Living, as I did, in close touch with the everyday life of the natives, I became well acquainted with their manners and habits of living, and I also managed to learn a good deal of their genealogy. I found that the Kikuyu tribe was divided into a number of clans, or _mahirriga_, each of which bore a distinctive heraldic sign on their shields. The origin of these clans was wrapped in mystery, none of the natives with whom I discussed the question being able to tell me how they originally came into existence, or what was their real purpose. The word “clan,” as we understand it, suggests unity and combination, but this certainly was not the interpretation of the term accepted by the members of these Kikuyu clans, the members of which were mixed up indiscriminately, and scattered all over the country. They all knew to which of the clans they belonged, and there the connexion seemed to end, so far as I could gather. The only similar instance of such “clans” that I can call to mind is the “clan” system which formerly existed among the Red Indians of North America, where men of different, and often hostile, tribes might belong to the same “clan,” the clans being known by the names of various animals, such as bear, wolf, fox, &c. All the Kikuyu worship a god called Ngai, and I was given to understand that they had also another god, whom they called Ngoma, though this latter appeared to correspond more to our idea of the devil; for example, when a native went into a fit of hysterics at one of their war-dances, as I have previously stated was frequently the case, they said that it was Ngoma who had entered into him and caused it.