Ethnography and Condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505/Chapter 3
Chapter III.
The Bushmen (continued).
A cave with its front protected from the wind and stormy weather by a few branches of trees, or the centre of a small circle of bushes over which mats or skins of wild animals were stretched, was the best dwelling that they aspired to possess. Failing either of these, they scooped a hole in the ground, placed a few stones round it or bent a few sticks over it, and spread a mat or skin above to serve as a roof. A little grass at the bottom of the hole formed a bed, and though it was not much larger than the nest of an ostrich, an individual by bending the body into a curve could lie down in it. Each person, male or female, except young children, in such circumstances thus required a separate reposing place. Of furniture or implements of any kind except ostrich egg shells for holding water, digging sticks, and bows and arrows with quivers, their abodes were absolutely destitute.
The ordinary food of these people consisted of roots, berries, wild plants, grass seed, locusts, larvae of ants—now commonly called Bushman rice by European colonists,—honey, gum, fish, reptiles, birds, and mammalia of all kinds. Those who lived on the sea shore gathered oysters, mussels, cockles, and salt water fish for their subsistence. They did not know how to make any kind of boat or raft that could be used on the sea, but gathered all the small fish left in pools among rocks when the tide was low. No chance of plundering the intruding tribes of domestic cattle was allowed to escape them. They were capable of remaining a long time without food,[1] and could then devour immense quantities of meat without any ill effects. They were careless of the future, and were happy if the wants of the moment were supplied. Thus, when a large animal was killed, no trouble was taken to preserve a portion of its flesh, but the time was spent in alternate gorging, sleeping, and dancing, until not a particle of carrion was left. When a drove of domestic cattle was stolen, several were slaughtered at once and their carcases shared with birds of prey, while if their recapture was considered possible, every animal was hamstrung or killed.
Such wanton destruction, more than any other circumstance, caused the wild people to be detested by the Hottentots and the Bantu, as well as by the European colonists at a later date. From their point of view, however, they regarded any injury they could inflict upon members of other races as justifiable. Those races were intruders into the land that had been solely possessed by their ancestors from the earliest times, the game, which was their cattle, was killed without scruple by the invaders of their domains, their fountains and streams were appropriated without their consent, only the deserts were left to them; why then should they not retaliate, and do as much harm as they possibly could to those who had done such grievous wrong to them?
In some parts of the country the Bushmen made long walls by piling up stones, for the purpose of capturing game. These walls were constructed in the form of the sides of an isosceles triangle, with a narrow open space at the apex. Just beyond this was a deep pit carefully covered over, into which the animals that were driven forward fell without chance of escape. The construction of these walls required much labour, but the hunters were not deficient in energy when the capture of game was the end in view, and the embankments were probably only gradually lengthened and increased in height as the utility of the device became more apparent. They made pits for entrapping the elephant and the hippopotamus at the approaches to rivers, and poisoned pools of water, so that any animal which drank perished, Those who lived in the vicinity of streams containing fish used long baskets shaped like scoop nets made of reeds for the purpose of capturing the smaller kinds, and speared the huge barbels and yellow fish with harpoons of bone.
Honey was obtained in many localities in large quantities. The bees frequently make their hives in crevices in the faces of precipices, but it was a very lofty precipice that a Bushman would not scale or be lowered down from above to secure the spoil. A peg driven into a crack in the rock or any little projecting ledge gave him a foothold, and no baboon would venture where he feared to go. The comb was used for food, but most of the honey was fermented and consumed as an intoxicant. The Bushmen were inveterate smokers of dacha or wild hemp, a plant widely distributed in South Africa, and which possesses great intoxicating properties.
Their principal weapons were bows and arrows, but when hard pressed by an enemy and in the chase they used anything that came to hand, stones for throwing, sticks, darts, stone-headed spears, or anything else that could be improvised. The bows were nothing more than pieces of saplings or branches of trees scraped down a little and strung with a cord formed by twisting together the sinews of animals. It was thus almost useless in wet weather, as the cord when damp was liable to relax, so at such times the Bushmen never went abroad. The arrows were made of reeds, pointed generally with bone, but sometimes with chipped stone flakes. The arrowhead and the lashing by which it was secured to the reed were coated with a deadly poison, so that the slightest wound caused death. The arrows were carried in a quiver usually made of the bark of a species of euphorbia, which is still called by Europeans in South Africa the kokerboom or quiver tree. They were formidable chiefly on account of the poison, as they could not be projected with accuracy to a distance of over fifty metres, and from their frailty had in general little penetrating power. The most expert Bushmen were able to discharge arrows in very rapid succession and at short distances with a fairly accurate aim.
They—or at least some of them—were acquainted with antidotes to the poisons which they used, but were very careful not to inflict wounds upon themselves or even to allow the deadly substance to come in contact with any part of their bodies. The poisons were obtained from snakes, some kinds of caterpillars, and different shrubs.
With the flora in his neighbourhood the Bushman was much better acquainted than Europeans who are not botanists in general are. He knew the qualities of every plant, could at once select those that were edible and reject those that were noxious, and could even make use of those with medicinal properties in case of illness. In this branch of knowledge he had been educated by his mother, when as a little child he went with her daily to seek for food.
The Bushmen used stone flakes for various purposes, but took no trouble to polish them or give them a neat appearance. Many implements were commonly made of horn or bone. There was a stone implement, however, upon which a large amount of care and labour was bestowed in general use among these people when Europeans first became acquainted with them, though it was unknown in very remote times. It was a little spherical boulder, from nine to fourteen centimetres or 3½ to 5½ inches in diameter, such as may be picked up in abundance in many parts of the country, through the centre of which the Bushman drilled a hole large enough to receive a digging-stick, to which it gave weight. With the tools at his disposal, this must have required much time and patience, so that in his eyes a stone when drilled undoubtedly had a very high value. On it he depended for food in seasons of drought, when all the game had fled from his part of the country. Drilled stones of smaller size have occasionally been found in places once the favourite abodes of Bushmen, but from which those savages have long since disappeared. None not large enough to give weight to a digging-stick have been seen in use by any European who has put his observations on record, but from Bushman paintings it is known that moderately sized ones were employed as heads of fighting sticks, and it is conjectured that the very small ones were intended as amulets.
