730 



BANTU NEGROES 



hats of gigantic size or fantastic 

 shape, which they wear on great 

 occasions. These hats are some- 

 times as much as three feet high. 

 They are usually of basketwork 

 foundation, plastered on the ex- 

 terior with white kaolin, and 

 possibly variegated by stripes or 

 patterns in black mud. Feathers 

 are stuck into these hats. The 

 men among the northern Bantu 

 Kavirondo are much given to 

 ornamenting their limbs with 

 ■patterois of ivhite clay. They 

 may wear clay " stockings " below 

 the knee or right up the leg, or 

 there may be a separate patch 

 of white clay right down the 

 thigh. On this clay a pattern is 

 worked by a piece of stick, which 

 removes the clay in places and 

 leaves the dark skin showing 

 through. As already stated, the 

 young tvonien before marriage 

 ivear absolutely no clothing, 

 and in all the districts which have not been much visited by Europeans 

 the men (except in cold weather) affect complete nudity. Despite, or 

 because of, this neglect of clothing, they are, for negroes, a moral race, 

 disliking real indecency, and only giving way to lewd actions in their 

 ceremonial dances, where indeed the intention is not immodest, as the 

 pantomime is a kind of ritual, the meaning of which is perhaps not 

 grasped by the dancer. 



In some places near the lake shore, or wherever else the natives are 

 able to kill hippopotamuses, the tusks of the hippopotamus are, in some 

 very adroit manner that I have not been able to ascertain, cut or split 

 into longitudinal sections.* These are polished, and are worn on the 

 forehead as circlets or crescents of ivory. Iron rings are worn on the 

 thumb and fingers. 



The dwellings of the Bantu Kavirondo are round huts with a conical 

 thatched roof and a fairly broad verandah round the body of the hut (see 

 plan). The foundation of the structure is, of course, a circular wall of 

 '* Perhaps filed down to tliinnes.s. 



387. KAVIRONDO WOMAN, NZOIA UIYEK 



