The essential Kafir

Front matter

R vIHR

■Vinl

Division D ' i"

Preface

A group of tribes may be viewed from many standpoints, according as we are interested in anthropology, history, social problems, economic questions, travel, sport, or missionary work. The Kafir is viewed from none of these standpoints in the following pages, which are intended to serve as a warm-blooded character-sketch of the South African natives, in which everything that is of broad human interest takes precedence of departmental aspects of the subject.

The word Kafir is used in its broadest sense, so as to include all the dark-skinned tribes of South Africa, though the word has been used by others in the most varied connotations. The word does but mean an infidel , and has been frequently confined to a few tribes living south of Natal. But the title is often used in South Africa as a synonym for the word native , and it is in this sense that it is used here. It is thus equivalent to the word Bantu.

But why use the phrase Essential Kafir ? some one may ask. Ever since the discovery of gold at the Rand the native has been regarded as essential to the economic success of South Africa ; yet it is not alone in this sense that the phrase is used. The title primarily refers to that essential spirit which v was occasionally seen walking in the streets of Cape Town, and that very occasionally he went across the sea to visit the Great White Queen. Thus it is evident that there are purple patches even in a Blue Book, the crimson being supplied by the generous and rich blood of the Kafirs, for it is ever the case that “ the dulness of the fool is the whetstone of our wits.”

It may be well to point out that no single tribe has been singled out and isolated in the description of the Essential Kafir. Details have been taken from the various tribes in as far as their combination was thought to throw into relief the genius or spirit of the Kafir. The portrait presented is a composite one. Therefore, if a person who is living among a special tribe finds that the details of some custom are not in accordance with those familiar in that tribe, he must remember that there is great variation to be found among the many tribes which go to make up the generic Kafir. In no single tribe can all the customs mentioned be found in full swing. Some of the customs were long ago obsolete, and others have undergone great modification through the influence of Europeans.

With regard to system, at one moment the method adopted is frankly impressionist, the broad effect of light or colour being all that seemed of interest, while at another time the study is minute in its attention to detail.

In taking photographs of the Kafirs my aim has always been to throw the background out of focus on purpose, so that the personality of the Kafir may stand out from his

viii

Preface

surroundings, and unnecessary or conflicting detail has been frequently sacrificed. The same holds with regard to the verbal descriptions offered. After travelling for years among the Kafirs, I have a very strong impression left on my mind as to their personality : what I wish to do is to infect others with this feeling.

With regard to the spelling of names, every author seems to choose his own method. One writer talks of hassagayes, another of assagais, a third of hassagais, and a fourth of assegais. Similarly we meet with Chaka, Tshaka, Chsaka ; Kaffir, Kafir, Caffre, Cafir, KafFer, Caffir ; Dingan, Dingaan, Dingarn, &c. I have sought to strike an average, always avoiding native names when possible, as the book is not intended for those already familiar with the natives, and I have no wish to burden the reader with a glossary of native names and words. Certain words have become current coin since the war, and these are sometimes introduced, together with a few untranslatable expressions.

The reason that so few references are made to authorities in the text is as follows : It is quite impossible to decide, in most cases, whose name should be mentioned. Writers borrow so much from one another that, though I have usually sought to verify all quotations in the original works, so as to secure the greatest possible degree of accuracy, it is impossible to be sure that the bed-rock has been reached. When a person observes a fact with his own eyes, and then finds it described by a man who has borrowed from some old writer, who yet again borrowed from another, it is impossible to say whose

IX name should be mentioned. For this reason I have given a short Bibliography.

It may well be said, “ Semper novi quid ex Africa But, if some one wishes to quote the well-known aphorism about new and true things, all I can plead is that I was intent to supply fresh and living information rather than new. The photographs, at least, are my own, and, though two or three have appeared in a small local monthly magazine in South Africa, the great bulk were specially taken for this work, of which they are intended to form an integral part.

Thanks are due to my friend Mr. Rendel Harris for reading through the proofs during my absence in South Africa.

Johannesburg, January 1904

Index

4*7

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS i. Essentially Kafir — Old Moliwash ( In colour )

. . Frontispiece

tt

2. A Bomvana ......

Facing page tt

3. Off to pay a call .....

• tt tt

4. A Zulu kraal, Lake St. Lucia

7* ft

5. In a Natal kraal .....

' tt

1 6

ff

6. A Gazaland hut .....

tt ff

7. In a Zulu kraal .....

tt ff

8. A Pondo girl with baby ....

• tt ft

9. Pondo gossips ......

tt ft

10. Mother and baby .....

tt ft

11. A Pondo dandy .....

ff

12. A Pondo boy ......

■ tt ff

13. A Bomvana family .....

tt ft

14. Kafir spirituality .....

yt ff

• ft ff

16. The hair-dresser .....

• ft ft

17. Trimming the hair .....

ft

18. Shaving the head .....

• tt ft "

19. Back from the hairdresser

• tt ft

20. A Pondo dandy .....

• tt ft tt ft

22. Interior of a native hut ....

• tt ft

23. “Feeding the baby” and “The napkin” .

