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
But let us “take our feet in our hands,” as Uncle Remus says, and tramp
about. Later on we may march off into the country through which I
travelled for about fifty miles on my way here. In the town itself we
may now and then see a man with a blanket wrapped around him, and the
men frequently wear waist cloths behind or in front. Outside of the town
they are stark naked. All have skins of a dark chocolate brown. They have
rather intelligent faces, woolly hair, and lips and noses like those of a
Negro. They belong to the Bantu family and are among the best formed of
the peoples of Africa. Some one has said that travelling through their
country is like walking through miles of living statuary.
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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