ABSTRACT
The crafts and industries practised among the Bantu Kavirondo reflect the level of technical skill generally found among East African Bantu, without showing any striking local developments. Of the traditional crafts those that are still flourishing are housebuilding, pottery, basketry, and wood-carving. Iron-work has lost much of its former significance and prestige, as there no longer exists any need for the manufacture of weapons, in which some of these tribes were acknowledged masters. The arts of dressing and sewing hides and skins, and of leatherwork, have greatly declined owing to the introduction of European clothing, which, even in the more remote parts of the District, is rapidly replacing the traditional dress. The growing complexity of the material basis of African life has led to the development of a number of new crafts and industries, such as carpentry, bricklaying, thatching, and 'tailoring' or the sewing by machine of simple calico or khaki clothes of European style.