• ft

9°

ft

24. A Swazie making fire by friction

• tt ft

25. A Pondo mother .....

• ft ft

26. A Pondo woman going to fetch water

tt ft

27. Swazies taking an early morning sun-bath .

• tt ft

28. An old Kafir woman ....

• tt

1 10

ft

29. An old Pondo ......

• tt

"4

ft

30. How a Zulu hut is built ....

• tt

1 18

xiii

Plate 31. Interior of a Zulu hut ....

„ 32. The Three Graces .....

„ 33. A Zulu witchdoctor . . . . .

,, 34. A Gazaland witchdoctor ....

„ 35. A Zulu witchdoctor ready for dancing

„ 36. A Pondo witchdoctor . . . .

„ 37. A Gazaland witchdoctor ....

„ 38. A witchdoctor ......

„ 39- A witchdoctor .....

„ 40. A Pondo woman .....

„ 41. Disconsolate ......

1 Striking the bargain

45. A mothers’ meeting, Pondoland

46. Pondo motherhood .

47. Zulu children grinding stone for paint

Self help

50. Pondo rouge

51. A Tembu boy

52. A little Pondo girl .

53. Pondo sweethearts

55. A Pondo maiden

56. A Bomvana bride

57. A betrothed Zulu girl

58. Dressed for a wedding

59. A Bomvana dancing .

60. A married Zulu woman

61. A Swazie headman and his two

wives

62. A married woman

63. Natal women .

64. Bushman drawings .

65. In a Johannesburg compound

66. A Swazie beauty

67. Extracting a thorn

68. A native evangelist .

Facing page 11 11 n

122 1 26 130

*34

176 ) 80 184

•>1

23+

XIV

List of Illustrations

A Zulu warrior ....

Facing page

27°

A Swazi e warrior ....

yy

Zulu children setting bird-traps

yy

A Gazaland game-trap

yy

A Zulu woman hoeing

yy

5?

Stripping the mealie field .

yy

In the harvest field ....

yy

A basketful of grain ....

yy

A Zulu woman threshing Kafir corn .

yy

A Pondo woman winnowing the corn

yy

A Pondo woman grinding mealies

yy

Zulu women preparing for a beer-drink

yy

V>

A native blacksmith on the Zambesi .

yy

Pondo boys making small clay oxen

yy

A Pondo playing an ugwali or gorah .

yy

A Zulu woman playing the igubu

yy

The spitting game ....

yy

34° r Boys playing at horses . . .'k

\Boys standing on their heads for fun /

yy

T)

Smoking Indian hemp

yy

How the Swazies kill time

yy yy

Taking care of his complexion .

yy yy

A Zulu woman carrying water .

yy yy

91*

A Pondo woman with material for thatching

yy

37°

yy

Pondo women thatching a hut .

yy yy

A Pondo hut .....

yy yy

A Gazaland carrier ....

yy yy

Blantyre church ....

yy yy

Sawing mahogany near Port Herald .

yy ty

Going to school in Tembuland .

yy yy

The lesson .....

yy yy

A Christian Pondo ....

yy

4°4

yy

A contrast : before and after

yy

Sketch map at end of volume.

xv

What is the course of the life Of mortal men on the earth? — Most men eddy about Here and there — eat and drink, Chatter and love and hate,

Gather and squander, are raised Aloft, are hurl’d in the dust,

Striving blindly, achieving Nothing ; and then they die — Perish, — and no one asks Who or what they have been,

More than he asks what waves In the moonlit solitudes mild Of the midmost Ocean have swell’d, Foam’d for a moment, and gone.

Matthew Arnold.

