

 this vocabulary, 

 though short, is 

 of interest, as it represents the dialect of the westei^n- 

 most part of the Kikuyu range, and is therefore in- 

 teresting for comparison with the nearest (but very 

 dissimilar) Bantu dialects of the regions immediately 

 to the east of the Victoria Nyanza. 



H. H. Johnston. 



TEMPERATURES IN THE 

 SPHERED 



FREE ATMO- 



DR. WAGNER has given us a comprehensive dis- 

 cussion of the temperature results obtained with 

 registering balloons in Europe during the period July, 

 1902-June, 1907, and has incidentally furnished an 

 excellent practical tribute to the collective publication 



1 "Die Temperatur Verh.iltnisse in der freien 

 der internationalen unbemannter Ballonaufstiege].' 

 Heilr.ige zur Physik der freien Atmosphare. Bd. 

 Verlag" von Otto Nemnich.) 



Atmosphare (Ersebniwe 

 By Dr. Artliur W.agner. 

 iii. Heft 2-3. (Leipzig: 