It is not safe, however, for a European to make any surmise regarding the use of a stone implement which he has never seen used, because he cannot analyse the working of the mind of a savage. Flat circular stones with a hole drilled through the centre have been found in different parts of the country, but until quite recently no one could conceive any use that could be made of them. They were not adapted for digging-sticks, as they were not more than three or four centimetres in thickness, and the surface was too large for such a purpose. What could they have been designed for?
Not long ago a farmer was digging a pit in his ground near Kimberley, and at some depth below the surface he came across some ostrich eggshells. Still deeper he found a flat stone firmly fixed on the surface of a stratum of rock or very hard ground, and on examination the stone was seen to have a hole in it, which was carefully plugged. When the plug was removed, a little stream of water flowed out, which explained the whole matter. The Bushmen who occupied that part of the country until the beginning of the nineteenth century had desired to conceal the water, in order either to preserve it for themselves alone, or to compel the game to resort to poisoned pools, and therefore had closed the eye of the spring in such a manner that neither animals nor men, except themselves, could have access to it. A European would never have imagined that a stone of this kind was intended for such a purpose, if he had found it by accident somewhere else.[2]
Mr. Stow mentions various implements of stone which were manufactured by Bushmen with much labour and skill, but these were only produced after their contact with other races, and were confined to small localities. None of them surpassed the common spherical weight as a work of labour or art.
There is no record of a European having ever seen a Bushman manufacturing other stone implements than knives and arrowheads, and no one except Mr. Stow appears to have made inquiry into the matter until it was impossible to derive any information from the people themselves. Even he commenced his investigations at least half a century too late to gain full knowledge of the matter. But as the various crude unpolished implements found in all parts of South Africa were in use by the Bushmen when white men first came in contact with those savages, there can be no doubt that they fashioned them.
In many other parts of the world perforated stones are plentiful, but most of them differ in some respects from those drilled by the Bushmen, which were all of one type. In the Antiquarian Museum at Edinburgh there is a very fine collection of such stones found in Scotland. There are small ones evidently used in comparatively recent times as weights for nets and in spinning, there are enormously large ones also of not very ancient manufacture, and there are many of the usual size of the Bushman implement. Some are elegantly ornamented, showing the use of tools of metal. Others have holes the same size throughout, leading to a similar conclusion. Those that have holes narrowing from both sides towards the centre, like all the Bushman stones, are usually flat at top and bottom, not globular in form. The Bushman for some unknown reason preferred an approximate sphere, thus any observant eye with a series of each in view would at once detect that they were made by different classes of workmen.
People in a low condition of society do not use clothing for purposes of modesty, but to protect themselves against inclement weather. And as the Bushmen were hardly affected by any degree of either heat or cold that is experienced in South Africa, whether on the plains in midsummer or on the mountains in midwinter, the raiment of the males was usually scanty, and in the chase was thrown entirely aside. At the best it consisted merely of the skin of an animal wrapped round the person. Adult females wore a little apron, and fastened a skin over their shoulders. Both sexes used belts, which in times of scarcity they tightened to assuage the pangs of hunger, and on festive occasions they rubbed their bodies with grease and coloured clays or soot, sometimes powdered with aromatic plants such as buchu, which made them even more ugly than they were by nature.
When the men expected to meet an enemy, they fastened their arrows in an erect position round their heads, in order to appear as formidable as possible. But they never exposed themselves unnecessarily to danger, and tried always to attack from an ambush or a place that would give them the advantage of striking the first blow before their adversaries were aware of their presence. A poisoned arrow, shot from a little scrub in which a Bushman was lying concealed, often ended the career of an unwary Hottentot traveller.
This habit caused them to be feared by Hottentots and Bantu alike. There is an excellent representation of the feeling of the Bantu towards the primitive people, given by a Zulu to the reverend Canon Callaway, and published by him in his Nursery Tales, Traditions, and Histories of the Zulus. It reads as follows:
“The Dreadfulness of the Abatwa.
“They are dreaded by men; they are not dreadful for the greatness of their bodies, nor for appearing to be men; no, there is no appearance of manliness; and greatness there is none; they are little things, which go under the grass. And a man goes looking in front of him, thinking, ‘If there come a man or a wild beast, I shall see.’ And, forsooth, an Umutwa is there under the grass; and the man feels when he is already pierced by an arrow; he looks, but does not see the man who shot it. It is this, then, that takes away the strength; for they will die without seeing the man with whom they will fight. On that account, then, the country of the Abatwa is dreadful; for men do not see the man with whom they are going to fight. The Abatwa are fleas, which are unseen whence they come; yet they teaze a man; they rule over him, they exalt themselves over him, until he is unable to sleep, being unable to lie down, and unable to quiet his heart; for the flea is small; the hand of a man is large; it is necessary that it should lay hold of something which can be felt. Just so are the Abatwa; their strength is like that of the fleas, which have the mastery in the night, and the Abatwa have the mastery through high grass, for it conceals them; they are not seen. That then is the power with which the Abatwa conquer men, concealment, they laying wait for men; they see them for their part, but they are not seen.
“The bow with which they shoot beast or man does not kill by itself alone; it kills because the point of their arrow is smeared with poison, in order that as soon as it enters, it may cause much blood to flow; blood runs from the whole body, and the man dies forthwith. But that poison of theirs, many kinds of it are known to hunters of the elephant. That then is the dreadfulness of the Abatwa, on account of which they are dreaded.”
The Bushmen wore few ornaments, not because they were careless about decorating their persons, but because it was difficult to obtain anything for the purpose. They were without metals of any kind, and in the vast interior, as they knew nothing of commerce, they could not obtain sea-shells. The best they could aspire to was to cut little circular disks of tortoise and ostrich egg-shell, drill holes in them, and string them on thongs. It requires some reflection to realise the amount of patient labour expended upon a single ornament of this kind, manufactured with stone and bone implements. In other cases they made grooves round the teeth of animals, and then strung a number together. These ornaments were worn on the forehead, and round the neck, arms, waist, and legs. Sometimes a cord of sinew was passed through the nose and ostrich egg-shell disks were strung on each side, which then hung over the cheeks.
