Man, Past and Present - Agustus Henry Keane, A. Hingston Quiggin, Alfred Court Haddon (most popular novels txt) 📗

about the Upper Orange and Vaal Rivers, and the Griquas in Griqualand East, while the Gonaquas, that is, "Borderers," are being gradually merged in the Bantu populations of the Eastern Provinces. There are at present scarcely 180,000 south of the Orange River, and of these the great majority are half-breeds[312].

Despite their extremely low state of culture, or, one might say, the almost total lack of culture, the Bushmen are distinguished by two remarkable qualities, a fine sense of pictorial or graphic art[313], and a rich imagination displayed in a copious oral folklore, much of which, collected by Bleek, is preserved in manuscript form in Sir George Grey's library at Cape Town[314]. The materials here stored for future use, perhaps long after the race itself has vanished for ever, comprise no less than 84 thick volumes of 3600 double-column pages, besides an unfinished Bushman dictionary with 11,000 entries. There are two great sections, (1) Myths, fables, legends and poetry, with tales about the sun and moon, the stars, the Mantis and other animals, legends of peoples who dwelt in the land before the Bushmen, songs, charms, and even prayers; (2) Histories, adventures of men and animals, customs, superstitions, genealogies, and so on.

In the tales and myths the sun, moon, and animals speak either with their own proper clicks, or else use the ordinary clicks in some way peculiar to themselves. Thus Bleek tells us that the tortoise changes clicks in labials, the ichneumon in palatals, the jackal substitutes linguo-palatals for labials, while the moon, hare, and ant-eater use "a most unpronounceable click" of their own. How many there may be altogether, not one of which can be properly uttered by Europeans, nobody seems to know. But grammarians have enumerated nine, indicated each by a graphic sign as under:

Cerebral [Symbol] Palatal [Symbol] Dental [Symbol] Lateral (Faucal) [Symbol] Guttural [Symbol] Labial [Symbol] Spiro-dental [Symbol] Linguo-palatal [Symbol] Undefined [Symbol]

From Bushman--a language in a state of flux, fragmentary as the small tribal or rather family groups that speak it[315]--these strange inarticulate sounds passed to the number of four into the remotely related Hottentot, and thence to the number of three into the wholly unconnected Zulu-Xosa. But they are heard nowhere else to my knowledge except amongst the newly-discovered Wa-Sandawi people of South Masailand. At the same time we know next to nothing of the Negrillo tongues, and should clicks be discovered to form an element in their phonetic system also[316], it would support the assumption of a common origin of all these dwarfish races now somewhat discredited on anatomical grounds.

G. Bertin, to whom we are indebted for an excellent monograph on the Bushman[317], rightly remarks that he is not, at least mentally, so debased as he has been described by the early travellers and by the neighbouring Bantus and Boers, by whom he has always been despised and harried. "His greatest love is for freedom, he acknowledges no master, and possesses no slaves. It is this love of independence which made him prefer the wandering life of a hunter to that of a peaceful agriculturist or shepherd, as the Hottentot. He rarely builds a hut, but prefers for abode the natural caves he finds in the rocks. In other localities he forms a kind of nest in the bush--hence his name of Bushman--or digs with his nails subterranean caves, from which he has received the name of 'Earthman.' His garments consist only of a small skin. His weapons are still the spear, arrow and bow in their most rudimentary form. The spear is a mere branch of a tree, to which is tied a piece of bone or flint; the arrow is only a reed treated in the same way. The arrow and spear-heads are always poisoned, to render mortal the slight wounds they inflict. He gathers no flocks, which would impede his movements, and only accepts the help of dogs as wild as himself. The Bushmen have, however, one implement, a rounded stone perforated in the middle, in which is inserted a piece of wood; with this instrument, which carries us back to the first age of man, they dig up a few edible roots growing wild in the desert. To produce fire, he still retains the primitive system of rubbing two pieces of wood--another prehistoric survival."

