Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/288

 252 Reviews.

With a Prehistoric People. The Akikuyu of British East Africa. Being some Account of the Method of Life and Mode of Thought found existent amongst a Nation on its first Contact with European Civilisation. By W. Scoresby RouTLEDGE and Katherine Routledge (born Pease). Edward Arnold, 1910. Ryl. 8vo, pp. xxxii + 392. Map and cxxxvi 111.

This is a book to be cordially welcomed by anthropologists, — using that elastic word for convenience' sake in its widest sense. Of the thorough way in which Mr. and Mrs. Routledge have done their work, and of the excellence of their methods, it is superfluous to speak, — since we cannot improve upon Mr. Marett's estimate (pp. 357-8). We have here a large amount of unimpeach- able first-hand information, presented in such a way that even the non-speciaUst can read the book, (or the greater part of it), with interest.

The Akikuyu, it may not be superfluous to premise, are a (probably) Bantu tribe dwelUng in the country between Mount Kenya on the east, and the Aberdare Range on the west, and extending south as far as the Athi River and the Uganda Railway. They consider themselves an offshoot of the Akamba : this state- ment was made to the authors in at least five different localities. Sir Charles Eliot is of opinion that they are " a comparatively recent hybrid between the Masai and Bantu stock."

The work before us does not, so far as we can see, lend any support to this theory, and we may remark, in passing, that it seems strange if the men of a race containing a strong infusion of Masai blood should, as a rule, attain no greater stature than 5 feet 4 inches (see p. 19). Their language is undoubtedly Bantu; — but language, as we know, is not invariably a criterion of race, and we learn that " they possess another language in addition to that in common use." It is of the utmost importance that this form of speech should be investigated and its affinities determined, — if, indeed, it is a real language and not an artificial jargon like the kinyiime of Zanzibar, or the "secret" languages taught to the Nkiniba initiates on the Congo. Perhaps the relationships of the Akikuyu and Akamba are to be sought in the as yet imperfectly