NYAMBARA CUSTOMS. 305 



There are hardly any cattle, owing to the insane raids of 

 former years which deprived these districts of their entire 

 possessions in cattle.* The people keep fowls, and generally 

 make clay cages for them underneath the granaries ; there are 

 also a few dogs. All the inhabitants are Nyambara (Khor Berr 

 is the boundary between this and the Bari country), who speak 

 a language differing only dialectically from Bari; numerous 

 Madi words are, however, mixed up with it, and point to a 

 long-continued contact with that people, whose migration from 

 the west to the east drove the Nyambara, who lived in the 

 south, towards the north. 



To some extent at least, the Nyambara physically resemble 

 the Bari, but they have rounder heads and more compact 

 bodies. The colour of their skin is a pure chocolate brown, 

 often almost running into black. The extraction of the incisor 

 teeth and their habits and customs are the same as those of 

 the Bari. I was rather surprised to find here women belong- 

 ing to the Mom tribe married to Nyambara men. Although 

 the Bari, more frequently than any of the Negroes of these 

 countries, leaves his home and settles anywhere where cattle 

 and red durrah thrive, it is an almost unheard-of thing to find 

 a Bari married to a woman of a different tribe. This is also 

 the case among most of the northern tribes, for marriage with 

 women of strange tribes is not permitted. It was, therefore, 

 the more surprising to see these fat, short Morii beauties, orna- 

 mented with leaves, amongst the Nyambara women, with their 

 long aprons. Nearly all the men here are clothed with a few 

 cotton rags, but their attire is very scanty, and they wear as 

 ornaments, by preference, necklaces of teeth and small tortoise- 

 shells, as also beads and bracelets and anklets made of iron, 

 copper, or brass. Waist-belts, too, as among all Negro tribes, are 

 indispensable. The women's leather aprons are often prettily 

 decorated with glass or iron beads, and the fringed aprons 

 worn by the young married women often display very delicate 

 chains made of coiled iron wire. A glittering, polished, 

 dagger-like knife is here a part of the women's toilet. It is 



* Emin Pasha refers here to the raids made by the Egyptian troops to obtain 

 cattle and other supplies when they first occupied the country, raids which he 

 found it so difficult to suppress. — R. W. F. 



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