48 
EASTERN ETHIOPIA 
IV 
containing food, drink, or charms. The AYavuma are 
extremely superstitious, and whilst there is good reason 
to believe that much of their fetish worship is harmless, 
in some instances it was attended with disgusting acts 
of cruelty. The charms placed in these little fetish 
huts are chiefly scraps of bark, bits of iron ore found 
among the meadow, bundles of banana bast, and 
different kinds of dried berries. 
Many curious customs prevail among these people. 
The national dress for men is a robe made of bark 
cloth, but a woman’s consists of a banana leaf. 
Cunningham points out the advantages of this simple 
attire : it is easily renewed, and always clean. In this 
respect the naked natives are angelic when compared 
with tribes which wear bark cloth from month to month 
and from year to year, without changing it. Un¬ 
fortunately bark cloth cannot be washed. A woman in 
Buvuma must not sit on a chair; even when no men 
are present: she must sit on the floor. 
On some of the islands (Buvuma and Busiri) the 
incisors are removed, and the dentist who removes them 
receives a fee of two kauri shells. The removal of the 
teeth interferes with distinct pronunciation. 
The boats used by the Baganda and by the natives 
of the Buvuma and Sesse Islands are of great interest, 
for, though of peculiar construction, they have been 
brought to a state of perfection. 
The keel of the boat is formed from a tree trunk 
shaped externally with a hatchet and hollowed in¬ 
ternally, in part by burning and in part by hatchets : 
the keel is prolonged beyond the boat anteriorly in the 
form of a long sharp peak. The depth of the boat 
is increased by the addition of lateral planks about an inch 
thick. These the boat-builders hew from tree trunks: they 
have no saws : the planks are sewn to the tree forming 
the keel and to each other by means of wattle fibre, the 
holes for the threads being made in the planks with red, 
hot awls. Two tiers of planks are added to each keel- 
