NILOTIC NEGEOES 787 



blocks on the upper part of the arm. The wooden blocks are coloured 

 red with oxide of iron. A band strung with small pieces of wood 

 of the same colour is sometimes worn round the forehead. Some of 

 the married men wear a semi-circle of ivory on the forehead, made of 

 the split canine teeth of the hippopotamus. (The tooth, however, I am 

 informed, is not split, but ground down until it is only an eighth of an 

 inch thick.) Others wear the tusks of a wart-hog. The Ja-luo men, like 

 most of the tribes of Nilotic origin, frequently adopt a curious stork-like 

 attitude, standing on some hillock or ant-hill on one leg with the other 

 leg bent and the sole of the foot apposed to the inner side of the knee 

 of the leg on which the body is jpoised. They usually wear sandals of 

 leather when travelling. 



The Ja-luo live much by agriculture. They cultivate sorghum, siueet 

 potatoes, peas, beans, eleusine, pumpkins, tobacco, and hemp. Salt is 

 made from the ashes of reeds. They eat practically all kinds of meat 

 except the hytena. Young men eat leopard in order to make them fierce 

 in war. The crested crane is universally protected, and is never killed. 

 The women do not eat fowls, and some women do not eat sheep or eggs. 

 Some eat hippopotamus, and some refuse that meat. Women do not 

 drink milk, but eat it cooked with food. They have a disagreeable 

 custom of mixing cows' urine with the milk of the cow. The urine is 

 allowed to stand a clay or two in order to increase its flavour. The 

 people say that this admixture increases the amount of butter in the 

 milk. They like the flavour, and think that it has medicinal value. 

 They kill oxen by sticking a knife into the jugular vein. The head 

 must be pointed to the west during the operation. Sheep and goats are 

 killed in the same manner. Besides the flesh of fowls, cattle, sheep, and 

 goats, they eat large quantities of fish, which they obtain from the rivers, 

 and, above all, from the waters of the Victoria Nyanza. 



Cooking is done entirely by women in earthen pots inside the hut 

 or on the verandah, and the food is served in little wicker baskets. 

 Father and sons eat together in a little separate hut which has open 

 sides. Women eat separately from the men inside their own houses. 



They do not hunt much with dogs, but catch a good deal of game in 

 pitfalls. They will also attack the elephant with spears. Fish is caught 

 in the Victoria Nyanza by means of large, conical wicker traps called 

 " dema." The process is as follows : They bring two very long ropes, one 

 end of each of which is firmly secured to the shore. One rope lies, 

 weighted, along the bottom under the water, the other floats on the 

 surface, but from it hangs a fringe of papyrus stalks. The two ropes 

 above and below correspond with its other, and are connected at intervals 

 with strings to ensure their correspondence, while the fringe of papyrus 



