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TO KEXIA 



or leather girdles stitched with beads. Beads made of gleaming 

 black, cinnabar-red, or pale-yellow coloured grains of various 

 cereals are also met with. 



The Wakikuyu weapons are spears, bows and arrows, long 

 swords, wooden clubs, and two kinds of shields, both made of 

 buffalo hides, and adorned in front with black, white, and red 

 designs. The more modern shields resemble almost exactly 

 those of the Masai, whilst the older ones are longer and 

 narrower. The leather quivers hold from ten to fifteen arrows, 

 the points of which are generally of iron, more rarely of wood 

 hardened by fire, but they are nearly all poisoned. The swords 

 have double-edged blades, often several feet long, and are 

 carried in a handsome sheath stuck on the right side into a 

 leather belt some four or five inches wide. In the same belt 

 are worn one or two prettily decorated little clubs, serving 

 apparently as mere ornaments, for those used in battle are 

 roughly cut in knotty wood. Nearly every Mkikuyu carries 

 a walking-stick, thicker at the bottom than at the top, and as 

 high, if not higher, than a man, a custom we noticed amongst 

 the Masai, and later also amongst the Wakamba. Judging 

 from their weapons, these people are very skilful smiths. 



Both sexes chew tobacco and take snuff, keeping the latter 

 in prettily shaped little cases made of ivory, horn, or nuts, 

 which they wear round their necks. 



There is not the same marked difference between the 

 married and unmarried in Kikuyuland as amongst the Masai. 

 The old men take part in war, and the warriors are allowed to 

 marry and yet remain warriors ; in other words, to gorge 

 themselves with food and stalk about idly all day long, looking 

 upon work as altogether beneath their dignity. The young 

 men remain in their fathers' kraals, but in huts set apart for 

 them, and free intercourse prevails between the sexes whilst 

 both are still unmarried. 



