SEDENTAEY AND NOMAD SUK 



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sedentary agriculturists, cultivating chiefly dhurra, gourds, and 

 tobacco. Probably they were all originally cattle-breeders, 

 but were driven to agriculture through loss of cattle from 

 disease. The sedentary Suk are restricted to the eastern slopes 

 of the mountain, and dwell in pretty little round huts made of 

 hewn tree trunks with a conical thatch of dhurra stalks. Most 

 of their settlements are rather hamlets than villages. The 

 nomad live on either side of the valley watered by the Kerio, 

 between the parallel chains of mountains on the east. They 

 own cattle, goats, sheep, many of the latter with black heads, 

 donkeys, and a few camels, the last-named probably stolen 

 from the Turkana. The nomad Suk are, in fact, very bold 

 raiders, the terror of the whole neighbourhood, even the Masai 

 standing in some awe of them. They dwell in kraals containing 

 numerous huts made of brushwood and plaited osiers, and 

 enclosed within a thorn hedge. 



The Suk, especially the nomads, who are better developed 

 than the sedentary agriculturists, greatly resemble the Masai 

 in general appearance. 



The sedentary Suk wear a dressed goat-skin, which they 

 wrap round them ; the nomads are content with a little apron 

 of tanned goat-skin, resembling that worn by the Turkana. 

 The young men wear their hair in the chignon style, whilst the 

 older Suk either let it grow naturally or fluff it out into the 

 bag form already described, which is, however, especially 

 affected by the nomads. The girls have the hair shaved close 

 to the head on both sides, leaving a ridge in the middle, like 

 the comb of a cock, which was certainly the prettiest style of 

 head-dress we met with amonsfst negro tribes. 



Male Suk are circumcised in the Mahomedan manner. 

 Both sexes have the lower lip pierced for the insertion of a 

 little brass rod or plaque ; but their only other ornaments are 

 a few rings in the ears, a couple of strings of beads round the 



