If skin garments are worn, the woman will bray the goat skins she wears and that in which she carries her child. When the men have not reached the blanket stage they usually go naked or wear an ox hide, and this they generally prepare themselves. [[279]]
Leather work for weapons is always done by the men.
In Uganda the bark cloth is made by men.
The bead work affected by some tribes is nearly always done by the women, but in Kikuyu a young dandy will often be seen sewing beads on to a bit of hide.
Metal work used as ornament is always done by the men; the beautiful iron chain work of Ukamba is man’s monopoly; any working in ivory, such as armlets, must be done by men.
Each wife in an African family usually has dedicated to her particular use a certain number of cattle; they are not her property, but she has the sole disposal of their milk for the use of her children. The adult A-Kamba and others also drink a considerable amount of curdled milk, and each wife keeps a supply for her husband and his friends.
To what extent women have assisted in the domestication of animals is now a matter of some conjecture, but there is little doubt that the men caught the animals, probably young ones, when out on hunting expeditions, and handed them over to the women to rear. It is noticeable that among African tribes a woman never owns live stock, and probably never did, even in matriarchal times.
The women are largely responsible for the handing on of the folk lore of a tribe and undoubtedly teach it to their children, as is done in Europe to-day. The men, however, often unconsciously help in this, for at a friendly beer-drinking gathering elders will recount folk tales, out of the stores of their experience, to the assembled company, and one tale will remind someone of another and he will try to cap the previous story by one more wonderful.
Women have done a good deal, however, for the development and blending of folk lore. In times past when inter-tribal conflict was common, women were frequently carried off and thus became incorporated [[280]]with another tribe; they carried their folk tales with them, and unconsciously the stories, as well as the blood of a tribe, became modified.
The influence of women in fixing a language must not be overlooked; the mother teaches it to her children, not actively perhaps, but the young child is in closest association with the mother and assimilates her speech, and, of course, captured women will, if in any number, bring foreign words with them, and may be instrumental in their general adoption.