United States or Pakistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All this exciting news, with the prospect of soon seeing Grant, did me a world of good, so much so, that I began shooting small birds for specimens watching the blacksmiths as they made tools, spears, ad bracelets and doctoring some of the Wahuma women who came to be treated for ophthalmia, in return for which they gave me milk.
It appears impossible to believe, judging from the physical appearance of the Wahuma, that they can be of any other race than the semi-Shem-Hamitic of Ethiopia. The traditions of the imperial government of Abyssinia go as far back as the scriptural age of King David, from whom the late reigning king of Abyssinia, Sahela Selassie, traced his descent.
This is the most southerly kingdom of the Wahuma, though not the farthest spread of its people, for we find the Watusi, who are emigrants from Karague of the same stock, overlooking the Tanganyika Lake from the hills of Uhha, and tending their cattle all over Unyamuezi under the protection of the native negro chiefs; and we also hear that the Wapoka of Fipa, south of the Rukwa Lake are the same.
The Wahuma, like most Africans, have great faith in the power of charms, and believe that by their means persons can be rendered invulnerable. They also believe in the constant presence of departed souls, supposing that they exercise a good or evil influence over those whom they have known in life.
The dress of the Wahuma is very simple, composed chiefly of cow-hide tanned black a few magic ornaments and charms, brass or copper bracelets, and immense number of sambo for stockings, which looked very awkward on their long legs.
Saidi told him his tribe kept cattle with the same stupendous horns as those of the Wahuma; and also that, in the same manner, they all mixed blood and milk for their dinners, which, to his mind, confirmed my statement.
Believing, as they do, that Africa formerly belonged to Europeans, from whom it was taken by negroes with whom they had allied themselves, the Wahuma make themselves a small residue of the original European stock driven from the land an idea which seems natural enough when we consider that the Wahuma are, in numbers, quite insignificant compared with the natives.
To compensate for damage done to himself, as his daughter by this means had become reduced to half her market-value, Lumeresi seized all the cattle this man had brought with him. 3d to 10th. When two days had elapsed, one of the three missing Wahuma women was discovered in a village close by.
Neither the Wanyambo nor the Wahuma would eat the rhinoceros, so I was not sorry to find all the Wanyamuezi porters of the Arabs at Kufro, on hearing of the sport, come over and carry away all the flesh.
Of the origin of the cairns I could not gain any information, though it struck me as curious I should find them in the first country we had entered governed by the Wahuma, as I formerly saw the same thing in the Somali country, which doubtless, in earlier days, was governed by a branch of the Abyssinians.
Word Of The Day