The Kavirondo are an agricultural people : both men and women work in the fields with large iron hoes. In addition to sorghum, Eleusine and maize, tobacco and hemp are both cultivated and smoked. Both sexes smoke, but the use of hemp is restricted to men and unmarried women, as it is thought to injure child-bearing women. The Kavirondo cultivate sesamum and make an oil from its seeds which they burn in little clay lamps. These lamps are of the ancient saucer type, probably introduced into the country by the coast people. Some tribes live in isolated huts, others in the north have strongly walled villages. The walls are of mud and formerly, among the Nilotic tribes, occasionally of stone. Their huts are circular with conical thatched roof, and fairly broad verandah all round. A portion of the hut is partitioned off as a sleeping-place for goats, and the fowls sleep indoors in a large basket. Skins form the only bedsteads. In each hut are two fire places, about which a rigid etiquette prevails. Strangers or dis tant relatives are not allowed to pass beyond the first, which is near the door, and is used for cooking. At the second, which is nearly in the middle of the hut, sit the hut owner, his wives, children, brothers and sisters. Around this fireplace the family sleep. Cook ing pots, water pots and earthenware grain jars are the only other furniture. The food is served in small baskets. Every full grown man has a hut to himself, and one for each wife. The huts of the Masaba Kavirondo of west Elgon have the apex of the roof sur mounted by a carved pole obviously a Phallus. Among the Bantu Kavirondo a father does not eat with his sons, nor do brothers eat together. Among the Nilotic tribes father and sons eat together, usually in a separate hut with open sides. Women eat apart and only after the men have finished. The Kavirondo keep cattle, sheep, goats, fowls and a few dogs. Women do not eat sheep, fowls or eggs, and are not allowed to drink milk except when mixed with other things. The flesh of the wild cat and leopard is esteemed by most of the tribes. From Eleusine a beer is made. The Kavi rondo are plucky hunters, capturing the hippopotamus with ropes and traps, and attacking with spears the largest elephants. Fish, of which they are very fond, are caught by line and rod or in traps. Bee-keeping is common, and where trees are scarce the hives are placed on the roof of the hut. Among the Bantu Kavi rondo goats and sheep are suffocated, the snout being held until the animal dies. The Kavirondo fight well. Their weapons are spears with rather long flat blades and broad-bladed swords. Some use slings, and most carry shields. Bows and arrows are also used; firearms are however displacing other weapons. Kavirondo war
fare was mainly defensive and intertribal. When a man had killed his enemy in battle special rites were necessary to defend him from the spirit of the dead man. Kavirondo industries are salt-making, effected by burning reeds and water-plants and passing water through the ashes; the smelting of iron ore (confined to the Bantu tribes) ; pottery and basket-work.
The Bantu Kavirondo have many exogamous totemic divisions. Their religion appears to be a vague ancestor-worship, but the northern tribes have two gods, Awafwa and Ishishemi, the spirits of good and evil. To the former cattle and goats are sacrificed. They believe in witchcraft and practise trial by ordeal. They dress wounds with butter and leaves, and for inflammation of the lungs or pleurisy pierce a hole in the chest. There are no medicine men—the women are the doctors. Certain of the incisor teeth are pulled out. If a man retains these he will, it is thought, be killed in warfare. Among certain tribes the women also have incisor teeth extracted, otherwise misfortune would befall their husbands. For the same reason the wife scars the skin of her forehead or stomach. A Kavirondo husband, before starting on a perilous journey, cuts scars on his wife's body to ensure him good luck. The Kavirondo have four dances—the birth dance, the death dance, that at initiation and one performed in seasons of drought. They use a large lyre-shaped instrument and various drums. The Nilotes call their supreme being Nyasi who is to be found in large trees. Sickness is attributed to magic or ghostly visitation.
The Ja-Luo women use as ear ornaments small beads which are ancient, being generally blue, occasionally yellow or green, and are picked up in certain districts of ter heavy rain, supposed to come down with the rain. They are identical in shape and colour with ancient Egyptian beads.
See C. W. Hobley, Eastern Uganda, an Ethnological Survey (Anthrop. Inst., Occasional Papers, No. 1, London, 1902) ; Sir H. H. Johnston, Uganda Protectorate (1902) ; J. F. Cunningham, Uganda and its Peoples (19o5) ; Paul Kollmann, The Victoria Nyanza (1899) ; Rev. J. Roscoe, Northern Bantu (1915).
See Scott and Hardiman, Gazetter of Upper Burma (1900).