Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/486

 45- Traditions of the Baganda and Bushojigo.

to-day. Until Minga Bengela taught them hunting they had hved on millet, bananas and yams. But they possessed the domestic fowl : did they never eat it ? It was not until the reign of Muchu Mushanga, two centuries later, that clothing began with bark-cloth. I have not mentioned the change of language before. It is said to have taken place about the middle of the last century. It is one of two remarkable events chronicled during the reign of Hope Mobinji, who occupied the throne for many years. No hint is given of the reason for the abandonment of the old language. A whole nation does not change its language easily. It is a long process, extending over generations, and dependent on conquest, on the intrusion of a new tongue connected with religion, or with the spread of commerce or some general civilizing influence, or on the peaceful immi- gration, in such numbers as to overwhelm the existing population, of a tribe having an alien speech. Nothing of the sort is here alleged. Any one of the alternatives would in fact be incompatible with the traditional story. Curiously enough too, although the change was so recent, only one of the oldest members of the Bambala tribe was found from whom it was possible to take even a short vocabulary of the ancient tongue. Mr. Torday sent this vocabulary to Sir Harry Johnston, who expressed the opinion that it was not Bantu, and that, though it only revealed rare affinities with any known tongue, it presented certain similarities with that spoken on the River Shari, which flows into Lake Chad. As we have not the advantage of having either the vocabu- lary itself or any considered opinion from Sir Harry Johnston before us, it is difficult to know what is meant by this vague statement. The suggestion of course is, that in the traditions of the Bushongo we have a native history of the migration of their ancestors from the region of Lake Chad. Mr. Torday adds that " the Bambala calls the Sankuru the Chale (the xwqx, par excellence). This word is identical with Shari ; and it is a common tendency of