74 A DESCRIPTION OF THE WANYORO.

the vertex of the triangle being in the middle of the naii. All cuttings of the hair and nails are carefully stored under the bed, and afterwards strewn about amongst the tall grass. All the Wanyoro extract the four lower incisor teeth, the Wakidi (Lingo) one or two incisors, as also do the inhabitants of Chopé (Shul), but the Waganda do not extract any.

Brother, sister, brother-in-law, and son-in-law are the recognised grades of relationship. I have never noticed any intimate connection between more distant relations.

The food of the Wanyoro consists principally of vegetables, bananas, sweet potatoes, Helmia bulbifera, gourds, corchorus, purslane, &c. All these are made into a porridge with ground sesame seeds, except bananas, which are plucked before they are ripe and roasted. Ripe bananas are seldom eaten; they are used to make mwénge, an intoxicating drink. LEleusine corn, finer-grained and of a paler colour than that grown farther north, is rubbed into flour with hot water, which removes its bitterness. When meat is to be had, it is eaten, even if very high; the bones are broken in pieces and boiled with the meat, and then the marrow is eaten, but it is much disliked when raw. Marrow, with termites (wswa) and sesame, is made into a dish ‘of which a man leaves nothing for his children.” Blood boiled with butter and salt is only eaten if meat is scarce, and then but by few. Milk is drunk fresh and unboiled. Game (antelopes, &c.) is a favourite food, while elephant’s flesh is never eaten, and hippopotamus meat is shunned, as it is thought to produce skin diseases. Many of the Wanyoro (in the lake districts) are industrious fishers, and eat fish with great gusto; but others entirely avoid and despise it, as well as fowls and eggs.

Salt is obtained in large quantities near the Albert Lake, at Kibiro and Mbakovia, by lixiviation from the clayey soil, and is taken for sale as far as Uganda. It is for the most part grey and dirty, and has a strong taste of saltpetre, but from the same district good white salt can be obtained. The poorer people prepare salt by soaking the ashes of papyrus and rushes in water. The lye is filtered through a vessel filled with hay, having a bottom pierced with numerous holes, and is used in a liquid state. All the Wanyoro eat salt. Fire