A consideration of how much value such a simple implement as a tinder-box would have had to these people may aid in enabling a European to comprehend the life that they led. They knew how to obtain fire by twirling a piece of wood round rapidly in the socket of another piece, but the preparation of the apparatus took much time, and a considerable amount of labour was needed to produce a flame. Under these circumstances it was a task of the women to preserve a fire when once made, and as they moved their habitations to a large animal when it was killed, instead of trying to carry the meat away, this was often a difficult matter. Sometimes it necessitated carrying a burning stick for four or five hours, or, when it was nearly consumed, kindling a fire for the sole purpose of getting another brand to go on with. No small amount of labour would therefore have been saved by the possession of a flint and a piece of steel.
These wild people lived in little communities; often consisting of only a few families. It was impossible for a large number, such as would constitute an important tribe, to gain a subsistence solely from the chase and the natural products of the earth in any part of South Africa at any time, and more especially after the Hottentots and the Bantu had taken possession of the choicest sections. When a Bushman tribe is spoken of therefore, the term implies only a puny horde never exceeding two or three hundred souls at most. Such a band claimed the right to a fairly well defined tract of country, and any aggression beyond its borders would naturally be resented by the occupants of the next section. If a mountain intervened, the probabilities would be that the dialects of the language spoken on the different sides would vary so greatly as to prevent intercourse, had there been no other cause to keep each little band within its own bounds. Mr. Stow ascertained that these groups called themselves by the names of the animals that were depicted on the walls of their principal caves or engraved on the rocks at their principal residences, thus one band would be the people of the ostrich, another the people of the python, another the people of the eland, and so on.
The early Dutch colonists observed that they were amazingly prolific, a circumstance that is not surprising if one reflects that they were much less subject to disease than Europeans, and that every woman without exception bore children. Their numbers must therefore in remote times have been kept down by war or violence among themselves, just as they were kept down by constant strife in the territory bordering on that occupied by the Hottentots and Bantu after the intrusion of those people. In such a condition of society there could never have been peace for any length of time, for with a rapid growth of population the only alternatives would have been aggression or death from famine.
There was a difference in the disposition of individual Bushmen, though not to the same extent as is seen in civilised people. Towards the invaders that despoiled them of their game and their hunting grounds it was but natural that they should show vindictiveness and relentless cruelty; but they were fierce and passionate in their dealings with each other. Human life, even that of their nearest kindred, was sacrificed on very slight provocation. They did not understand what quarter in battle meant, and as they never spared an enemy who was in their power, when themselves surrounded so that all hope of escape was gone, they fought till their last man fell. Yet after the colonisation of the country Europeans often observed that many of those who lived temporarily on farms at a distance from their former abodes were not insensible to acts of kindness, and were even capable of feeling gratitude. In this respect they were like those wild animals that in a state of restraint show attachment to their keepers. A pleasing trait in their character was fidelity in positions of trust. At the beginning of the nineteenth century many colonial farmers were in the habit of entrusting herds of cattle to the care of Bushmen in their neighbourhood, supplying them with food and tobacco in return, and seldom found them unfaithful. Another favourable feature was that no distress was so great as to induce them to devour human flesh, as so many Bantu were in the habit of doing.
Their manner of living was such as to develop only qualities essential to hunters. In keenness of vision and fleetness of foot they were surpassed by no people on earth, they could travel immense distances without taking rest, they could scale mountains and steep rocks with the agility of baboons, and yet their frames were so feeble as to be incapable of protracted labour. Their sense of smell was so dull that they experienced no discomfort from remaining for days together close to carrion, and their cave dwellings were disgustingly filthy. The stench from their persons was excessive, owing chiefly to their uncleanly habits and to their use of rancid grease when painting themselves for any festivity.
They possessed an intense love of liberty and of their wild animal way of life. Given only an abundance of food, especially of the flesh of game, and they were cheerful and merry in the highest degree. Mr. Stow states that before the intrusion of the stronger races they were governed by hereditary chiefs, and even down to our own times there have been claimants to such positions. But these chiefs were mere leaders in war and hunting exploits, and their rule did not extend to the exercise of judicial control. Far more than is the case among people possessing domestic cattle, 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.[3]
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.[4] 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.”[5]
With all this evidence to the contrary, it would be rash to assert that the Bushmen were strict monogamists. Circumstances would appear to have governed them in this respect. If the number of females in any locality was much greater than that of males, polygamy would be the natural result, for of course the men would have no qualms of conscience about the practice. But when the sexes were equal, or nearly equal, monogamy was the rule.
It is certain that in modern days the instances of a man living with more than one woman at a time have been exceedingly rare. Miss Lloyd, after long inquiry, could learn of but one such case, and Mr. Dunn and other investigators could hear of none whatever. That is not to say that one male and one female attached themselves to each other for life, though this may often have occurred; but that as long as they lived together a second man or a second woman was not admitted as a member of the family. Their passionate tempers prevented the presence of rivals in the same abode. Chastity, however, was unknown and uncared for, and any disagreement was sufficient to cause the separation of the man and woman, when new connections could immediately be formed by both. In general there was no marriage ceremony, the mere consent of both parties being all that was needed, but in some of the communities a youth who desired to take to himself a girl was obliged to prove himself a man by fighting with others for her and winning her by victory.
The Bushmen possessed several musical instruments, but all of the crudest kind. The most common was a bow, with a piece of quill attached in the cord, with which by blowing and inhaling the breath a noise agreeable to their ears was produced. Pieces of reed of different lengths were used as flutes, and a drum was formed by stretching a dried antelope skin over any hollow article. To their persons when dancing they attached rattles, made of hollow globes of dried hide containing pebbles, which added to the noise of the rude chant and the stamping of the feet.
They were fond of dancing by moonlight, after abundance of flesh had been obtained by the slaughter of some large animal. There were various kinds of dances, each of which had its appropriate chant, but nearly all consisted of contortions of the body rather than of movements from place to place. Some of them were lascivious to the last degree, for the savages were devoid of all feeling of shame. Others, which perhaps must be considered the highest in order, were imitations of the actions of different animals. These dances caused much excitement, one especially, which was attended with great exertion of the body, frequently causing blood to flow from the noses of some of the performers and ending in the utter exhaustion of others.
