Cairo to Kisumu

by Frank G. Carpenter

Take these Kavirondo men who have gathered about me just now as I write. Some of them look as though they might have been cut from black marble by a sculptor. Look at those three brown bucks at my left. They are as straight as Michelangelo’s famed statue of David and about as well formed. See how firmly they stand on their black feet. Their heads are thrown back and two have burst out laughing as I turn my camera toward them. With my eye I can follow the play of all their muscles as they slip beneath those smooth ebony skins. The Kavirondo seem the perfection of physical manhood. That nude fellow next me has a coil of wire about his biceps and a pound of wire on his right wrist. He is smoking a pipe, but it just hangs between his teeth, which shine out, flashing white as he smiles.

The man next him has two brass rings on each of his black thumbs, bands of telegraph wire around his wrists, and two wide coils of wire above and below the biceps of his left arm. He has five wire bands about his neck, circles of wire under each knee, and great anklets of twisted wire on each of his feet. As I look I can see the calloused places where the wire has worn into his instep. There are worse ones on that third man whose ankles are loaded with twisted wire. The latter must have several pounds on each leg, and the wire on the right leg extends from the foot to the middle of the calf.

Now look at their heads. The first man has short wool which hugs the scalp, and the other two have twisted their hair so that it hangs down about the head like Medusa’s locks.

Stopping for a moment, I ask the men to turn around so I may get a view from the rear. They are not quite so naked as I had supposed, for each has an apron of deerskin as big as a lady’s pocket handkerchief fastened to his waistband behind. The aprons, tanned with the fur on, are tied to the belts with deerskin straps. As far as decency goes, they are of no value at all, and they seem to be used more for ornament than anything else.

Let us train our cameras now on the women. They are by no means so fine looking as the men, being shorter and not so well formed. The younger girls are clad in bead waist belts, while the older ones have each a tassel of fibre tied to a girdle about the waist. This tassel is fastened just at the small of the back and hangs down behind. At a short distance it looks like a cow’s tail. I am told that it is an indispensable article of dress for every married woman, and that it is improper for a stranger to touch it. Sir Harry Johnston, who once governed these people, says that even a husband dares not touch this caudal appendage worn by his wife, and if, by mistake, it is touched, a goat must be sacrificed or the woman will die from the insult.

Some of the native women here in Kisumu wear little aprons of fibre, about six inches long, extending down at the front. I can see dozens of them so clad all about me, and for a penny or so can get any of them to pose for my camera. The young girls have no clothes at all. This is the custom throughout the country. Indeed, farther back in the interior the fringe aprons are removed, and both sexes are clad chiefly in wire jewellery of various kinds.

The strangest thing about the nudity of these savages is that they are absolutely unconscious of any strangeness in it. Such of them as have not met Europeans do not know they are naked; and a married woman with her tail of palm fibre feels fully dressed. A traveller tells how he tried to introduce clothing to a gang of naked young women whom he met out in the country. He cut up some American sheeting and gave each girl a piece. They looked at the cloths with interest, but evidently did not know what to do with them. Thereupon the white man took a strip and tied it about the waist of one of the party. Upon this the other girls wrapped their pieces about their waists, but a moment later took them off, saying: “These are foreign customs and we do not want them.”

During my stay in the Kavirondo country I have gone out among the villages and have seen the natives in their homes and at work. The land is thickly populated. The people are good natured, enterprising, and quiet. One can go anywhere without danger, and there is no difficulty in getting photographs of whatever one wants.

I am surprised at the great number of married women. One knows their status from those sacred tails. The Kavirondo girls marry very early. They are often betrothed at the age of six years; but in such case the girl stays with her parents for five or six years afterward. The parents sell their girls for a price, a good wife being purchasable for forty hoes, twenty goats, and a cow. In the case of an early betrothal the suitor pays down part of the fixed sum and the rest in installments until all is paid. If the father refuses to give up the girl when the time comes for marriage, the payments having been made, the suitor organizes a band of his friends, captures her, and carries her home. A man usually takes his wife from a different village from that in which he lives. When he comes with his band to the bride’s village, her gentlemen friends often resist the invasion and fight the suitor’s party with sticks. At such times the girl screams, but I understand that she usually allows herself to be captured.