Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/478

 444 Traditions of the Baganda and Busliongo.

Woto, it seems, though so highly favoured by the Creator, was anything but a perfect character. He com- mitted incest with his sister (whose name, curiously enough, is unknown), and thereby excited such virtuous indignation among his people that he sent away the son whom she bore. This son's name was Nyimi Lele. He went south- ward, together with a number of adherents, and founded the neighbouring tribe of the Bashilele. The people, how- ever, were not satisfied with this concession to their wounded moral susceptibilities ; and after a while Woto saw himself compelled to go into exile with all his slaves. He went, declaring he was seeking a new country, a land of abundance, and when he had found it he would send word to his brother and successor, Nyimi Longa, to come and join him. This Christian spirit is hardly consistent with the cause alleged for his expatriation. But he did not maintain it ; for on leaving he cursed the land, so that the domestic fowls died and the millet rotted. The people were in danger of perishing by famine, and were only saved by sending after Woto and inducing him to remove the spell. That is the last we hear of him in this version of the "history." One would have supposed that Nyimi Longa would have been only too glad to be rid of him. On the contrary, so deeply engraven was he in his brother's heart that Nyimi Longa laid a command upon his successor, Minga Bengela, not to forget Woto. Accordingly, after reigning several years, Minga Bengela determined to go with all his subjects in search of him. Up to that time the Bushongo had dwelt in a far country somewhere to the north. The king divided his followers into three bands, the Bangongo, the Bangendi, and the Bambala, three of the principal tribes of the nation still existing. They marched until they arrived at their present seats, which they found uninhabited. Minga Bengela also invented hunting-nets and taught his people the use of hunting dogs. During all this time, and for two hundred years later, the Bushongo