Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 4.djvu/452

 868 SOUTH AXD EAST AFRICA. Although naturally proud and arrogant, the Masai has always a cordial wel- come for hiH friends. He even condescends to show a certain degree of courtesy to foreign traders, and will at times go the length of expectorating on them, to express his friendly feelings in the most approved fashion. Speaking of this remarkable ntitionul custom, Thomson assures us that it expresses "the greatest g<x)d-will and the best of wishes. It takes the place of the compliments of the season, and you hud better spit upon a damsel than kiss her. You spit when you meet, and you do the same on leaving. You seal your bargain in a similar manner. As I was a hjbon (wizard) of the first water, the Masai flocked to me as pious Catholics would do to springs of healing virtue, and with the aid of occa- sional drauo'hts of water I was equal to the demand. The more copiously I spat uiM)n them the greater was their delight, and with pride they would retail to their friends how the white medicine-man honoured them, and would point with the greatest satisfaction to the ocular proof of the agreeable fact." * The Masai displays little love of work, and practices no industry of any kind. The women attend to all his personal wants, while the various trades and profes- sions are carried on by some enslaved tribes, such as the Wandorobbos (Wa- Ndorobbo), who manufacture the warriors' weapons and the domestic utensils, and also hunt the buffalo and elephant. In their physical features, speech and costume, these artisans appear to belong to the Masai stock; but they have been much dibascd by slavery, and Krapf regards them as related rather to the aboriginal Ala tribes, who still survive in the upland vulleN's of Usambara. The Wando- robbos arc at present chiefly found vscattered in small village groups in the forest districts on the slops of Keni » and the Kikuyu highlands, where they live mainly on the produce of the chase. The Masai people have no regular form of religious wor-hip, although when taken by surprise or stricken by any sudden terror they frequently invoke a super- natural being whom I hey call Ngai, and whom they confound with the wind, the sun, the mountain snows, the peals of thunder, and lightning-flash. Amongst them there is a numerous class of laiboiis (lybpns), or magicians, who interpret the flight of birds and all the phenomena of animated nature, who call down blessings on the herds, ward off pestilence, and conjure the fury of the elements. The inhntian, a latent medicine-man regarded as the wisest of soothsayers, is tl.e wealthiest person in the whole of Masai Land. He is the owner of countless flocks, and like all other Masai sages, gives proof of his power and wisdom by his corpu- lence, liy an artificial system of diet he has grown so obese as to have almost lost the faculty of locomotion, and is consequently all the more venerated by his votaries. In some districts the Masai, like the AYanyikas, piy a sort of homage to " father hyiena," the animal that devours all bodies thrown to the bush. AYhen the carcass of one of these beasts crosses their path the Avhole tribe goes into mourning, for the hyicna is regarded as a kind of tutelar deity of the race, and a vague belief in metempsychosis finds expression in the idea that the souls of their Op. eit., p. 291. •