Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 20, 1909.djvu/287

 Reviews. 247

clan, whose totems are the sun and the mole, and who " may not catch rain-water in vessels or use it for cooking. If a goat sniffs at their grain or walks over it when it is spread out to dry or ripen, they may not use it except for feeding unnamed children, which ceremony does not take place with them until a child is six or seven years of age. Whenever the Kipasiso prepare porridge, they must first of all sprinkle a little spring water on the fire," (p. 11). On the other hand, they may drink milk one day after eating game, whereas most Nandi are not allowed to touch it for five months. Hyenas are held in a kind of veneration by all Nandi, though it is not held wrong to kill them on land belonging to no one (p. 7). The belief that these creatures are hermaphrodites is curious, and is also held by the Zulus (Colenso'^ Dictioiiary^ s.v. Pisintshangeiim) ), though I do not know what reason, if any, is given by the latter for the notion, or whether it prevails elsewhere. The hyena usually figures in Bantu folklore as a transformed wizard. Mr. HoUis says nothing of this among the Nandi, though they believe it " to talk like human beings and to hold communication with the spirits of the dead." It has a considerable share in their funeral ceremonies (p. 7), as they do not bury the dead.

The wealth of detail in this book is so great that I have been unable to indicate more than a few of the points which have struck me, and I have only space for a brief glance at the folk- tales, which are extremely interesting. "The Story of the Demon who ate People, and the Child" (p. 107; see also the similar but longer story on p. 221 of The Masai, where it is said to be " a Taveta tale "), is a variant of the Sechwana " Kammapa and Litaolane," the Shambala story of "The Talking Gourd," and others too numerous to mention. " The Story of the Eleusine Grain," (p. 121), recalls a Sechwana tradition given by Arbousset and Dumas ( Voyage, p. 428) j and the myth accounting for the origin of death (p. 98) appears to be a much mutilated version of the well-known Chameleon legend, in which the dog (sent by no one) comes to mankind with the announcement, "All people will die like the moon, but unlike the moon you will not return to life again unless you give me some milk to drink out of your gourd and beer to drink through your straw." The people gave him