BARISAL, a town of British India, headquarters of Backer gunge district in Bengal, situated on a river of the same name. Pop. 35,716. It is an important centre of river trade, on the steamer route through the Sundarbans from Calcutta to the Brahmaputra. Barisal has given its name to a curious physical phenomenon, known as the "Barisal guns," the cause of which has not been satisfactorily explained. These are noises, like the report of cannon, frequently heard in the vicinity of Barisal and elsewhere which appear to come from the direction of the sea.
TRIBES. The territory of the Bari speaking tribes lies to the south of the Dinka country, E. Africa, on both banks of the river and in form approaching a rectangle some i6om. in length extending southwards from lat. 6° 5' N. and having a maximum breadth of some 90 miles. On the eastern bank it constitutes a relatively narrow strip, its southern extreme march ing with the Madi, while eastward from north to south it borders upon the Beir and the Lotuko. The Bari-speaking tribes of this, the eastern, bank of the Nile are the Shir and the Bari proper, using the latter term in its restricted tribal sense. There are also Shir and Bari to the west of the Nile, and to the south of these the Kuku, while other Bad-speaking peoples lying west of these riverain tribes include, from north to south, the Mandari, the Nyambara, the Fajelu, the Nyefu and the Kakwa.
The true Bari of the eastern bank are dolichocephals, with a cephalic index averaging 73.5, and with a skin as dark as that of the Dinka. They are moderately tall, with an average stature of about 671-in. but "very tall" men are not uncommon. In contra distinction to these, the Bari-speaking tribes of the west bank are mesaticephalic, and with the exception of the Mandari, who border on the Dinka and who have an average stature of nearly 69in., they are some Sin. shorter than the Bari of the eastern bank. The Bari dialects belong to the Bari-Masai sub-group of the Niloto-Hamitic group, their fellows within the sub-group being in the Sudan, Lotuko and in Kenya, Masai.
The social organization of the Bari is into a number of exog amous clans with male descent, and there are certain prohibitions, for the most part connected with animals or food, which each clan should observe. Knowledge with regard to the regulation of public life among the Bari is far from complete ; there seems to be a rather complicated system, for besides chiefs and commoners there is a class that may provisionally be termed serfs. Chiefs are of two classes, rain-chiefs and "fathers of the land" (to trans late literally the native term for the second class) who are specially concerned with cultivation and the safeguarding of the crops by magical means. The rainmaker is supreme in matters concerning rain, his office being hereditary and passing to his eldest son or in default to a sister's son. Generally each rainmaker and "father of the land" has a medicine-man attached to him, functions of the latter being those of the witch-doctor of the usual African type. (C. G. S.)