One peculiar point that struck me about these people was the absence of any kind of musical instrument, even the usual drum. All their songs and dances were absolutely unaccompanied by any of the usual weird noises that, with most savage tribes, represent a musical accompaniment, and the only musical instrument that I ever knew of their making was a kind of whistle, something after the fashion of those made by boys at home from elder stems, and, I imagine, merely a toy; certainly I never saw them used by any but boys, and only on rare occasions by the boys themselves. I do not include among musical instruments the war-horn, an instrument usually made from the horn of a bullock or the koodoo, and which is used simply as an alarm.
One peculiar point about the applause on these occasions was that it was confined to the women, the men considering it beneath their dignity to make any demonstration, whether of approval or contempt. Although the women were not allowed to take any part in these dances themselves, they always appeared in full force as spectators, rigged out in their best go-to-meeting suits of skins, with their bodies plentifully smeared with grease, and wearing all their ornaments. When any favourite warrior had the floor, they expressed their approval by waving bunches of grass, and at the same time raising a musical chant of “lu-lu-lu-lu-lu.” This chant, by the way, was the common form of welcome among them, as, when my safaris returned from one of my trips to Naivasha with food, the women would all turn out as we approached a village and greet us with this cry, which was taken up from hill to hill as we went along.
They had some dances in which the women joined, and these were usually held at night round a big fire. The Kikuyu seem to have more varieties of dances than any natives I know, and are, on the whole, a light-hearted race, singing all day long.
They have a class of strolling minstrels, resembling more than anything the old troubadours of the Middle Ages. There were only five or six of these troupes in the country altogether, and, like the troubadours, they were a privileged class, travelling from place to place and extemporising songs about local events and people—not always without a strong tinge of sarcasm, which no one dared to resent.