THE

ESSENTIAL KAFIR

Chapter I

Far away, lost in the pearly haze of the horizon, lies the kraal we are about to visit. The chief lives under the shadow of that grey-blue kopje which rises out of the boundless plain, and we have many a dusty mile to travel ere we reach his kraal. If that hill were in Europe we should judge it to be about ten miles distant ; but out here, in this thin, clear air, distances are very deceptive. The character of the natives is still more deceptive, and it has suffered much unfair criticism from hasty travellers, who too often have been more occupied in imparting their own ideas to the natives than in getting to know what they think. Consequently, the judgments of these “ swallow travellers ” are frequently based on inadequate information. Moffat describes how one of them asked his guide the name of the place he had started from. The Kafir did not understand the question, and asked, “ What did you say ? ” The hasty gentleman took out his note-book and entered this question as the name of the place from which he had started.

Great difficulty arises from the fact that the ideas of the Kafirs seem at first sight so very topsy-turvy, their customs so very silly. Yet when we come to understand the silliest of their customs we are surprised to find how it fits in with human customs the whole world over, and forms some of the primordial stuff out of which modern European usages have been evolved. To dismiss such customs as silly is to advertise our ignorance. There is scarcely a custom which will not be seen, on mature examination, to rest on some basal fact or deep-seated need of human nature, which has found expression in similar customs in all other parts of the world. Still, the fact remains that, from our European standpoint, many of these customs seem exceedingly silly. When the Matabele first saw a locomotive engine at Bulawayo, that ancient fortress of heathenism, they declared that it was a large animal which fed on fire ; that it hated work — else why did it scream before it moved ? — and that it suffered badly from malaria. Did not the white doctor pour medicine into it whenever it groaned ?

When the pigmy bushmen first saw ox-waggons they noticed that some were large and some small ; they came to the conclusion that the small waggons were daughters of the large. This seems grotesque and absurd until one remembers that when they had previously noticed the spoor of the waggons in the sand they at once decided that these could only have been caused by animals, for they had never seen any spoor marks except those left by animals. And if the waggons were animals, why should not the small ones be children of the large ?

More laughable still is the incident which happened in another tribe. When the first waggon appeared in their midst, the people of the kraals all turned out to see the new wonder — a hut which moved on wheels. Mile after mile the people clapped hands, and cheered the little wheels, which seemed to form the centre of attraction. On being asked what they saw in the small wheels to make them so excited, they replied that they thought it was so plucky of them to be able to keep up with the large ones. These people, then, clearly have good

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", a I ■ itoi .w-,tfUi‘x 'll! a

A BOMVANA

Note the shell ornament, which is a favourite with this man’s tribe. The pipe he is smoking was probably made in England ; but it is of the kind which the Kafirs were wont to make. The man was very proud of his beard, which is above the average.

Plale 2.

sporting instincts : their sympathy goes out to the weaker side.

Quite in keeping with those ideas is the story told by Captain Cook, how that in Tahiti the natives bought some large nails from him with the idea that these would by-and-by bear small ones. I doubted this story till I recollected a case in which a South African woman once obtained some huge safety-pins from me, and came back next day with a very long face, because some one told her they would not bear small safety pins.

World-wide is the idea that emetics or purgatives can dispel false notions. A Kafir woman was very indignant that her son had renounced heathenism and embraced Christianity. She promptly administered a strong emetic and purgative to dispel the hated religion.

Anything new sets natives wondering. Great was their excitement when they first saw a man wash himself with soap. They declared that the European was washing in boiling water. Yet they cannot distinguish as to relative values. A railway engine is not more wonderful to them than a sixpenny jack-inthe-box ; indeed, a native once told me that he thought the latter far more wonderful than the former.

The desire to give some account of causation is at the root of all religions, and we have only to remember how recently Europe was confused on this point to be very charitable towards savages. A Kafir cannot distinguish between post hoc and propter hoc. Europeans are still apt to be very confused over this subject, and medical science has the greatest difficulty sometimes in distinguishing between cause and coincidence. The natives come to conclusions with but little thought, and so the mistakes they make are infinite. Here is an example : A certain missionary always wore a thick dark suit on wet days ; the natives came to the conclusion that this dark suit was the cause of the wet weather, and so in a time of drought sent a deputation to the missionary begging him to put on the dark suit, as they were very anxious to have some rain.

