Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/291

 Reviews. 255

— but with such remarkable exceptions as the Zulu ilauga and the Chwana tsatsi, which are probably to be accounted for in a similar way, perhaps by the existence of a chief named Juba, which caused the word to be interdicted among his subjects.

It is worth noting that the sun is looked on as the moon's husband, and the stars as their children, because the opposite sex is very generally attributed to the moon among the Bantu, at any rate on the eastern side of the continent. The evening and the morning star, (no one, of course, supposing them to be one and the same), are thought to be the moon's wives,* the Anyanja of the Lake even having names for them, — Chekechani and Puikani.

The Akikuyu say (p. 3) that, when they first settled the country, they now occupy, the Ndorobo (whom they call Asi) were living there. This is curiously borne out by the Masai tradition which postulates the Ndorobo as having been there from the beginning. "When God came to prepare the world, he found three things in the land, a Dorobo, an elephant and a serpent." ^

With regard to the clans, the list given on p. 21 is nearly (but not quite) identical with that obtained by Mr. Tate among the Southern Akikuyu. Some of the differences are probably mere matters of local pronunciation (as th for z). As Mr. Tate gives some details not mentioned by Mr. and Mrs. Routledge, and as their list seems to clear up some difficulties in his, we quote the passage in question.

"(i) Clans of the Gikuyu. — i. Achera. 2. Anjiru. 3. Agachiku. 4. Aithiageni. 5. Amboi. 6. Agathigia. 6a. Airimu. 7. Angare. 7a. Aithekahunu. 8. Aichakamuyu. 9. Aithaga. 9a. Ambura. 10. Aitherandu. Ii. Angui.

If the three clans, Airimu, Aithekahunu, and Ambura are identical with those that precede them under other names, the Gikuyu clans are 1 1 only in number. If separate they are 14.

Formerly (probably until the European invasion of British East Africa) the first five clans were the most powerful, and were constantly engaged in fighting with one another over property.

''Note made at Blantyre in 1894 ; the names are given in Barnes, Nyanja- English Vocabulary, p. iii., s.v. 7nwezi. The appended explanation shows that the Anyanja have observed the heavens with sufficient accuracy to con- nect the new moon with the evening star and vice versd.

^ HoUis, The Masai, p. 266.