The Reader Has Now Had My Experience Of Several Of The Minor
States, And Has Presently To Be Introduced To Uganda, The Most
Powerful State In The Ancient But Now Divided Great Kingdom Of
Kittara.
I shall have to record a residence of considerable
duration at the court there; and, before entering on it, I
propose to state my theory of the ethnology of that part of
Africa inhabited by the people collectively styled Wahuma -
otherwise Gallas or Abyssinians.
My theory is founded on the
traditions of the several nations, as checked by my own
observations of what I saw when passing through them. It appears
impossible to believe, judging from the physical appearance of
the Wahuma, that they can be of any other race than the semi-
Shem-Hamitic of Ethiopia. The traditions of the imperial
government of Abyssinia go as far back as the scriptural age of
King David, from whom the late reigning king of Abyssinia, Sahela
Selassie, traced his descent.
Most people appear to regard the Abyssinians as a different race
from the Gallas, but, I believe, without foundation. Both alike
are Christians of the greatest antiquity. It is true that,
whilst the aboriginal Abyssinians in Abyssinia proper are more
commonly agriculturists, the Gallas are chiefly a pastoral
people; but I conceive that the two may have had the same
relations with each other which I found the Wahuma kings and
Wahuma herdsmen holding with the agricultural Wazinza in Uzinza,
the Wanyambo in Karague, the Waganda in Uganda, and the Wanyoro
in Unyoro.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 320 of 767
Words from 87767 to 88023
of 210958