Touching their name, it is obvious that these scattered groups, without hereditary chiefs or social organisation of any kind, could have no collective designation. The term Khuai, of uncertain meaning, but probably to be equated with the Hottentot Khoi, "Men," is the name only of a single group, though often applied to the whole race. Saan, their Hottentot name, is the plural of Sa, a term also of uncertain origin; Ba-roa, current amongst the Be-Chuanas, has not been explained, while the Zulu Abatwa would seem to connect them even by name with Wolf's and Stanley's Ba-Twa of the Congo forest region. Other so-called tribal names (there are no "tribes" in the strict sense of the word) are either nicknames imposed upon them by their neighbours, or else terms taken from the localities, as amongst the Fuegians.

We may conclude with the words of W. J. Sollas: "The more we know of these wonderful little people the more we learn to admire and like them. To many solid virtues--untiring energy, boundless patience, and fertile invention, steadfast courage, devoted loyalty, and family affection--they added a native refinement of manners and a rare aesthetic sense. We may learn from them how far the finer excellences of life may be attained in the hunting stage. In their golden age, before the coming of civilised man, they enjoyed their life to the full, glad with the gladness of primeval creatures. The story of their later days, their extermination and the cruel manner of it, is a tale of horror on which we do not care to dwell. They haunt no more the sunlit veldt, their hunting is over, their nation is destroyed; but they leave behind an imperishable memory, they have immortalised themselves in their art[318]."

FOOTNOTES:

[223] C. Meinhof holds that Proto-Bantu arose through the mixture of a Sudan language with one akin to Fulah. An Introduction to the Study of African Languages, 1915, p. 151 sqq.

[224] Bantu, properly Aba-ntu, "people." Aba is one of the numerous personal prefixes, each with its corresponding singular form, which are the cause of so much confusion in Bantu nomenclature. To aba, ab, ba answers a sing. umu, um, mu, so that sing. umu-ntu, um-ntu or mu-ntu, a man, a person; plu. aba-ntu, ab-ntu, ba-ntu. But in some groups mu is also plural, the chief dialectic variants being, Ama, Aba, Ma, Ba, Wa, Ova, Va, Vua, U, A, O, Eshi, as in Ama-Zulu, Mu-Sarongo, Ma-Yomba, Wa-Swahili, Ova-Herero, Vua-Twa, Ba-Suto, Eshi-Kongo. For a tentative classification of African tribes see T. A. Joyce, Art. "Africa: Ethnology," Ency. Brit. 1910, p. 329. For the classification of Bantu tongues into 44 groups consult H. H. Johnston, Art. "Bantu Languages," loc. cit.

[225] Eth. Ch. XI.

[226] Le Naturaliste, Jan. 1894.

[227] Tour de Monde, 1896, I. p. 1 sq.; and Les Bayas; Notes Ethnographiques et Linguistiques, Paris, 1896.

[228] D. Randall-MacIver, Mediaeval Rhodesia, 1906. But R. N. Hall, Prehistoric Rhodesia, 1909, strongly opposes this view. See below, p. 105.

[229] Even Tipu Tib, their chief leader and "Prince of Slavers," was a half-caste with distinctly Negroid features.

[230] "Afilo wurde mir vom Lega-Koenig als ein Negerland bezeichnet, welches von einer Galla-Aristokratie beherrscht wird" (Petermann's Mitt. 1883, V. p. 194).

[231] The Ba-Hima are herdsmen in Buganda, a sort of aristocracy in Unyoro, a ruling caste in Toro, and the dominant race with dynasties in Ankole. The name varies in different areas.

[232] Journ. Anthr. Inst. 1895, p. 424. For details of the Ba-Hima type see Eth. p. 389.

[233] J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu, 1915, p. 103. Herein are also described the Bakene, lake dwellers, the Bagesu, a cannibal tribe, the Basoga and the Nilotic tribes the Bateso and Kavirondo.

[234] J. Roscoe, loc. cit. pp. 4, 5.

[235] "A Survey of the Ethnography of Africa," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XLIII. 1913, p. 390.

[236] Handwerk und Industrie in Ostafrika, 1910, p. 147.

[237] "Die erste Ausbreitung des Menschengeschlechts." Pol. Anthropol. Revue, 1909, p. 72. Cf. chronology on p. 14 above.