And the moment the Kafirs come to live in our houses as servants these odd ideas become still more marked. It is hard for us to imagine how very novel and strange all our things must seem to them at first. When a raw boy— and a Kafir sixty years old is still a “ boy ” — goes to a town to act as cook or general servant, he finds himself in a new world where everything is mysterious and strange. People thoughtlessly blame him for not instantly divining the function of some weird implement like a kettle. As if he could evolve from his inner consciousness the use of such an article ! One of these raw boys was told by a friend of mine to take a kettle and fill it with water. As waterworks were few and far between in those good old days, the water was kept in a bucket, and a cup was used for ladling out the water. The boy was told to take a cup and to fill the kettle. He glanced at the kettle with an air of great sagacity, and yet did not know how to take hold of it. The fact that his master was looking on made him nervous and shy: so he grasped the kettle by the spout and vanished into the kitchen to begin operations. As these were very prolonged, his master went to inquire what the boy could be up to, and was amused to find him carefully pouring the water out of the cup down the spout of the kettle. How could the boy know that, if he used force, the lid, which of course had become jammed, could be removed ? The same boy was told to light a fire in the kitchen. He went and sat down before the stove and scratched his woolly head, wondering where he ought to put the wood. He had never seen a stove before, and set to work to light the fire in the oven, as it seemed to be the place intended for the purpose.

Such a mistake is not at all more stupid than the way in which an average person handles a kodak for the first time. He generally forgets to wind up the spool, or to set the shutter; possibly he leaves the shutter open all the time and snaps away for a whole day. I have seen even intelligent people, who were handling a camera for the first time, point the lens at themselves instead of the object to be photographed, expose twelve pictures on the same piece of film, hold their thumb over the lens during exposure, and generally do a dozen bizarre bits of absurdity.

The Kafirs differ from us in their ideas toto ccelo. No wonder that since the war the most astounding statements concerning the Kafirs are in circulation in England. In nearly every family there is some member who has “ been to South Africa, you know,” and who is said to know the natives. But to understand the Kafirs a person must do more than see them amid abnormal surroundings and unnatural conditions : he must do more than travel by rail from Cape Town to Kimberley, Bulawayo, Bloemfontein, Pretoria, Johannesburg, Ladysmith, and Durban: he must do more than see native drivers of muleteams during war-time. He might as well think that he knew lions and tigers because he had walked round the Zoological Gardens at feeding-time, and heard lion stories of a tall nature at his club ; or he might as well think that he understood how the poor live because he had watched the waiters at some hotel, seen flower-girls at Regent Circus or match-sellers in Piccadilly. He needs something more trustworthy than smoking-room gossip, or club yarns, or views from train or hotel windows. “ Height is not reached in a hurry,” say the natives ; and Kafir character is not understood at the first glance.

So let us get on horseback, strap our month’s luggage on our saddle, and shake ourselves loose from civilisation and white faces ; for we must live among the Kafirs, sleep in their huts, and eat out of their pots, if we would really know how they live and what they think about. And let us start by watching our native guide.

Until you are accustomed to this land of great distances you will be for ever asking him how far it is to the journey’s end. And hour after hour the good fellow will lift himself in his stirrups, and make a curve with his hand, saying, “ Yes, baas : it is just over the rise.” He always begins with Yes, even when the next word is no; he always raises himself in the saddle when he points to the goal; he always declares the end of the journey is just over the rise. This he does out of natural politeness, for he is not troubled with our Western conception of truth. Politeness is far more important in his eyes than truthfulness ; he consequently tells you the thing he thinks you would like to hear. An old author describes how he had been asking the natives about strange animals, and among other things he had made inquiries about a unicorn. The natives, wishing to agree with the white man, assured him there was a unicorn some way off. At considerable difficulty this traveller went out of his way for a day, and saw this wonderful unicorn. It turned out to be an old he-goat which had lost one of its horns. The natives did not mean to deceive. They meant to please.

If they can both please you and tell the truth they will do so. They have no objection to truth per se. But if a choice has to be made they prefer to be polite first and truthful afterwards; facts have to be adjusted as most convenient. A native will never differ from you if he can help it. He has no objection to truth viewed in the abstract or in vacuo, nor has he any preference for deception; but why should he worry himself over such an unimportant thing as truth ? His use of language is analogous to his use of a horse: the one he uses to kill time with, and the other to kill distance ; and just as he lets his horse jog onward any way it pleases so long as it covers the ground, so he lets his tongue wag that he may pass the time

.

OFF TO PAY A CALL

This Tembu is dressed for an afternoon call. The top-knot on his head is made from feathers, and is worn on special occasions only. Note that the man has the stirrup placed between his toes in true Kafir fashion. The horse is above the average.

pleasantly. There is this difference, however : he talks for pleasure, but rides for business. (He is everlastingly amused with white men who go out walking just for walking’s sake; he is hopelessly at a loss to know why he should do anything so foolish.) His horses are the most woe-begone creatures imaginable, Basuto ponies excepted. Where they find them is a mystery ; but, having got them, they put on the ponies’ backs a thing that was a saddle half a century ago — what it is now no one knows — they then fasten it with old bits of string, worn-out bootlaces, or decayed straps ; and, being mounted, they place the stirrup between the great toe and the next, hit the horse on the rump with a stick or piece of strap, and the animal starts off with the queerest action. It may be cantering with its hind legs while it trots with the front ; yet the Kafir sits on it in stately dignity, with a perfectly grave face. He frequently rides bareback, with his blanket thrown over his shoulder, and never seems to get stiff or sore, though he covers incredible distances without stopping.

