NOTES ON THE FAUNA OF BARINGO DISTRICT 65 
subsist throughout the year almost entirely on honey, roots, 
wild berries, rats, mice, and other lesser mammals, and last, 
but not least, on the flesh of elephants. Necessity has thus 
driven them to kill game, and they are without exception 
the most fearless and daring elephant hunters I have ever 
met with. 
The tribe is split into sections each occupying its own piece 
of hillside, and for purposes of hunting they have divided 
the country at the foot of the hill into preserves, each section 
having its tract of bush, in which it has the exclusive right of 
killing game. 
Should a native of one section wound an elephant, and 
it die, or be dispatched, in the domain of another section, 
the ivory becomes the property of the man who first wounded 
it, the meat the property of the section in whose preserve it 
died. This is the tribal law regarding the slaying of elephants. 
The sections that kill most game and are also the poorest 
are the Kaptakau, Ngorror, Maerich, and Sekerr. The Kap- 
takau hunt on the right bank of the Krut ; the Ngorror in the 
country lying between the Krut and Maerich rivers ; the 
Maerich across their rivers to within three miles of a small 
stream forming the southern boundary of Sekerr. 
The Kaptakau use mostly poisoned arrows ; the other 
three sections the ordinary Suk throwing spears. Whilst, 
however, the Maerich and Sekerr hunt on foot, the Ngorror 
build platforms in the trees, from which, lying in wait for the 
elephants, they stab them on their way down to water. 
During the wet season, when pools of water are to be found 
here and there in the bush, the elephants split up into small 
herds. In the dry season they gather into one or two great 
herds and water at the Krut. Very old bulls, however, keep 
apart from the rest, and during the heat of the day they may 
be found lying up under the shade of the great trees that 
line the banks of this river, and, being especially easy to kill, 
many of them fall victims to the native hunters. 
The elephants are not easily scared, but if they have been 
badly hunted they make for Ngabotok, a hill at the junction 
of the Tirkwel and Weiwei rivers ; and on such occasions their 
departure is signalled to the inhabitants for many miles along 
Vol. II.— No. 3. r 
