728 BANTU NEGROES 



young and plump individuals, not far off our European ideals of well- 

 shaped women. 



The Bantu Kavirondo do not practise circumcision. They usually 

 pull out the two middle incisor teeth in the lower jaw. Both the men 

 and the women do this. It is thought that if a man retains all his lower 

 incisor teeth he will be killed in warfare, and that if his wife has failed 

 to pull out her teeth it might cause her husband to perish. For the same 

 reason of avertine: ill fortune a woman cuts a number of vertical slits in , 

 the skin of her forehead, which leave small scars. The women also, as a 

 means of securing good fortune for themselves and their husbands, make 

 a number of small incisions (usually in patterns) in the skin of the 

 abdomen, into which they rub an irritant, so that huge weals (similar to ' 

 those described in connection with the western Bantu) rise up into great 

 lumps of skin. A Kavirondo husband, before setting out to fight or 

 starting on a journey attended with great risks, will probably make a 

 few extra incisions on his wife's body as a jjorte-bonheur.* But ordinarily 

 their bodies are kei:)t freer from cicatrisation and similar attemjjts at 

 ornamenting the skin than is the case with the peo]3le in the western 

 part of the Uganda Protectorate. Among the Bantu Kavirondo the ear 

 is usually only pierced in the lobe, and a single large ear-ring is worn bv 

 both men and women. 



Prior to the advent of Europeans cdmost no clothing ivas worn, especially 

 by the males and the unmarried women. Even at the present day, where 

 European influence has not made itself felt the men seldom specially 

 wear their small covering for purposes of decency ; they don skins slung 

 round one shoulder and worn over the side and the back for warmth. 

 The men also adorn, the upper arrn, the wrist, and the leg below the 

 knee and above the ankle with coils of iron wire and h-acelets and 

 circlets of ivory. The women, if they can get them, will wear enormous 

 quantities of beads in necklaces. Both sexes usually wear a luaist-belt of 

 beculs, and the married women who have borne children wear a lower 

 string of beads, to which is attached a tiny little apron of leather 

 embroidered with beads, and" also a long tail made of strings of fibre 

 derived from a marsh plant. The tiny apron in front is sometimes made 

 of short strings of the same fibre, instead of being a piece of leather sewn 

 with beads. Very great importance is attached to this tiny square of 

 fibre or beadwork, and to the tail behind. If a man of the same tribe 

 shoidd touch this, the only covering worn by married woman, a great 

 offence has been committed, even if the man be the woman's husband. 

 Unless the sacrifice of a goat is made it is thought that the woman will 



* Primitive man has so often a half-thouglit-out idea of " vaccinating " against 

 misfortune and such a deep-seated behef in the malice of the higher powers. 



