Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/494

 POKOMO FOLKLORE.

BY ALICE WERNER.

(Read at Meeting, May 21st, 1913.)

Wapokomo are a Bantu tribe inhabiting both banks of the Tana river, from Chara (a few miles from the sea) to within a short distance of the Equator. They are, (unless we count the few outlying Swahili to be found along the coast beyond Lamu), the furthest outpost of the Bantu race in this direction. Beyond them, on the northeast, are the Somali, and, on the north, various Galla tribes, or tribes allied to them, such as the Rendile. The Galla are also interspersed here and there among the Pokomo on the western bank of the Tana, and the Wasanye and Waboni (probably allied to, if not identical with the hunter tribes called Dorobo by the Masai) range over parts of the district. Pokomo, the name by which this tribe is usually known, represents the Swahili pronunciation: they call themselves Wa- f okomo ( f representing the peculiar sound of "bilabial f").

The Wapokomo are divided into thirteen tribes, each of which occupies a fairly well-defined area, though parts of some have migrated and settled in the territory belonging to others. The names of the tribes and districts are identical, and I have not yet been able to ascertain satisfactorily to which the name was first applied. So far the balance of testimony seems to be in favour of the names belonging to the districts and being adopted by the tribes when they settled there; but one old man (at Kulesa) said