Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/131

 the daughters following their mother's profession. The wives of the king and chiefs would regard themselves as degraded by manual labour, their whole ambition being to grow corpulent and acquire double the weight of their humbler sisters. Few of the Wa-Nyoro women give birth to more than two or three children.

Islam has already penetrated into U-Nyoro. But although many of the chiefs have become converts, the bulk of the people have accepted of the new religion little beyond its prescriptions regarding prohibited food. The "medicine-men" still universally practise magic, seeking to secure the favour of "the great wizard" and of the spirit-world by means of charms, incantations, and dances. The fortune-tellers, belonging to a wandering caste compared by Erain-Bey to the European gypsies, are also frequently consulted. The "evil eye" is much dreaded, especially that of old women, whose glance suffices to poison food and drink. All disorders are attributed to sorcery, and in order to recover the patient spits three times in the face of every woman he meets, the cure being effected when he reaches the actual delinquent. Every event, from the meeting of a wild beast to the motion of a leaf, has its auspicious or unfavourable meaning, so that the people spend their lives in studying the aspect of vegetation, the flight of birds, the state of the firmament, and all other outward phenomena. No one ever retraces his steps, and if he has to return he chooses a path parallel to the first, or else opens a new way through the bush. The blacksmith accompanies his work with a song, the words of which enter into the metal and endow it with its peculiar properties. Two men swear friendship by mingling their blood and dipping a coffee-berry in the mixture in order to assimilate their respective qualities. Between two uterine brothers mutual trust is unbounded and never betrayed. Hence the king selects his most intimate ministers amongst those united to him by the brotherhood of consanguinity. The nocturnal dances, celebrated by the flickering light of torches or the lurid flame of the stake, are said to produce an ineffaceable impression. The wizards, daubed with ochre, decked with fantastic finery, conjuring the demons by their wild gesticulations, leaps, and shouts, flitting about in the glare and suddenly plunging into the surrounding gloom, appear themselves like spectres of the night, or fantastic beings from another world. The Wa-Nyoro have also a warlike dance like that of their kindred, the southern Zulus, and, like them also, make war with assegai, spear, and shield.

U-Nyoro is also occupied by peoples of other stocks, the most powerful of which are the Lango or Longo, who hold both sides of the Nile between Foweira and Magungo. These are probably of the same origin as the "Wa-Huma, and even still speak a Galla dialect. They enjoy full freedom, forming independent communities in the midst of the Wa-Nyoro, and recognising the authority of the chiefs only during their warlike expeditions. They are otherwise specially devoted to the offices of the toilet, spending long hours in arranging their elegant or imposing bead-dresses. The prevailing fashion is a kind of helmet, in which every lock of hair is interlaced with many-coloured wools, and terminating in a superstructure of plumes, wreaths of shells or glass beads, or curved projections in imitation of buffalo horns. "Whole years are required to bring some of these sumptuous head-