Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/477

 Traditio7is of the Bagajida a?id Bushongo. 443

about 1675. If this be admitted, it follows that the average length of a reign has been greater than nine years. It should be ten years if the short reigns due to the epidemic be included, or fifteen years if they be thrown out.

So far Mr. Torday has been on comparatively firm ground. The collective memory of striking events some- times extends to something like two centuries. But when he carries back the historical tradition for twelve hundred years further upon the basis of the same calculation, and assumes that the list of kings has been accurately preserved during all that period, his postulates cannot be granted. A comparison of the traditions of the Baganda and the difficulties arising on the Thonga genealogies warn us against such credulity. He goes on, however, with a capti- vating boldness, fixing the date of 490 A.D. for the reign of Lobamba, the daughter of Loko Yima, who was appointed king by the Creator. This lady first taught men how to build houses. Woto, her successor, is a most important person in the " history." To him the Creator kindly revealed in a dream the smelting and use of iron. To him is ascribed the introduction of circumcision, as well as the practice of giving names to individuals. Up to that time ordinary persons had been nameless. Moreover, in his reign the poison-ordeal was invented by a man named Loko Lobombo. His successor, Nyimi Longa, whose date is put down to the year $15, organized the administration as it exists now, after the lapse of fourteen hundred years, by establishing the six principal ministers of state. They bear as their titles the names of the original holders of the offices ; and the king's title is Nyimi, after Nyimi Longa himself. The ^etiological purpose of the story calls for no comment. We have already found in Uganda an eponymous office. It was by no means the only one there ; but they need not be enumerated. We return to the " history."