1891 - 92 .] Dr R. W. Felkin on the Wanyoro Tribe. 
173 
The custom of making blood-brotherhood obtains in Unyoro. It 
is accomplished by the contracting parties making a few small 
incisions upon the arm, or sometimes over the fifth right rib, and then 
respectively licking off the blood. 
Although suicide is not very common in Unyoro, still it does 
obtain, usually owing to a man thinking that his honour is forfeited. 
On starting for a voyage on Lake Albert a small present is usually 
thrown into the water, either beads or food. A similar custom 
obtains in Uganda, but, so far as I am aware, the Wanyoro have no 
distinct god of the lake. 
A Wanyoro will not, if he can help it, return home by the road 
he has previously traversed. It is unlucky for a jackal or a hare to 
cross the path. 
The parings of finger and toe nails must be carefully preserved 
and thrown into the high grass. 
The king is very superstitious in regard to his food. He does 
not eat poultry, and confines himself to veal boiled with bananas, 
telabone porridge, and banana beer fermented with germinating corn, 
which is called Muenga. His food is cooked by persons whose 
fidelity has been tested, and is closely covered to protect it from the 
evil eye. The chiefs have to conform to the king’s restrictions in 
their food. 
Women have the monopoly of a certain power of charming which 
consists in bewitching vegetable or animal food with their eyes and 
then giving it for food ; the eater is immediately seized with violent 
pains in the stomach, which do not pass off until the charmer is 
brought and spits three times on the body of the sufferer. 
The belief in the evil eye of both men and women is universal, 
and no means of protection against it exist. 
The cutting of children’s upper incisors before the lower is feared 
as bringing misfortune ; when it occurs, the magician is summoned to 
perform dances for the protection of the child, and is rewarded by a 
goat. 
If an owl screeches near the house, his master dies. If a hyena 
or a jackal repeatedly approaches the house, misfortune is at hand ; 
when the rhinoceros- bird croaks, rain may be looked for. 
If a wagtail sings on the threshold, guests or presents arrive ; if 
a man kills wagtails in the house fire breaks out in it. If a wagtail 
