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KINIKA.
"THE Kinika is strongly
allied to the Kisuaheli. The
tribes of the Wanika, to whom the Kinika lan-
guage is vernacular, dwell in Eastern Africa, as far south as the fourth
degree of south latitude, about
fifteen or twenty miles to the west of the island of Mombas. A great
number of the Wakamba live in
the western part of their country, having been driven towards the sea-shore
by a famine some thirty
years ago. In the district occupied conjointly by these two people,
the Wanika have left the plains to
the Wakamba, retaining the heights and forests for themselves. The
Wanika number about 60,000
individuals. They are an agricultural people, and carry on a trade
with the Suahelis of the coast.
They are divided into numerons tribes, each of which is governed by
several chiefs. One of the chiefs
is always invested with authority over the rest, but his power is limited,
and he can effect little without
the concurrence of the majority of his tribe. Like most of the other
branches of the Nilotic stock, the
Wanika have no idols. They have some faint idea of a Supreme Being;
but they invocate and offer
animal sacrifices to the Koma, or shade of their dead.
They are represented by Dr. Krapf as "a lying,
talking, drinking, superstitious, and totally earthly-minded people, having
the belly for their god;"
but, on the other hand, he says that they are "men of
peace, attentive to their sick, and honest."
The foundation of the grammatical and lexicographical structure
of the Kinika language, which
is a mere corruption of the Suaheli, has been laid by Dr.
Krapf, who has likewise prepared a Kinika
version of the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke, and of the Epistles to the
Romans and Ephesians.
The Gospel of St.
Luke was printed in 1848 at
Bombay, in the American mission-press, for the benefit
of the schools in which Wanika boys are instructed in the
Christian religion.
Although this Gospel,
with the Heidelberg catechism[?] and a spelling-
book, constitutes all that has hitherto been printed in
Kinika, there is already reason to hope that this small portion of the Divine
Word has not been
imparted to the benighted Wanika tribes in vain. "It
is the missionaries’ firm opinion (says
Dr. Krapf) that the Lord is stretching his hands of mercy over these Nilotic
tribes which have already
been so richly blessed at the Cape; and that a mission-chain can be formed
from this quarter for
connecting the east and west of Africa, which will be the means of fulfilling
the prophecy in the 18th
chapter of Isaiah." The determined and active hostility of the
benighted tribes of the interior has,
however, compelled the abandonment of this hope for a time. Meanwhile,
the objects of the mission
have been advancing--though by slow and almost imperceptible degrees--among
the Wanika
themselves." --The Bible of Every Land. (1860, Second Edition)
Samuel Bagster [Info only]
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