C H A P T E R IX.
HISTORY OF TUB WAIIUMA.
THE ABYSSINIANS AND GALLAS— THEORY OF CONQUEST OF INFERIOR
BY SUPERIOR RACES— THE VVAIIUMA AND THE KINGDOM OF KIT-
TARA— LEGENDARY HISTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF UGANDA— ITS
CONSTITUTION, AND THE CEREMONIALS OF THE COURT.
T h e 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 th e re ;
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 Wahtima—otherwise Gallas or
Abyssinians. My theory is founded on the traditions of
the several nations, as checked by my own observation
of what I saw when passing through them. It appears
impossible to believe, judging from the physical appearance
of the Wahtima, 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 Avhom the late
reigning king of Abyssinia, Saliela 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. I t 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 Wahtima kings and Wahtima
herdsmen holding with the agricultural Wazinza in Uzinza,
the Wanyambo in Karagtie, the Waganda in Uganda, and
the Wanyoro in Unyoro.
In these countries the government is in the hands of
foreigners, who had invaded and taken possession of them,
leaving the agricultural aborigines to till the ground,
whilst the junior members of the usurping clans herded
cattle-—just as in Abyssinia, or wherever the Abyssinians
or Gallas have shown themselves. There a pastoral clan
from the Asiatic side took the government of Abyssinia
from its people and have ruled over them ever since,
changing, by intermarriage with the Africans, the texture
of their hair and colour to a certain extent, but still
maintaining a high stamp of Asiatic feature, of wThich a
marked characteristic is a bridged instead of bridgeless
nose.
It. may be presumed that there once existed a foreign
but compact government in Abyssinia, which, becoming
great and powerful, sent out armies on all sides of it,
especially to the south, south-east, and wrest, slave-hunting
and devastating wherever they went, and in process of
time becoming too great for one ruler to control. Junior
members of the royal family then, pushing their fortunes,
dismembered themselves from the parent stock, created
separate governments, and, for reasons which cannot be
traced, changed their names. In this manner we may
suppose that the Gallas separated from the Abyssinians,
and located themselves to the south of their native land.
Other Abyssinians, or possibly Gallas—it matters not
which they were or wdiat we call them—likewise detach