varied types, among which the Negro often predominates, and they
speak languages which seem to be related in part to the African
Negro dialects. In fact, all these populations are more or less
Negroid in aspect and there is manifested among all, in various
degrees, the influence of the Negro race; this appears especially
preponderant among the tribes most distant from the Amharic
plateau; it becomes almost complete among the Masai, who follow
the Galla and the Somali in the southern direction. Numerous Asiatic
invasions have also contributed to multiply the mixtures.
The Danakil and Somali are, at the present time, for the most part
Muslim; they are mostly nomadic, divided into a multitude of little
tribes. The Galla, at the same time farmers and shepherds, are in
majority pagans, but many of them are Christians; one finds
among them communal collectivities^17 administered by a council of
notables. They were already constituted at the time of the Pha-
raohs; very powerful in the 10th century CE, and according to
Masudi, they undertook great migrations in the 15th and 16th
centuries; after having been for a long time redoubtable adver-
saries of the negus of Abyssinia, they were engulfed in the empire
of the latter in the 18thcentury.
To the south of the Muslim States of central Sudan and of the popula-
tions, more or less influenced by Abyssinia, of eastern Sudan, live
numerous peoples who are in general very backwards, some
cannibals, among whom Islam has not penetrated and who, up to a
recent epoch, have served as a reservoir of slaves for the
Mohammedan princes of the north. Such are the Gbari, the Munchi,
Batta, Fali, Mbum, etc., in the southern Hausa country and the
Adamawa; such are equally the Baya of the upper Sangha, the
Manjia of the Wahm, the Banda of the upper Ubangui, the Azandeh
or Niam-Niam who follow them to the east, all belonging to the same
ethnic and linguistic group; such also are the Sara, the Kenga, the
Gaberi, etc., at the south of the Bagirmi, the Bulala and the Kuka of
the Fitri, the Bongo and the Krej of the upper Bahr-el-Ghazal and still
other populations forming with these and with the Bagirmians another
group; such also are the Rougna to the south of the Wadai, the Dinka
to the south of Darfur, Nuer and Shillook to the south of Kurdufan; such
finally, along the upper Nile, are the Bari, the Madi and the Mom-
buttu who live to the west and north of Lake Albert, and more to the
east and to the southeast, the Wandorobo and their cousins the Kuafi,
the Rumba, the Taturu and the Masai.
All these peoples together constitute the most southern representatives
of the groups called “Sudanese” and border on the most northern
portion of the Bantu group. The line of demarcation, which is very
irregular, starts from the Atlantic in the region of Calabar, to the
northwest of Duala, and at first follows approximately the 5° of north
latitude as far as the Sangha, then the 3° to about Lake Rudolf, bending
then in the direction of the south so that it attains the Indian Ocean
towards the 5° of south latitude, between Mombasa and Zanzibar.
Female figure (probably Yao), 1909.
Malawi.
Wood, 76 x 18 x 11 cm.
The Trustees of the British Museum, London.Male figure.
Malawi.
Wood, 103 x 30 x 20 cm.
Felix Collection.