The games that they practised were chiefly imitation hunts, in which some or all of them were disguised and represented animals. In this pastime they displayed much cleverness, whether they acted as men, or as baboons, or as lions in pursuit of antelopes. But it was not often that they engaged in play, for the effort to sustain existence was with them severe and almost constant.
At early dawn the Bushman rose from his bed of grass, and scanned the country around in search of game. If any living thing was within range of his far-seeing eye, he grasped his bow and quiver of arrows, and with his dog set off in pursuit. His wife and children followed, carrying fire and collecting bulbs and anything else that was edible on the way. They could pursue his track unerringly by indications that would escape the keenest European eye: a broken twig, a freshly turned stone, or bent blades of grass being sufficient to guide them aright. At nightfall, if they were fortunate, they collected about the body of an antelope, and there they remained till nothing that could be consumed was left. Or if a small animal was killed early in the day, it might be carried to the cave where they and others had their chief abode, to be generously shared with all the occupants, for in this respect the wild people were unselfish to the last degree. Such in general was their mode of existence, varied occasionally by either a great feast with boisterous revelry or a dire famine and tightened hunger belts. And so from day to day and year to year life passed on, without anything of an intellectual nature to ennoble it.
If the stone, horn, and bone implements, the weapons of the chase, the crude musical instruments, and the shell beads already mentioned be excluded, the Bushmen had little knowledge of manufactures. They had not advanced beyond the stage of making a coarse kind of pottery, and even this was extremely limited in use. But as they were artists, occasionally they attempted to decorate a jar by making a circle of lines or notches round it, which really had a neat effect. Add to this industry the plaiting of rush mats and net bags of fibres, in which their women carried ostrich egg-shells filled with water, and the list is exhausted.
They were firm believers in charms and witchcraft, and were always in dread of violating some custom—as for instance avoiding casting a shadow upon dying game—which they believed would cause disaster. A Bushman would not make a hole in the sandy bed of a river in order to obtain water, without first offering a little piece of meat, or some larvae of ants, or an arrow if he had nothing else, to propitiate the spirit of the stream, that was imagined by him to have the figure of a man hideous in aspect, and capable of making himself visible or invisible at will. And so with every act of his life, something had to be done or avoided to avert evil, to bring game within reach of his arrows, or to make the wild plants appear.
Their reasoning power was very low. They understood the habits of wild animals better than anything else, yet they believed the different species of game could converse with each other, and that there were animals and human beings who could exchange their forms at will, for instance that there were girls who could change themselves into lions, and baboons that could put on the appearance of men. The moon, according to the ideas of some of them, was a living thing, according to the notions of others it was a piece of hide which a man threw into the sky. In the same way the stars were once human beings, or they were pieces of food hurled into the air. As well might one attempt to get reasons for their fancies from European children six or seven years of age as from Bushmen: the reflective faculties of one were as fully developed as of the other.
Drs. Bleek and Lloyd obtained from several individuals prayers to the moon and stars, but everything connected with their religion—that is their dread of something outside of and more powerful than themselves—was vague and uncertain. They could give no explanation whatever about it, and they did not all hold the same opinions on the subject. Some of them spoke indeed of a powerful being termed 'Kaang or 'Cagn, but when questioned about him, their replies showed that they held him to be a man like themselves, though possessing charms of great power. Many are supposed to have had a vague belief in immortality, because they buried a dead man's weapons with him and laid the corpse with its face towards the rising sun, and their custom of cutting off a joint of the little finger was imagined to be due to a belief that by doing so they would secure an abundance of food in the future life; but probably very few of them ever gave a thought to such a matter. The wants of the present were sufficient to occupy their attention.
They buried their dead in shallow graves, over which they piled stones to prevent wild animals scraping the bodies up. In a cavity scooped out of the western wall of the grave the corpse was placed on its side, bent in a curve such as when sleeping it formed in life,[6] with its face turned towards the east. The bones were not broken, as by some Bantu, and as well as can be ascertained, all adult human bodies were interred. It is remarkable that the Bushmen should have performed the labour of making graves and raising cairns over them, when the Hottentots, who were so much superior to them in civilisation, looked for an anteater's den or some natural cavity in which to lay their dead, and many tribes of Bantu, so much higher still, did not bury the corpses of common people at all, but left them exposed in solitary places to be devoured by beasts of prey.
It is difficult to conceive of a human being in a more degraded condition than that of a Bushman. In some respects, however, he showed considerable ability, and there was certainly an enormous gulf between him and the highest of the brute creation. He possessed extraordinary powers of mimicry. Enclosed in a framework covered with the skin and plumage of an ostrich, he was in the habit of stalking game, and by carefully keeping his prey to windward, was able to approach within shooting distance, when the poison of his arrow completed the task. This, though the commonest disguise of a hunter, was but one of many, which varied according to circumstances. He could imitate the peculiarities of individuals of other races with whom he came in contact, and was fond of creating mirth by exhibiting them in the drollest manner.
In recent times travellers have noticed that the Bushmen are fond of showing their superiority to the large black men whenever they can do so. Thus in rainy weather when a number of Bakwena are endeavouring in vain to kindle a fire in the open air, a Bushman will look on with a smile of contempt until they desist, when he will produce his fire sticks and accomplish what they could not do. Or if they fail to find water on the border of the desert, he will wait till they are almost speechless from thirst, and then apparently by some instinct lead the way to a place where a little may be obtained by digging. In such cases he exhibits great satisfaction and pride.
