THE BAEI. 101 



The Bari. 



The Bari, who follow the Madi along both banks of the river, form one of those 

 groups of Negro tribes most remarkable for their physical beauty and haughty 

 carriage. The traveller can easily study their fine proportions, as they go perfectly 

 naked, considering it effeminate to cover the body. Peney even tells us that they 

 are " afraid of clothes," and that to assure himself of a favourable reception he had 

 to take off his own garments. Although the women are allowed to dress, most of 

 them merely wear the rahad, or loin-cloth, made either of little iron chains or strips 

 of leather, and a hide round the hips. Their hair is always shaved off, while the 

 men leave a little tuft on the top of the head, which the chiefs deck with ostrich 

 feathers. Unlike the Shuli, the Bari do not cover themselves with amulets and 

 bracelets, although some also paint the body, especially for the war dances, and 

 tattoo themselves with arabesques or many- coloured geometrical designs. These 

 operations, undergone at puberty, are very dangerous and often end in death. 

 According to Felkin, the Bari, recently decimated by small-pox, have invented and 

 applied the practice of innoculation, apparently with perfect success. The Bari 

 warriors are considered the bravest of all the Nilotic tribes. Amongst them men 

 are often met wearing on the wrist an ivory bracelet ; these are the hunters who 

 managed to kill an elephant in single combat. The slave-dealers generally 

 recruited their bands of slave-hunters amongst the Bari, and the name of these 

 banditti was dreaded as far as the vicinity of the great lakes. But the Bari have 

 themselves suffered much from the razzias of the slave-traders, certain parts of their 

 territory having been completely depopulated. Knowing that the principal wealth 

 of the Bari consists of cattle, and that they are very proud of these beautiful animals, 

 decorating them with bells, like the Swiss cows, the slavers first captured their herds, 

 the Bari bringing their own wives and children to ransom them, unless a fortunate 

 expedition enabled them to substitute the families of some neighbouring tribe. 

 The cow is held as sacred amongst these Nile populations. Instead of squatting, 

 like most other Negroes, or sitting cross-legged, like the Arabs, the Bari are 

 accustomed to sit on stools painted red. 



Catholic missionaries have been for some time at work amongst the Bari, but 

 with small success, the conduct of the Christian slave- dealers being scarcely of the 

 kind to assist the teachings of the priests. The Bari still adhere to their magical 

 rites, their ancient animistic religion, their worship of the serpent, called by them 

 " grandmother," and their veneration for the dead, whom they carefully bury in a 

 sitting posture. " Formerly," said they, " we could climb to heaven by a cord con- 

 nected with the stars, but this cord has been broken." The ruins of the church, the 

 head-quarters of the Upper Nile missions, are no longer to be seen, a fine avenue of 

 lemons alone marking the site of what was the city of Gondokoro ; the bricks of 

 the Austrian missionaries' houses have also been ground down by the natives, and 

 mixed with grease, with which to paint their bodies. Baker Pasha had made 

 Gondokoro the centre of his administration under the name of Ismailia ; but on 

 account of the shifting of the river, and the development of marshes and sandbanks, 



