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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009
A letter received some time ago from my Lamu correspondent, Muhammad bin Abubakar (commonly known as Muhamadi Kijuma), contains a passage which may be translated as follows:—
“Behold these verses: I obtained them from the Watikuu (that is to say), from an aged woman of Rasini; it contains a testimony (to the ancient glories) of Emezi, which was a great country [city?] with mansions of stone, very large, and before the Arabs settled in Africa, it was already in ruins. It lies to the south of Waraka.”
1 Nti is the word, but the writer may have meant mui (mji).
2 Stigand, , The Land of Zinj, p. 168Google Scholar; see also p. 34. For Emezi, see pp. 29, 44.
3 For examples, see Stigand, loc. cit., and Taylor, African Aphorisms, p. 18.Google Scholar
4 Kuku is used metaphorically (and contemptuously) for persons of low or servile condition; cf. the proverbs kuku haekwi shahidi, wala hajui sharia (“A fowl is not set as a witness, nor does it know the law”), and kuku na mavi mlowe: ukumuwasa aleni? (“What's bred in the bone…”); also Kuku mwenye kuvaa viatu, for a parvenu— slaves being forbidden to wear sandals.