And what is most remarkable in a being whose ordinary habits were not much more elevated than those of animals, he was an artist. In caverns, on the walls of caves, and on the sheltered sides of great rocks he drew pictures in profile of the animals with which he was acquainted, and then painted the spaces outlined. The tints were made with different kinds of ochre having considerable capability of withstanding the decay of time, and they were mixed with grease, so that they penetrated the rock more or less deeply according to its porousness. There are caves on the margins of rivers containing paintings which have been exposed to the action of water during occasional floods for at least a hundred and fifty years, and the colours are yet unfaded where the rock has not crumbled away.[7]
In point of artistic merit, however, the paintings were seldom superior to the drawings on slates made by European children eight or nine years of age, though there were occasional instances of game being delineated not only in a fairly correct but in a graceful manner, showing that some of the workmen possessed more skill than others. In none of them was any knowledge of perspective, and in only one or two of the very best any attempt at shading displayed. Two or more colours were sometimes used, for instance, the head or legs of an animal might be white, and the remainder of the body brown, but—with extremely rare exceptions—each colour was evenly laid on as far as it went. In short, the paintings might be mistaken for the work of children, but for the high positions of many of them on the rocks, and the scenes being chiefly those of the chase. A peculiarity in them is that the human form is almost invariably grotesquely outlined. The lion also is never represented perfectly, probably from a superstitious fear of offending the formidable animal that often furnished food by leaving parts of the large antelopes uneaten, and that could when provoked do so much harm. In only a few of the paintings are the feet of the animals shown. Sometimes disguises are represented, usually a man's body with an animal's head, though these are rare.[8]
In some places, where the rock was very smooth and hard, the Bushman drew an outline of a figure, and then chipped away the surface within it or the lines along it. The labour required for such a task, without metallic implements, must have been great, and the workman was undoubtedly possessed of much patience. He was a sculptor in the elementary stage of the art. Mr. Stow believed that the engravers and painters were distinct branches of the race, and 
Engraving of a zebra on a rock in the district of Vryburg.
(From a Photograph of a cast in the South African Museum in Capetown. The original is thirteen inches in length.) in his work he classified them as such. Dr. Lloyd, however, was of opinion that the method of delineating the figures depended merely upon the condition of the locality, the artists being the same, and with this view Messrs. Bain, Dunn, and other investigators agree.
The late Mr. R. N. Hall, the well-known archaeologist, who made very extensive explorations in Rhodesia, and who discovered a great number of Bushman paintings and engravings, asserted that the oldest he found there are superior as works of art to the more modern. All of them were executed before the arrival of Bantu in the country, for there is not a single instance of individuals of that race or of their weapons being represented, and the Bushmen were entirely exterminated by the Bantu invaders.[9] These paintings and engravings must therefore be at least over a thousand years of age. The engravings are not easily discovered, as the rocks upon which they were made have completely resumed their original colour. Some of the paintings were executed over others that had become faded from long exposure, and there are even instances where this has taken place three or four times. Who can say when the earliest of them was executed?
Mr. Hall compares the pictures and engravings of the Aurignacian negroids in Europe with those of the Bushmen in Bhodesia, and shows them to be similar in almost every respect. This extends even to the peculiar attitudes that some of the artists must have placed themselves in. He states that “some must have painted while lying prone on their chests or sideways, and on their backs inside narrow or low fissures; an average sized European could not have painted some of the pictures which are in difficult positions. Many are ten and sixteen feet above ground level.”
In addition to artistic instincts, the wild people possessed a faculty—it might almost be termed an additional sense—of which Europeans are destitute. They could make their way in a straight line to any place where they had been before. Even a child nine or ten years of age, removed from its parents to a distance of several days' journey, and without opportunity of carefully observing the features of the country traversed, could months later return unerringly. They could give no explanation of the means by which they accomplished a task seemingly so difficult. Many of the inferior animals, however, have this faculty, as notably the dove, so that it is not surprising to find the lowest type of man in possession of it.
The life led by these savages was in truth a wretched one, judged from a European standard. They had no contact with people beyond their own little communities, except in war, for they carried on no commerce. If a pestilence had swept them all from the face of the earth, nothing more would have been left to mark where they had once been than the drilled stones, rudely shaped arrowheads, rough pottery, rock paintings, and crude sculptures. Their pleasures were hardly superior to those of dumb animals. But it is not correct to look at them from this standpoint, or to compare them with white people reduced to the same level of poverty. They knew of nothing better, they were all in the same condition and shared alike, so that envy was not felt, their cares were very few, and serious illness was hardly known among them. They probably enjoyed, therefore, more real happiness in life than the destitute class in any European city.
They had a rich stock of traditionary stories, which old women told to little children by evening fires, when food was plentiful and the able-bodied were enjoying themselves in other ways. In Drs. Bleek and L. C. Lloyd's book a number of these folklore tales can be found, and it must be remembered that even the grown-up people believed them to be true narratives, for they were as credulous in such matters as infants could be. But judging from the manner in which Bantu women tell such stories, a great deal of their interest is lost when they are read in print. A Xosa woman when narrating one of them displays all kinds of gestures, alters her voice in the dialogues, and sings the parts capable of such treatment, in short, puts life into the tale. It may be taken for certain that a Bushwoman did the same, and so even the endless repetitions of the same thing would not be wearisome, especially to children. The following are literal translations of two such stories, taken down by Miss Lloyd from the dictation of a Bushman named ǀhanǂkass'ō, and published by her in the Folklore Journal of May 1880:
“The Son of the Wind.
“The wind (the narrator explains the Son of the Wind is here meant) was formerly still. And he rolled (a ball) to ǃná-ka-ti. He exclaimed, ‘Oh ǃná-ka-ti there it goes.’ And ǃná-ka-ti exclaimed, ‘Oh comrade! there it goes!’ because ǃná-ka-ti did not know his (the other one's) name. Therefore ǃná-ka-ti said, ‘Oh comrade! there it goes!’ He who was the wind, he was the one who said, ‘Oh! ǃná-ka-ti! there it goes.’
“Therefore ǃná-ka-ti went to question his mother about the other one's name. He exclaimed, ‘Oh! our mother! utter for me yonder comrade's name; for comrade utters my name; I do not utter comrade's name. I would also utter comrade's name when I am rolling (a ball) to him. For I do not utter comrade's name; I would also utter his name when I roll a ball to him.’ Therefore his mother exclaimed, ‘I will not utter to thee comrade's name. For thou shalt wait, that father may first strongly shelter the hut; and then I will utter for thee comrade's name. And thou shalt, when I have uttered for thee comrade's name, thou must, when I am the one who has uttered for thee comrade's name, thou must scamper away, thou must run home, that thou mayest come into the hut, whilst thou feelest that the wind would blow thee away.’
