GIO BANTU XEGROES 



house, she is supposed to remain within the house or its close vicinity for 

 a whole year. When this period has elapsed she visits her father, who 

 makes her a present of anklets and a hoe. She then returns to her 

 husband, and thenceforth goes out constantly to work in the plantations. 



The Bairo h-nry their dead. The former custom was that the death of 

 any man of importance shoukl be followed by his wives committing suicide. 

 Those women who did not kill themselves over their husbands' graves 

 were regarded as outcasts. 



Among the Bairo tliere is a low standard of morality. It is thought 

 little or no harm for an unmarried girl to have intercourse with a young 

 man ; and if, without being properly married, she becomes pregnant, means 

 are taken to produce a miscarriage. 



The Bairo suffer from fever, dysentery, ophthalmia, smallpox, occa- 

 .sionally from elephantiasis, but very rarely from \enereal disease, this last 

 immunity being i>robably due to the small extent to which their country 

 has been visited by Arabs and Swahilis. 



As regards religion, the Bairo- have xerj little. Occasionally they build 

 little fetish huts in the vicinity of their houses. Such beliefs as they 

 have are subordinated to the practices of the Bahima witch doctors, who 

 are continually fussing about supposed cases of witchcraft. 



It is difficult to say at the present time whether the Bairo speak the 

 Bantu language introduced by their Hima conquerors or whether (as seems 

 more likely to be the case) the invading Bahima long ago, through inter- 

 marriage with the women of the countr\', adopted the prevailing Bantu 

 language. As will be related in Chapter XX., there is but little difference 

 between the dialect of Urunyoro spoken by the Bairo and that in use by 

 their aristocracy, except in pronunciation. The pronunciation of the 

 Bahima is curiously rough, and displays a great tendency to drop the 

 vowel which should always be present at the end of a Bantu word. 



We now come to the special consideration of these Bahima, of whom 

 much has already been written, in regard to their relations with the 

 ■conquered Negro tribes of Uganda's Western Province. At the present 

 day more or less pure-blooded Bahima are found as a sort of aristocracy 

 in Unyoro, as cattle herdsmen in Uganda, as an aristocracy or ruling caste 

 in Toro, and as the dominant race with dynasties of kings in Ankole, 

 Karagwe, and Businja. Individuals of Hima extraction may also be met 

 with as far west as the Mboga country on the western side of the Lower 

 Semliki, and at various points on the west coast of Lake Albert. This 

 type also appears with less purity in all the countries lying between 

 'J'anganyika and the Victoria Xyanza. The influence, however, of this and 

 of other and perhaps earlier invasions of East Africa can scarcely be over- 

 estimated ; nor can the extent to which they have modified and improved 