After riding for about two hours we suggest an “ offsaddle,” and so dismount close to a stream, and knee-halter our horses, allowing them to roll or graze at pleasure. The Kafir thinks this a most unnecessary work of supererogation. Why should a horse be given any rest ? Is it not an animal whose only use is to carry men ? If the rider wants a rest, well and good; but if he is consulting his horse’s feelings his action is most uncalled for and gratuitous. That any one should be merciful to an animal, and consult its feelings, never enters a Kafir’s head, never rises above the threshold of his mind.

After a short rest, we “ saddle up ” and continue our journey. When we come to a river we notice that the raw Kafir spits on a stone and throws it into the water, a custom believed to be what a biologist would call a vestige , indicating an obsolete usage of offering some propitiatory sacrifice to the river-spirit. The natives in olden days were in the habit of either sacrificing some animal or offering some grain to appease ancestral spirits living in the river. The bushmen used to offer up some game they had killed, or in the absence of that would offer up an arrow. It is very doubtful whether the natives have any fully formed conception of what we call a river-spirit ; it seems more probable, on the whole, that they imagined some ancestral spirit to be living in the river, or that some fabulous animal had its home in the water. All the Kafir does now is to throw a stone into the water as some dim recognition of the old custom. It has been suggested that the inveterate way in which even civilised people feel constrained to throw stones into water has some dim connection with this old custom, which makes itself felt through heredity. It is not at ail clear that the anthropologists are not putting the cart before the horse in such cases, for why should it not be a natural thing to pick up a stone and throw it into the water without any previous reference to appeasing spirits ? Might it not be that people felt the need of developing or accounting for this habit, and so coupled it with the idea of a river-spirit to whom they were offering a stone ? In that case the belief would be grafted on to the custom rather than the custom on to the belief.

When the native has advanced into the stream he usually pauses, fills his mouth with water, and, looking round to take his bearings, deliberately spits the water in the direction of his greatest enemy, or in the direction of the kraal where, he fears, they are using magic against him. Action at a distance is a primitive conception with these people, in spite of Sir Isaac Newton. Natives place great faith in spitting in the direction of an enemy: they frequently chew medicines and spit them out in the direction of their enemy : they get their ill-will “ off

io the chest ” by this action. They combine self-protection with the expression of contempt for their enemy by this explosive outlet for their venom, and it is but natural to suppose that this custom, which is found in the aborigines of nearly all lands, is at the bottom of the universal habit of spitting at a person as a sign of contempt and malice. Having thus done his duty, the fellow mounts his nag and trots along with a serene mind which is the direct result of the conviction that he has once more balanced accounts with the world.

At last we come in sight of our goal, and see, perched on the side of a kill, a kraal, whose mushroom-like huts are placed in a circle or in the shape of a horse-shoe, so arranged that the drainage naturally flows down to the cattle kraal which is placed on the chord of the curve. Natives always work in circles if possible : the huts are circular ; the fireplace is circular, and it is placed in the centre of the hut ; the huts are arranged in circles ; the cattle kraal is usually circular. The very children can draw perfect circles without the use of any compasses, and in their games they frequently sketch out kraals in the dust with marvellous neatness, the circles being perfect.

This tendency to do things in circles surprises Europeans at first. It will not do to jump to the conclusion that these people have read Mr. Ruskin and so know that a circle is a symbol of rest. A little reflection will supply us with a simpler explanation. It is far easier to build in circles than to build in any other way, and it is far more economical of material. Any one who has tried to mould the corner of a cornice or of a wainscot knows that the chief difficulty comes in with the angles. Any one who has tried to thatch a roof knows how difficult it is to make the corners watertight. The great advantage in living in a circular hut consists in the obvious fact that a slovenly woman cannot leave things to accumulate in the corners. A Kafir hut is bad enough as it is — the roof is a general receptacle for every odd article which can be either shoved into the thatch or hung from the rafters ; the floor is littered with calabashes, mats, and other rubbish. Give but a woman a corner and see how rubbish will accumulate in it. This can be observed by looking into a Basuto hut, which is frequently made square.