“Therefore the child went away; they (the two children) went to roll (the ball) there. Therefore he (ǃná-ka-ti) again went to his mother, he again went to question his mother about the other one's name. And his mother exclaimed, ‘ǀérriten-ǃkuan-ǃkuan it is; ǃgau-ǃgaubu-ti it is. He is ǀérriten-ǃkuan-ǃkuan; he is ǃgau-ǃgaubu-ti, he is ǀérriten-ǃkuan-ǃkuan.’
“Therefore ǃná-ka-ti went away. He went to roll (the ball) there, while he did not utter the other one's name, because he felt that his mother was the one who had thus spoken to him. She said, ‘Thou must not, at first, utter comrade's name. Thou must, at first, be silent, even if comrade be the one who is uttering thy name. Therefore thou shalt, when thou hast uttered comrade's name, thou must run home, whilst thou feelest that the wind would blow thee away.’
“Therefore ǃná-ka-ti went away. They went to roll (the ball) there, while the other was the one who uttered his (ǃná-ka-ti's) name; while he felt that he (ǃná-ka-ti) intended that his father might first finish sheltering the hut, and (when) he beheld that his father sat down, then he would, afterwards, utter the other one's name, when he saw that his father had finished sheltering the hut.
“Therefore, when he beheld that his father finished sheltering the hut, then he exclaimed, ‘There it goes! Oh ǀérriten-ǃkuan-ǃkuan! there it goes! Oh ǃgau-ǃgaubu-ti! there it goes!’ And he scampered away, he ran home; while the other one began to lean over, and the other one fell down. He lay kicking (violently) upon the flat ground. Therefore the people's huts vanished away; the wind blew away their (sheltering) bushes, together with the huts, while the people could not see for the dust. Therefore, his (the wind's) mother came out of the hut (i.e. of the wind's hut); his mother came to raise him up; his mother grasping (him), set him on his feet. And he was unwilling, (and) wanted to lie still. His mother, taking hold (of him), set him upright. Therefore, the wind became still; while the wind had, at first, while it lay, made the dust rise.
“Therefore, we who are Bushmen, we are wont to say, ‘The wind seems to have lain down, for it does not gently blow = it blows very strongly).’ For, when it stands (upright), then it is wont to be still, if it stands; for it seems to have lain down, when it feels like this. Its knee is that which makes a noise, if it lies down, for its knee does make a noise.”
“The Wind.
“The wind was formerly a person. He became a feathered thing (i.e. a bird). And he flew, while he no longer walked as formerly; for he flew, and he dwelt in the mountains (that is, in a mountain hole). Therefore he flew. He was formerly a person. Therefore he formerly rolled (a ball); he shot; while he felt that he was a person. He became a feathered thing; and then he flew, and he inhabited a mountain hole. And he was coming out of it, he flew about, and he returns home to it. And he comes to sleep in it; and he early awakes (and) goes out of it; he flies away; again he flies away. And he again returns home, while he feels that he has sought food. And he eats, about, about, about, about, he again returns home. And he, again, comes to sleep in it (that is, in his hole).”
The third story given here was taken down by Joseph M. Orpen, Esqre., British resident in Griqualand East, from the lips of a Bushman named Qing, who lived in the Maluti mountains. It was published by Mr. Orpen, with other tales and descriptive matter, in the Cape Monthly Magazine for July 1874, under the title of A Glimpse into the Mythology of the Maluti Bushmen. Mr. Orpen does not use the usual signs for the clicks in the Bushman words, but the letters which in the Xosa dialect are employed to represent three of them.
“Story of Cagn.
“Cagn sent Cogaz (his eldest son) to cut sticks to make bows. When Cogaz came to the bush, the baboons (co'gn) caught him. They called all the other baboons together to hear him, and they asked him who sent him there. He said his father sent him to cut sticks to make bows. So they said, ‘your father thinks himself more clever than we are; he wants those bows to kill us, so we'll kill you,’ and they killed Cogaz, and tied him up in the top of a tree, and they danced round the tree, singing (an intranscribable baboon song), with a chorus saying ‘Cagn thinks he is clever.’ Cagn was asleep when Cogaz was killed, but when he awoke he told Coti (his wife) to give him his charms, and he put some on his nose, and said the baboons have hung Cogaz. So he went to where the baboons were, and when they saw him coming close by, they changed their song so as to omit the words about Cagn, but a little baboon girl said, ‘don't sing that way, sing the way you were singing before.’ And Cagn said, ‘sing as the little girl wishes,’ and they sang and danced away as before. And Cagn said, ‘that is the song I heard, that is what I wanted, go on dancing till I return;’ and he went and fetched a basket full of pegs, and he went behind each of them as they were dancing and making a great dust, and he drove a peg into each one's back, and gave it a crack, and sent them off to the mountains to live on roots, beetles, and scorpions, as a punishment. Before that baboons were men, but since that they have tails, and their tails hang crooked. Then Cagn took Cogaz down, and gave him canna, and made him live again.”
The following story is taken from the volume Bushman Folklore by Drs. Bleek and Lloyd. Absurd as it may seem to European readers, the narrator believed that the events recorded were actual facts.
The Mantis assumes the form of a Hartebeest.
The Mantis is one who cheated the children, by becoming a hartebeest, by resembling a dead hartebeest. He feigning death lay in front of the children, when the children went to seek plants, because he thought (wished) that the children should cut him up with a stone knife, as these children did not possess metal knives.
The children perceived him, when he had laid himself stretched out, while his horns were turned backwards. The children then said to each other: “It is a hartebeest that yonder lies; it is dead.” The children jumped for joy (saying): “Our hartebeest! we shall eat great meat.” They broke off stone knives by striking, they skinned the Mantis. The skin of the Mantis snatched itself quickly out of the children's hands. They say to each other : “Hold thou strongly fast for me the hartebeest skin!” Another child said: “The hartebeest skin pulled at me.”
Her elder sister said: “It does seem that the hartebeest has not a wound from the people who shot it, for the hartebeest appears to have died of itself. Although the hartebeest is fat, the hartebeest has no shooting wound.”
