. The Baganda . uppliedher with her hoe for gardening. The barkcloths were not onlyused to wear, but also as bed-clothes and for draping the housewalls. The tree-trunks, when ready for use, were eight or tenfeet high to the place where the branches forked out, and theywere six inches in diameter. An incision was made round thetree-trunk near the ground and another near to where thebranches forked out, also a longitudinal incision from the top to XI INDUSTRIES 405 the bottom, the cuts being deep enough to go through the barkto the wood of the tree. The bark was then taken off by work-ing a knif
. The Baganda . uppliedher with her hoe for gardening. The barkcloths were not onlyused to wear, but also as bed-clothes and for draping the housewalls. The tree-trunks, when ready for use, were eight or tenfeet high to the place where the branches forked out, and theywere six inches in diameter. An incision was made round thetree-trunk near the ground and another near to where thebranches forked out, also a longitudinal incision from the top to XI INDUSTRIES 405 the bottom, the cuts being deep enough to go through the barkto the wood of the tree. The bark was then taken off by work-ing a knife blade under it and peeHng it off. After the barkhad been removed, a careful man would smear the tree-trunkwith cow-dung, and wrap it round with plantain-leaves tokeep it from being injured, but others would leave it to healof itself. In a short time a second bark formed, and this was ofbetter quality than the first, while the third and fourth werethe best barks which the tree yielded ; a tree did not suffer by. FIG. 69.—BAKKCLOTH-MAKING. its bark being removed ; on the contrary, it would yield betweenthirty and forty barks. The bark, after removal, was scraped on the outer side, and Barkclothleft until the morning, when it was again scraped both inside ^=^^5-and outside, and taken to a hut, where it was beaten. Everypeasant had his hut for barkcloth-making ; this was little morethan a shelter from the sun or the rain ; in the floor a log, sixfeet long, was sunk, of which the upper side was adzed tomake a fairly smooth surface, about four inches wide, andextending the whole length of the log. If the man could securethe assistance of a friend, the two would work together on theone barkcloth. The mallets used were shaped like those of astonemason, buthad grooves running round them; every man hadsets of mallets with different widths between the grooves : thefirst had coarse grooves, the second finer, and the third very 4o6 THE BAGANDA chap. fine grooves. A piece of bark was bea
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookidbaganda00joh, bookyear1911
