Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/854

820 K A F K A F of the "witch-doctor" or medicine-man, who often becomes an instrument of cruel oppression and injustice in the hands of un scrupulous chiefs. Circumcision and polygamy are universal ; the former is sometimes attributed to Mahometan influences, but has really prevailed almost everywhere in East Africa from the remotest time. Of the few industries the chief are copper and iron smelting practised by the Ama-Tembus, Zulus, and Swazis, who manufacture from the metal weapons, spoons, and agricultural implements, both for their own use and for trade. The Swazis display some taste in wood-carving, and others prepare a peculiar water-tight vessel of grass, somewhat like the wickerwork vases of the Siberian Yakuts. Characteristic of this race is their total ignorance or neglect of the art of navigation. Not the smallest boats are ever made for cross ing the rivers, much less for venturing on the sea, except by the Makazana of Delagoa Bay and by the Zambesi people, who have canoes and flat-bottomed boats made of planks. The Kaffre race has developed a distinct and apparently very old political system, which may be described as a patriarchal monarchy limited by a powerful aristocracy. Although the tribal state still prevails, the organization has thus acquired almost a feudal char acter. The nation is grouped in tribes, each under an hereditary inkose or chief, who administers his territory by means of officers chosen by himself, and who is supreme legislator with absolute jurisdiction and power of life and death. If his decisions are unjust, the nobles (that is, the foremost members of the tribe) protest in eouncil, and their decisions form the traditional code of common law. A group of clans forms a nation, recognizing a common heredi tary chief with the title of umkumkani or inkose enkulu, that is, "great chief," whose influence largely depends on his power and personal qualities. He possesses in theory unlimited authority, but in practice each clan retains a large share of self-government, the lord paramount seldom interfering except when appealed to. In Zululand this system rapidly developed under Chaka and his suc cessors into a military despotism of an extremely arbitrary type. But with the fall of Cetewayo, followed by the division of the land amongst a number of semi-independent chiefs, an end was put to that absolute monarchy. While it lasted it was a distinct violation of the ancient liberties of the Zulu nation by the "great chief," who arrogated to himself almost divine honours, treated the people as his slaves, claimed all the land as his personal property, and made everything subservient to his dynastic interests. The Zulu-Kafi re language is probably the most typical member of the wide-spread Bantu family, standing in much the same relation to the other branches of this stock as Sanskrit does to those of the Aryan group. It is spoken with considerable uniformity throughout the whole Kaffre domain, the Zulu or northern dialects differing rather in idiom and peculiar forms than in structure or phonetics from the Ama-Xosa and other southern varieties. In other respects Zulu is on the whole more primitive and conservative of the oldest forms, while Kaffre seems truer to the original meaning of words. Marked Zulu dialects are the Tefula and Swazi, both widely current in Zululand, the latter forming a transition between Zulu-Kaifre and the northern Tekeza group. The Kaffre, which presents no well- defined dialects, is current from the Keiskamma river to the southern frontier of Natal, and from the Quathlamba mountains to the sea. The Zulu-Kaffre differs in its phonetics from most other Bantu tongues by the presence of three " clicks " adopted from the Hottentots or Bosjesmans, the true aborigines of this region. These are the dental, usually represented by c, as in Ama-Gcaleka, the palatal (q), as in Ama-Gqika, and the lateral (x), as in Ama- Xosa, uttered respectively by thrusting forward and then suddenly withdrawing the tongue from the front teeth, the palate, and the side teeth. Besides these there is a guttural, represented by r, as in Rarale, to be pronounced Khakhabc. 1 The language is in other respects extremely harmonious, the accent falling generally on the penultimate, and all words ending in vowels, or occasionally the liquids m and n. In its structure it is very regular, with few excep tions or departures from the normal rules, which is the more sur prising that its mechanism is extremely delicate and involved. The verb especially is highly inflected, presenting no less than two hundred and fifty different forms, temporal, modal, positive, nega tive, active, passive, causal, augmentative, &c. In this respect it is probably unsurpassed even by the intricate verbal systems of the Fin no-Tatar group. But the characteristic feature of the Zulu-Kaffre and other Bantu languages is their peculiar alliterative structure, which finds no parallel in any other linguistic family, the Maude and Gor of West Africa alone excepted. This principle of "euphonic concord," as it has been called, is regulated by the pronominal prefix inseparable from every noun, and repeated in a more or less modified form with the following adjectives and other words in agreement with the sub