Her elder sister cut off a shoulder of the hartebeest, and put it down (on a bush). The hartebeest's shoulder arose by itself, it sat down nicely (on the other side of the bush) while it placed itself nicely. She (then) cut off a thigh of the hartebeest, and put it down (on a bush); it placed itself nicely on the bush. She cut off another shoulder of the hartebeest, and put it upon (another) bush. It arose, and sat upon a soft (portion of the) bush; as it felt that the bush (upon which the child had laid it) pricked it.
Another elder sister cut off the other thigh of the hartebeest. They spoke thus: “This hartebeest's flesh does move; that must be why it shrinks away.”
They arrange their burdens; one says to the other: “Cut and break off the hartebeest's neck, so that thy younger sister may carry the hartebeest's head, for (thy) yonder sitting elder sister, she shall carry the hartebeest's back, she who is a big girl. For we must carrying return (home), for we came (and) cut up this hartebeest. Its flesh moves, its flesh snatches itself out of our hand. If of itself places itself nicely.”
They take up the flesh of the mantis; they say to the child: “Carry the hartebeest's head, that father may put it to roast for you.” The child slung on the hartebeest's head, she called to her sisters: “Taking hold, help me up ; this hartebeest's head is not light.” Her sisters taking hold of her help her up.
They go away, they return (home). The hartebeest's head slips downwards, because the mantis's head wishes to stand on the ground. The child lifts it up (with her shoulders), the hartebeest's head (by turning a little) removes the thong from the hartebeest's eye. The hartebeest's head was whispering, it whispering said to the child: “O child! the thong is standing in front of my eye. Take away for me the thong; the thong is shutting my eye.” The child looked behind her; the mantis winked at the child. The child whimpered; her elder sister looked back at her. Her elder sister called to her: “Come forward quickly ; we return (home).”
The child exclaimed : “This hartebeest's head is able to speak.” Her elder sister scolded her: “Lying come forward; we go. Art thou not coming deceiving (us) about the hartebeest's head?”
The child said to her elder sister: “The hartebeest has winked at me with the hartebeest's eye; the hartebeest desired that I should take away the thong from his eye. Thus it was that the hartebeest's head lay looking behind my back.” The child looked back at the hartebeest's head, the hartebeest opened and shut its eyes. The child said to her elder sister: “The hartebeest's head must be alive, for it is opening and shutting its eyes.”
The child, walking on, unloosened the thong; the child let fall the hartebeest's head. The mantis scolded the child, he complained about his head. He scolded the child: “Oh! oh! my head! Oh! bad little person! hurting me in my head.”
Her sisters let fall the flesh of the mantis. The flesh of the mantis sprang together, it quickly joined itself to the lower part of the mantis's back. The head of the mantis quickly joined (itself) upon the top of the neck of the mantis. The neck of the mantis quickly joined (itself) upon the upper part of the mantis's spine. The upper part of the mantis's spine joined itself to the mantis's back. The thigh of the mantis sprang forward, it joined itself to the mantis's back. His other thigh ran forward, racing it joined itself to the other side of the mantis's back. The chest of the mantis ran forward, it joined itself to the front side of the upper part of the mantis's spine. The shoulder blade of the mantis ran forward, it joined itself on to the ribs of the mantis. The other shoulder blade of the mantis ran forward, while it felt that the ribs of the mantis had joined themselves on, when they raced.
The children still ran on; he (the mantis) arose from the ground and ran, while he chased the children,—he being whole, his head being round,—while he felt that he was a man. Therefore he was stepping along with (his) shoes, while he jogged with his shoulder blade. He saw that the children had reached home; he quickly turned about, he, jogging with his shoulder blade, descended to the river. He went along the river bed, making a noise as he stepped in the soft sand, he yonder went quickly out of the river bed. He returned, coming out at a different side of the house; he returned, passing in front of the house.
The children said: “We have been (and) seen a hartebeest which was dead. That hartebeest, it was the one which we cut up with stone knives; its flesh quivered. The hartebeest's flesh quickly snatched itself out of our hands. It by itself was placing itself nicely upon bushes which were comfortable; while the hartebeest felt that the hartebeest's head would go along whispering. While the child who sits there carried it, it talking stood behind the child's back.”
The child said to her father: “O father! dost thou seem to think that the hartebeest's head did not talk to me? For the hartebeest's head felt that it would be looking at the hole above the nape of my neck, as I went along; and then it was that the hartebeest's head told me that I should take away for him the thong from his eye. For the thong lay in front of his eye.”
Her father said to them: “Have you been and cut up the old man, the mantis, while he lay pretending to be dead in front of you?”
The children said: “We thought that the hartebeest's horns were there, the hartebeest had hair. The hartebeest was one which had not an arrow's wound; while the hartebeest felt that the hartebeest would talk. Therefore the hartebeest came and chased us, when we had put down the hartebeest's flesh. The hartebeest's flesh jumped together, while it springing gathered (itself) together, that it might mend, that it might mending hold together to the hartebeest's back. The hartebeest's back also joined on. Therefore the hartebeest ran forward, while his body was red, when he had no hair (that coat of hair in which he had been lying down) as he ran, swinging his arm like a man. And when he saw that we reached the house, he whisked round. He ran, kicking up his heels (showing the white soles of his shoes), while he running went before the wind, while the sun shone upon his feet's face (soles), while he ran with all his might into the little river (bed), that he might pass behind the back of the hill lying yonder.”
Their parents said to the children: “You are those who went and cut up the old man. He, there behind, was one who gently came from out the place there behind.”
