870 



MA.SAI, TURK.VNA, SIJK, NANDI, ETC. 



the couch, which is only about three and a half feet high. The furniture of 

 the huts consists more or less of cooking utensils, pots of grain, and the 

 weapons of the occupant, if he be a male. Short round billets of wood are 

 used as pillows at the head of the sleeping places. Small children sleep in 

 the same hut as their parents till they reach the age of five or six years, 

 when a small hut is built for tliem near the parents' dwelling. The huts 

 of the IMutei and Elgeyo people are diilerent in structure from tliose of the 

 Nandi. They excavate a dwelling on the hillside (much as is done by 

 the cave-dwellers of Southern Tunis). The front of this artificial cave- 

 dwelling is filled up with thorn bushes. 



The Sabei and South Elgon people live a great deal on the produce of 



493. PLAN 01' NANDI INTElilOR 



their banana crops. The rest of the Nandi peoples are all agriculturists, 

 and cultivate mainly sorghum, eleusine, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and 

 tobacco. The Kamasia were formerly steady cultivators, but of late 

 years their country has been afi^icted again and again with serious 

 droughts, and in many parts of the Kamasia Hills the plantations aie 

 now abandoned, the people taking instead to a pastoral life, or becoming 

 entirely dependent qn hunting for their food. The Andorobo never 

 cultivate, keep no domestic animals, and live entirely by the chase. 

 Their favourite food is the flesh of the colobus monkey, which they 

 obtain from the dense forests on the Nandi Plateau. All the Nandi 

 peoples, except perhaps those of Mount Elgon, are great hunters, and eat 

 all living creatures, except the crowned crane (which they spare out of 

 admiration for its beauty), hyaenas, snakes, frogs, and carrion birds. They 



