MASAI, TURKANA, SUK, NANDI, ETC. 833 



indicated it is customary to hold grass or leaves in one's right hand. 

 Grass is often laid between the forks of trees as a party of warriors 

 proceeds on an expedition, and grass is thrown after the warriors by their 

 sweethearts. The sorcerers and "Laibonok," or priests, precede nearly 

 every mystic action by the plucking of grass. 



Another supe^-stitious custom to which the Masai formerly attached 

 much importance was the act of spitting. In marked contradistinction to 

 the prejudice against expectoration as a polite custom in European 

 societies, not only amongst the Masai, but in the allied Nandi and Suk 

 peoples, to spit at a person is a very great compliment. The earlier 

 travellers in Masailand were astonished, when making friendship with old 

 Masai chiefs and head-men, to be constantly spat at. When I entered 

 the Uganda Protectorate and met the Masai of the Rift Valley for the 

 first time, every man, before extending his hand to me, would spit on 

 the palm. When they came into my temporary house at Naivasha Fort 

 they would spit to the north, east, south, and west before entering the 

 house. Every unknown object which they regard with reverence, such as 

 a passing train, is spat at. Newly born children are spat on by every one 

 who sees them. They are, of course, being laughed out of the custom 

 now by the Swahilis and Indian coolies and the Europeans ; and it must 

 be admitted that, however charming a race the Masai are in many respects, 

 they will lose none of their inherent charm by abandoning a practice which? 

 except in parts of America and Southern Europe, is very justly regarded 

 with disgust. 



Dancing among the Masai does not difl'er markedly from this exercise 

 and ritual in other races of Central Africa. There is the war-dance of the 

 warriors when returning from a successful expedition. This is, of course, 

 a mimic warfare, sometimes most amusing and interesting to the spectator. 

 The men will at times become so excited that the sham fight threatens 

 to degenerate into an angry scufHe. There are dances of a somewhat 

 indelicate nature which precede the circumcision ceremonies of boys and 

 girls, and dances which accompany the formal naming of a child. Barren 

 women, or women who have not succeeded in having children, paint their 

 faces with pipeclay in the most hideous fashion till they look like skulls, 

 arm themselves with long sticks, and dance before a medicine man, or a 

 big chief reputed to be a medicine man, in order that his remedies may 

 result in the longed-for child. These dances are almost invariably accom- 

 panied by songs, and, in fact, one word in the Masai language — 

 " os-singolio " — means " song-dance." 



As regards rausic, they have no musical instruments except drums. 

 They are very fond of singing, and the voices of the men occasionally are 

 a high and agreeable tenor ; but more often, like most Africans, the men 



