Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/504

 466 PokoDio Folkloiw

zazi (red oxide of iron) and sesamum oil, with which they anoint all the exposed parts of their person, — hair and all, — acquiring a ruddy tinge which is not unpleasing. The bead ornaments are many, and often involve a great deal of work; they include a girdle {silipi) usually an inch and a half broad, a fillet worn round the head, a straight necklet {kit- side) about half an inch wide, a more elaborate necklace <{tsainbaa) with oblong pendant in front, fringed with beads and small cowries and sometimes having a further fringe of small iron chains reaching to the waist, etc., etc. The girdle is supposed to be worn by married women only. Sometimes they wear a belt of palm-leaf or leather, or, if within reach of civilization, a strap and buckle. My own leather belt was remarked on at Kulesa-, in connection with the usual enquiries as to my status, — " Oh no ! she can't be unmarried, she has a belt on, — that would never do," etc.

On the whole I must say that the Pokomo make a pleasant impression. Physically, they are fairly well-grown and well-made, though not, as a rule, very tall. They are dark-brown in colour and have often, to an eye accustomed to the African type, very pleasing faces, which they do not, like some other tribes, disfigure by pulling out their eyebrows and eyelashes. They have the usual splendid teeth of the African natives, though unable, it seems, to leave them to their own unaided effect. They usually extract the two middle incisors of the lower jaw, though this is by no means universal; some have a small gap between the two middle upper teeth, which looks as if it were made rather by inserting some instrument between them, and gradually working them apart, than by chipping off any part, — but in this 1 may be mistaken. . Some have a similar gap in the lower jaw.

In the following desultory notes, of which the sole merit is that of being compiled in sitii, it has chiefly been my aim to set down such scraps of belief and tradition as I