Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/495

 Kinakomba.

Ngatana,

Gwano.

Dzunza.

Ndera.

Buu.

Mwina.

Kalindi.

Pokomo Folklore. 457

that the Buu and Ngatana tribes received their names from God (Muungu) before they migrated into the Tana valley from the north-east. (The Tana, by the bye, is called by them Tsana, which is the Pokomo word for a river of any size, — a smaller stream being itmJio^ or, in Swahili, vito^ The names of the tribes are as follows, the first eight being known collectively as Wantu wa dzuu (people of above, i.e. of the Upper Tana) and the rest as Wantu wa uiHsi (people of below). They are given in geographical order, going from north to south : —

Korokoro.^

Malinkote.

Alalalulu.

Zubaki.

Ndura.

The Ndera are the last of the up-river tribes, the

boundary between them and the Mwina being a short

distance south of the second southern parallel.

I can throw no light on the etymology of these names,

save that I am told Buu is the name of a kind of fish, and

Kalindi is derived from Dindi (a hole or pit), from the pits

in which, according to an obscure tradition, the ancestors

of the Pokomo at one time lived underground. This seems

to imply that the name Kalindi, at any rate, was not taken

from the place where the people settled, and falls in with

a statement obtained independently at another place, —

according to which the Mwina, Dzunza, and Kalindi were

the three aboriginal tribes and " lived here on the Tana

first of all." Possibly, too, Korokoro may be connected

with Chikorokoro (elbow), and refer to the bend of the

Tana near which that tribe is located. A village some

miles below Kulesa, on a bend of the river, is called

Chunoni (at the hip).

Each of these tribes, {vycti, plural of kyeti), consists of

1 Indivitluals of these tribes are called Mu-Korokoro, Mu-Malinkote, etc. ; plural, Wa- Korokoro.

2 G