Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 25, 1914.djvu/493

Rh has borrowed the name and possibly other features—such as the two chiefs elected for a term of years—from the Gaila.

The influence of the Masai on the Gikuyu and also, in a different way, on the Dorobo (who stand to them in the same relation as the Wat do to the Galla) is well known, and I need do no more than refer to them in passing, as these tribes do not come within the scope of the present article.

I shall also have to leave out of consideration the non-Bantu negroes represented within the limits of the Protectorate by the Jaluo, sometimes called "Nilotic Kavirondo"—unless, indeed, the Wat belong to the same race, which is a matter for future investigation. I use the word non-Bantu in a purely linguistic sense; the question of race is one I cannot profess to deal with, but it seems to me that there is here no distinct boundary, while with regard to language there is a very clear one. Professor Meinhof holds that Bantu speech developed under Hamitic influence and of the monosyllabic, uninflected West African languages, and—so far as lack of technical knowledge permits me to form an opinion—I believe there is a good deal to be said for this view. My study of West African folk-tales, such as it is, tends to confirm the impression that "Negro" and Bantu have a common body of tradition, differentiated by local circumstances, though the predominance of the Hare in one and the Spider in the other has never yet been adequately explained.

The composite nature of Swahili folklore has frequently been noticed, and I have dwelt on it at some length in a paper already published in Folk-Lore (December, 1909), to which I should like to add one or two points.

The first Bantu with whom the Arab settlers came much in contact were in all probability the Wapokomo. These appear to have been settled in the Tana Valley from a