TRIBES OF THE TANA VALLEY 
45 
by Kipepo’s brother, Mae. They had no cattle, but a fair 
number of goats and sheep. Bulushi, already mentioned, 
accompanied Mae, but, I think, without intending to settle 
permanently, as he has since returned to Garashi. 
The Galla, who thus swept down on the Tana Valley from 
the north, were in their turn driven beyond that river by 
the Somali, whose raids began about 1868. In 1878 they 
used to cross the Tana above Masa and graze their cattle 
between that river and the Sabaki, but as a rule the former 
has been their southern limit. 
The Galla call them Jidu, the Pokomo Gavira and (formerly) 
Wakatwa. The latter sometimes call the Milky Way (usually 
known as Madziko — being looked on as the smoke from the 
cooking-fires of 4 people in the sky ’) Njia ya Gavira — the road 
by which the Somali come southward. Of course this name 
cannot have been in use much over forty years. 
The Wapokomo are, like most genuine Bantu, essentially 
an agricultural people — but, whether from force of circum- 
stances or from the Wat element in their composition, they 
have always made part of their living by hunting, fishing, and 
that search for unconsidered trifles in forest and steppe 
which German ethnologists have agreed to call ‘ collecting ’ 
(■ sammeln ). That hunting has been practised from time 
immemorial appears from the elaborate system of Taboos 
(miiko) connected with it, as well as from the old 
traditional songs of the lion, the hippopotamus, and the 
crocodile. 
They are the only people I have heard of who habitually 
eat the latter animal. Having hunted it through generations, 
they have acquired not only an exhaustive familiarity with its 
ways and manners (a Pokomo imitating the action of a crocodile 
— or, for that matter, of a hippo — is perfectly imyayable), but 
a kind of friendly give-and-take attitude towards it that can 
only be described as ‘ sporting.’ 
They are expert swimmers and divers, and scorn to take 
> any precautions where crocodiles are concerned. ‘ Oh yes — 
we know they are there, in the water — just as the fish are ! 
The Swahilis get caught sometimes — but then they ’re afraid 
of them ! ’ And if one dares, as sometimes happens, once too 
