Cairo to Kisumu : $b Egypt—The Sudan—Kenya ColonyCarpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
History
Cairo to Kisumu : $b Egypt—The Sudan—Kenya Colony
Carpenter, Frank G. (Frank George)
Egypt -- Description and travel; Kenya -- Description and travel; Sudan -- Description and travel
The people are stranger than any I have ever seen so far in my African
travels. They come from all parts of the Sudan and represent forty or
fifty-odd tribes. Some of the faces are black, some are dark brown, and
others are a rich cream colour. One of the queerest men I met during my
journey was an African with a complexion as rosy as that of a tow-headed
American baby and hair quite as white. He was a water carrier, dressed
in a red cap and long gown. He had two great cans on the ends of a pole
which rested on his shoulder, and was trotting through the streets
carrying water from one of the wells to his Sudanese customers. His feet
and hands, which were bare, were as white as my own. Stopping him, I
made him lift his red fez to see whether his hair was white from age. It
was flaxen, however, rather than silver, and he told me that his years
numbered only twenty-five. The _mamour_, talking with him in Arabic,
learned that he was a pure Sudanese, coming from one of the provinces
near the watershed of the Congo. He said that his parents were jet-black
but that many men of his colour lived in the region from whence he came.
I stood him up against the mud wall in the street with two Sudanese
women, each blacker than the ink with which this paper is printed, and
made their photographs. The man did not like this at first, but when at
the close I gave him a coin worth about twenty-five cents he salaamed to
the ground and went away happy.
I am surprised to see how many of these Sudanese have scars on their
faces and bodies. Nearly every other man I meet has the marks of great
gashes on his cheeks, forehead, or breast, and some of the women are
scarred so as to give the idea that terrible brutalities have been
perpetrated upon them. As a rule, however, these scars have been
self-inflicted. They are to show the tribe and family to which their
owners belong. The _mamour_ tells me that every tribe has its own special
cut, and that he can tell just where a man comes from by such marks.
The scars are of all shapes. Sometimes a cheek will have three parallel
gashes, at another time you will notice that the cuts are crossed, while
at others they look like a Chinese puzzle.
The dress of the people is strange. Those of the better classes wear long
gowns, being clad not unlike the Egyptians. Many of the poor are almost
naked, and the boys and girls often go about with only a belt of strings
around the waist. The strings, which are like tassels, fall to the middle
of the thigh. Very small children wear nothing whatever.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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