[238] Ethnology, p. 199.

[239] Uganda is the name now applied to the whole Protectorate, Buganda is the small kingdom, Baganda, the people, Muganda, one person, Luganda, the language. H. H. Johnston, The Uganda Protectorate, 1902, and J. F. Cunningham, Uganda and its Peoples, 1905, cover much of the elementary anthropology of East Central Africa.

[240] The legend is given with much detail by H. M. Stanley in Through the Dark Continent, Vol. I. p. 344 sq. Another and less mythical account of the migrations of "the people with a white skin from the far north-east" is quoted from Emin Pasha by the Rev. R. P. Ashe in Two Kings of Uganda, p. 336. Here the immigrant Ba-Hima are expressly stated to have "adopted the language of the aborigines" (p. 337).

[241] Sir H. H. Johnston, op. cit. p. 514.

[242] Except the Lung-fish clan.

[243] J. Roscoe, The Baganda, 1911.

[244] For the Wa-Kikuyu see W. S. and K. Routledge, With a Prehistoric People, 1910, and C. W. Hobley's papers in the Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XL. 1910, and XLI. 1911. The Atharaka are described by A. M. Champion, Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XLII. 1912, p. 68. Consult for this region C. Eliot, The East Africa Protectorate, 1905; K. Weule, Native Life in East Africa, 1909; C. W. Hobley, Ethnology of the A-Kamba and other East African Tribes, 1910; M. Weiss, Die Voelkerstaemme im Norden Deutsch-Ostafrikas, 1910; and A. Werner, "The Bantu Coast Tribes of the East Africa Protectorate," Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XLV. 1915.

[245] Official Report on the East African Protectorate, 1897.

[246] Vocabulary of the Giryama Language, S.P.C.K. 1897.

[247] Travels in the Coastlands of British East Africa, London, 1898, p. 103 sq.

[248] A. Werner, "Girijama Texts," Zeitschr. f. Kol.-spr. Oct. 1914.

[249] Having become the chief medium of intercourse throughout the southern Bantu regions, Ki-swahili has been diligently cultivated, especially by the English missionaries, who have wisely discarded the Arab for the Roman characters. There is already an extensive literature, including grammars, dictionaries, translations of the Bible and other works, and even A History of Rome issued by the S.P.C.K. in 1898.

[250] W. E. H. Barrett, "Notes on the Customs and Beliefs of the Wa-Giriama," etc., Journ. Roy. Anthr. Inst. XLI. 1911, gives further details. For a full review of the religious beliefs of Bantu tribes see E. S. Hartland, Art. "Bantu and S. Africa," Ency. of Religion and Ethics, 1909.

[251] The name still survives in Zangue-bar ("Zang-land") and the adjacent island of Zanzibar (an Indian corruption). Zang is "black," and bar is the same Arabic word, meaning dry land, that we have in Mala-bar on the opposite side of the Indian Ocean. Cf. also barran wa bahran, "by land and by sea."

[252] Viage por Malabar y Costas de Africa, 1512, translated by the Hon. Henry E. J. Stanley, Hakluyt Society, 1868.

[253] In preference to the more popular form Zulu-Kafir, where Kafiris merely the Arabic "Infidel" applied indiscriminately to any people rejecting Islam; hence the Siah Posh Kafirs ("Black-clad Infidels") of Afghanistan; the Kufra oasis in the Sahara, where Kufra, plural of Kafir, refers to the pagan Tibus of that district; and the Kafirs generally of the East African seaboard. But according to English usage Zulu is applied to the northern part of the territory, mainly Zululand proper and Natal, while Kafirland or Kaffraria is restricted to the southern section between Natal and the Great Kei River. The bulk of these southern "Kafirs" belong to the Xosa connection; hence this term takes the place of Kafir, in the compound expression Zulu-Xosa. Ama is explained on p. 86, and the X of Xosa represents an unpronounceable combination of a guttural and a lateral click, this with two other clicks (a dental and a palatal) having infected the speech of these Bantus during their long prehistoric wars with the Hottentots or Bushmen.