each man was independent of every other. Even parental authority was commonly disregarded by a youth as soon as he could provide for his own wants.
Mr. Stow states that polygamy was common among the Bushmen in the days of their undisputed possession of the country. Kicherer, as already stated, affirms that they were polygamists. And Barrow asserts that at Kruger's farm at the Sneeuwberg he saw a Bushman with two wives and a little child. The same writer also, after coming by surprise upon a Bushman horde, remarks that it appeared customary for the elderly men to have two wives, one old and past childbearing and the other young. On this occasion he noticed that all the men had the cartilage of their noses bored, through which they wore a piece of wood or a porcupine's quill.[1]
The reverend John Campbell, too, when travelling in the country north of the Orange river in 1813, came by surprise upon a party of Bushmen, and states that their leader, whom he called Makoon, had two wives, each only about four feet in height.[2] The same traveller in 1820 was at a farm just beyond the mountains a short distance north of Beaufort West, where about fifty individuals, men, women, and children, of the Bushman race were living. Mr. Smit, the owner of the farm, spoke their language fluently. He gave Mr. Campbell much information upon them, and stated: “they make use of no form or ceremony at their marriages, if marriages they can be called. The men have frequently four or five wives, and often exchange wives with each other.”[3]
- ↑ Travels into the Interior of Southern Africa, in which are described the character and the condition of the Dutch Colonists of the Cape of Good Hope and of the several tribes of natives beyond its limits, &c., &c., &c. By John Barrow. Two quarto volumes, published at London in 1801–4.
- ↑ Travels in South Africa undertaken at the request of the Missionary Society, by John Campbell, Minister of Kingsland Chapel. Demi octavo, 400 pages, London, 1815. The incident referred to is mentioned on pages 235 and 236.
- ↑ Travels in South Africa undertaken at the request of the London Missionary Society, being a Narrative of a Second Journey in the Interior of that Country. By the Rev. John Campbell. Two octavo volumes, London, 1822. The statement transcribed above is on page 30 of the first volume.