ject. The nominal root itself is unchangeable, its various relations being expressed by modifications of the prefixed particle, or "in- flt x," as Colenso calls it. Hence the inflexion in these languages 1 The r sound does not occur; it is replaced, as in Chinese, by I. is mainly initial, not final, as in most other linguistic systems, on which account they have received the name of Pronominal Pre fix Languages." Of the inflecting prefixes, of which there were sixteen in the primitive Bantu speech, the chief function is concord ance and relationship. Thus the proper inflex of ntu in the sense of man, person, being urn, pi. aba, we get from um-ntu, man, aba- ntu, men. 2 The inflex of kosc, chief, is in, pi. (irreg. ) ama, 3 whence in-kose, a chief, ama-kose, chiefs. Then, the adjective "great" being kulu, a great man " will be umu-ntu om-kulu, where the inflex umu is repeated in the modified form orn with the adjective kulu. But "a great chief" will be in-kose en-kulu, where the inflex in is in the same way repeated in the modified form en with the following adjective kulu. Here we see some resemblance both to the principle of progressive vocalic harmony as developed in the Ural-Altaic group, in which the vowel of the root regulates those of all the following agglutinated formative elements, and to such Latin agreements as filius meus, filia mea, &c. In both cases, however, the resemblance is more apparent than real. This surprisingly com plex and almost artificial principle of alliterative concordance per vading a vast number of languages spread over half a continent, and spoken exclusively by unlettered and barbarous races, is one of the most astonishing phenomena in the history of human culture. The perfection to which the system is carried in the Zulu-Kaffre group must always render that branch of the Bantu family specially interesting to the students of comparative philology. See Gustav Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Stid-Afrika i, with atlas, 30 plates, and 120 typical heads, Breslau, 1872; Block s Comparative Grammar of the South African Languages, 18G9 ; Hahn s Grundziiye einer Grammatik des Herero, Berlin, 1857 ; Appleyard s Kaffir Language, 1850; Sehrieder s Zulu Grammar in Danifli, Chiistiania, 1850 ; Dr Colenso s Grammar of the Zulu-Kafir Language, 1855 ; Kev. F. Fleming, Kaffraria and its Inhabitants, 1853 ; Girard de Kialle, Lea I euples de VAfrique et de VAmerique, Paris, 1880 ; Kev. J. Shooter, Kafirs of Natal, 1857 ; Kev. L. Grout, Zululand, 18C5 ; W. lloulden, Past and Future of the Kaffre Races. London, 18C7 ; C. J. Buthner, in Zeittchrift of the Berlin Geo. Soc., March 1881. (A. H. K.) KAFIRISTAN. This Persian term, signifying "the country of Kafirs," or unbelievers (in Islam), has within the last hundred years become established in geography as the name of a mountain tract on the north of Afghanistan, occupied by tribes which have resisted conversion to the faith which prevails on every side. This faith has no doubt continually gained upon these tribes more or less, and with this encroachment the limits of the Kafir country have shrunk ; but the encroachment does not appear to have been large since the name became recognized in geography. Thus Baber (c. 1504) speaks of a certain place (Chaghanserai, in recent maps " Chegarserai ") as in the very jaws of Kafiristan, and this continued to apply forty years ago, if not now. Only it is clear that in his time the Kafirs occupied tracts about Bajaur, east of the Kuner river, which they do not pass now except on raids. The country has never been entered, and even the bordering Mahometan tracts have only here and there been touched, by any European, so that we know hardly anything of its internal geography, and not even the external geography with any precision. The northern boundary may be taken as that unvisited part of the watershed of Hindfi Kush which lies between the Dorah Pass (71 17 E. long.) and the Khawak Pass (69 53 E. long.) leading into the Andarab valley of the province of Kunduz (see AFGHAN TURKESTAN, vol. ii. 242). On the east it is limited by Chitral or Kashkar; on the south and west it is more difficult to define. But 35 N. lat. and 70 E. long, will mark these limits roughly, though the Kafir tribes seem still to extend south of the former line above Jalalabad, whilst their limits are 2 This word Abantu is generally used by tlie Kaffres in speaking of themselves as the " men " in a pre-eminent sense in opposition to the Ama-hlungi, or inferior white people. On this ground Abantu, shortened to Bantu, has been proposed by Bleek and generally adopted as the collective name of all the races and languages belonging to this great linguistic system, which reaches from four or five degrees north of the equator southwards to Cape Colony, and stretches right across the continent from the Ogoway delta to Zanzibar. 3 The regular plural of the inflex in is izin, as in in-hlu, house, izin-hlu, houses. But ama is extensively used instead of aba, izin, &c., in forming the plural, especially of personal nouns, nations, tribes, &c. Hence Ama-Xosa for Aba-Xosa from um-Xosa, Ama-Mpondo from u-Mpondo, Ama-Kose from in-Kose, &c. The northern and western Bantu nations preserve the aba under the forms ba, be, tea, whence Ba-suto, Be-chuana, Wa-nyamwesi, Wa-c/anda, &c.