Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/286

 246 Reviews.

The Nandi : their Language and Folklore. By A. C. HoLLis. With Introduction by Sir Charles Eliot. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909. 8vo, pp. xl + 328.

A German ethnologist ^ remarked, not long ago, that the boundary-line between the Bantu and the Sudan tribes is 'V/V/e gekhrte Koiistruktio7i friiherer Jahrhunderte." The dividing line is sharp enough, so far as language is concerned, — if not every- where quite so definite, {e.g. in the Kamerun region), as we at one time believed it to be; as regards physical types, customs, insti- tutions, and folklore, it does not appear to exist. Mr. HoUis's book is a most welcome addition to our knowledge of the non- Bantu people of the East Africa Protectorate, and a valuable supplement to the one he has already given us in The Masai. It is to be hoped that he, or some like-minded colleague, will find means to follow it up with similar studies of the Suk, Turkana, and Gang.

Here we have a very complete account of Xandi customs and institutions, based upon four years' careful inquiries. Air. HoUis began by mastering the language, which in its general construction resembles Masai, though even a casual inspection of the grammar and vocabularj- is sufficient to show a marked difference, — greater, we should almost suppose, than between any two of the Bantu languages. Nandi is, however, virtually identical with Dorobo, which has been phonetically studied by Professor Meinhof, {Trans- actions of the Berlin Oriental Seminary for iQoy, Part III. : Afrikanische Studien, p. no), while it is closely allied to Suk. Its affinities are fully discussed by Sir Charles Eliot in his Introduction. It is somewhat curious, considering that the Nandi have probably not inhabited the country bearing their name for more than a few generations, that they should possess a system of territorial division and nomenclature (p. 4), which I think is quite unusual among African tribes. It is quite independent of the genealogical division into seventeen clans, a list of which, with their totems, is given on p. 5. This is followed by a section on " sacred animals," and a list of the prohibitions imposed upon each clan. We may take as a specimen those of the Kipasiso ^ Bemhard Struck, in Globus, Feb. 11, 1909, p. 89.