The children said to their fathers: “He has gone round, he ran fast. He always seems as if he would come over the little hill lying yonder when he sees that we are just reaching home. While this little daughter, she was the one to whom the hartebeest's head, going along, talked, and then she told us. Therefore we let fall the hartebeest's flesh; we laid our karosses on our shoulders, that we might run very fast. While its flesh running came together on its back, it finished mending itself. He arose and ran forward, he, quickly moving his arms, chased us. Therefore we did thus, we became tired from it, on account of the running with which he had chased us, while he did verily move his arms fast. Then he descended into the small river, while he thought that he would, moving his arms fast, run along the small river. Then he thus did, he, picking up wood, came out; while we sat, feeling the fatigue, because he had been deceiving. While he felt that all the people saw him, when we came carrying his thighs, when he went to die lying in front of us; while he wished that we should feel this fatigue, while this child here, it carried his head, he looked up with fixed eyes. He was as if he was dead; he was (afterwards) opening and shutting his eyes; he afar lay talking. He talked while he mended his body; his head talked while he mended his body. His head talking reached his back; it came to join upon the top of his neck. He ran forward; he yonder will sit deceiving while we did cut him up with stone knives. He went feigning death to lie in front of us, that we might do so, we ran. This fatigue, it is that which we are feeling, and our hearts burnt on account of it. Therefore we shall not hunt (for food), for we shall altogether remain at home.”
It can now be asserted in positive language that the Bushmen were incapable of adopting European civilisation. During the first half of the nineteenth century agents of various missionary societies made strenuous efforts for their improvement, and often believed they had in some cases succeeded and in others were in a fair way towards success. Men more devoted to their work than many of these missionaries have never existed, and it would be unjust to accuse them of wilfully misstating the results of their teaching, but the very excess of their zeal and their dwelling constantly upon the expression that the whole human family is of one blood, without reflecting that different branches of it even in Europe are incapable of thinking alike, led them to distort what they saw and heard, so that their reports are commonly misleading. In these reports Bushmen were represented as having become civilised and Christian. But no one else ever saw those transformed savages, and no trace of them exists at the present day. The wild people in the missionary writings are described as offshoots of a higher stock, degraded by oppression or neglect, and needing only instruction and gentle treatment to elevate them again. Some of the reasoning in favour of this theory is highly acute, but it is not borne out by the deeper investigations of our day.
Apart from missionary teaching also many persons tried during long years to induce families of Bushmen to abandon their savage habits, and there were even experiments in providing groups of them with domestic cattle, in order to encourage a pastoral life, but all were without success. To this day there has not been a single instance of a Bushman of pure blood having permanently adopted the habits of a white man, though a few mixed breeds from Hottentot and Bantu fathers are to be found among the least skilful class of labourers in some parts of the country. Even these are generally too feeble in body to endure anything like severe toil, and unless they intermingle with blacks quickly decrease in number. Those of unmixed blood who were not destroyed as noxious animals by the invaders of their hunting grounds could not exist in presence of a high civilisation, but dwindled away rapidly, and have now nearly died out altogether. It would seem that for them progress was possible in no other way than by exceedingly slow development and blending their blood in successive stages with races always a little more advanced.
The Katia.
A small community of savages calling themselves kãi, known to other Bushmen as Xatia, and to Europeans as the Katia (Kat-ee-ah), is found in Betshuanaland, with a little offshoot on the banks of the Nosop nullah in the Kalahari desert. Much interest has been attached to these people, owing to the circumstance that their origin was long regarded as shrouded in mystery, and it was even supposed by some persons that they were earlier inhabitants of South Africa than the Bushmen. That mystery has now been entirely cleared away, mainly through the investigations of a daughter of the late Dr. Bleek, who is diligently pursuing the researches of her father and her aunt Dr. Lloyd.
The Katia are of mixed blood, being descended from Bushmen and Bantu women taken captive in war only four or five generations ago. In appearance they differ greatly from the Masarwa, who are also of mixed Bushman and Bantu blood, but this arises from their different manner of living. The male progenitors of the Masarwa were Bantu, who took some care of their offspring, those of the Katia were Bushmen, who cared nothing at all for the children or their 
Portrait of a male adult of the Katia.
(Taken by Miss D. Bleek in the Kalahari, and very kindly supplied to me by her for publication in this volume.) mothers. In their habits they are even more degraded than ordinary Bushmen, perhaps from being regarded and treated as outcasts by each of the races from which they sprang. Those along the Nosop hardly knew the use of water, for there was none in that locality, and depended entirely upon wild melons for the means of quenching thirst. Their food consisted of bulbs and roots containing little nourishment, with rarely flesh of any animal, it mattered not of what kind or whether fresh or putrid. It causes no surprise to learn that they were almost inconceivably stupid, living in such a manner they could not have been otherwise. Their skins were darker than those of ordinary Bushmen, but not as black as those of Bantu. Their jaws were not so prognathous, and their chins were better developed than in Bushmen of pure blood.
The average height of the adult males was under 152.4 centimetres or five English feet, but one, whose portrait is given here, was 167 centimetres or nearly five feet six inches in height. They dispensed with clothing, and if by chance one of them came into possession of an article of European attire it was invariably misplaced. (See the piece of calico on the back of the man whose portrait is given.) Their language was a dialect of Bushman, with some words derived from the Bakwena and the Ovambo. Miss Bleek had no difficulty in taking down a number of words sufficient to form a comparative vocabulary with five other Bushman dialects, many of the words being identical or nearly so.
- ↑ Dr. Alfred Hillier, who made a special study of these people, was of opinion that this is at least partly due to the great quantity of adipose matter stored up in their protuberant buttocks, which is most observable when they have abundance of food.
- ↑ For this information I am indebted to Miss Wilman, the talented lady who is in charge of the museum at Kimberley, and who takes the keenest interest in researches of this nature.
- ↑ 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.
- ↑ Dr. Peringuey informs me that all the Bushman skeletons found by his correspondents had the knees drawn up to the chins.
- ↑ I have seen pictures made by Bushmen on the banks of the Keiskama which in 1878 looked as fresh as if painted the day before. The Xosa chief Rarabe crossed the Kei about 1745, and shortly afterwards destroyed all the Bushmen along the Keiskana, so that the paintings must have been made before that date. But that is only a short time compared with the age of those recently discovered by Mr. R. N. Hall in Rhodesia, which must be over a thousand years old.
- ↑ Copies of many of these paintings have been published in different books. In 1909 a large volume entitled Bushman Paintings, collected by Miss Helen Tongue and Miss Dorothy Bleek, was published at Oxford.
- ↑ See Antiquity of the Bushman Occupation of Rhodesia, a paper read before the Rhodesia Scientific Association, and published, with plates, in a demi octavo pamphlet of fifteen pages at Bulawayo in June 1912.