Identifier: inwildestafricar00macq (find matches)
Title: In wildest Africa : the record of a hunting and exploration trip through Uganda, Victoria Nyanza, the Kilimanjaro region and British East Africa, with an account of an ascent of the snowfields of Mount Kibo, in East Central Africa, and a description of the various native tribes
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: MacQueen, Peter, 1865-1924
Subjects:
Publisher: London : George Ball and sons
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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In early betrothals the suitor pays part down and the rest in instalments. If the father finally refuses to give the girl up after payment is made, the suitor gets his friends together, captures the girl and carries her away. A man usually takes a wife from another village than that in which he lives, and her gentlemen friends often resist the invasion of a suitor and fight the suitors party with sticks, but the girl usually allows herself to be captured. Old maids are not popular and the Kavirondo girls are as anxious to get married as members of the fair sex are at home. Indeed, if there is no bid made for her, she will often profier herself in marriage and make overtures to that end, — giving a reduced price. There are however not very many on the mark-down counter. The man who gets the first girl in a family has the right to dispose of the other girls as he decides. Polygamy is common and thus a man may often have several sisters among his wives. As to the morals of these Kavirondo girls, they
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Photograph by Peter Dutkewich, copyright, 1909, by Underwood & Underwood, X. Y.KING WAMBOOGU AND HIS WIVES. Port Florence 259 are much better in regard to morals than the maidens of neighbouring Uganda, who are almost all clothed. Virtue stands high and infractions are severely punished. Divorces are uncommon, but a man may divorce his wives if he wishes to. If a man and his wife quarrel, and she leaves the house and he shuts the door after her, it is considered equivalent to a divorce, and the woman thereupon goes back to her people. As for the Kavi rondo villages back in the country, we found no difficulty in entering the houses. There are many little settlements, with paths from village to village. A dozen huts form a good-sized settlement. The houses have mud walls, and cone-shaped roofs, thatched with grass. The doors are so low that it is necessary to crawl inside, and many houses are not over seven feet from the floor to the top of the roof. The roof usually extends over the sides, ma

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