Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/322

310 310 HOTTENTOTS retain all the improvident, idle, nomadic habits of the aborigines. The primitive character of the Hottentot or Khoi-Khoin has been greatly changed by their forced migrations, and their gradual adoption of the habits of civilized life. The best information as to their original manners and customs is therefore to be obtained from the descriptions given of them by the older writers. The observations of Kolben, who was a resident at the Cape in the early part of last century, are by far the most complete ; and, although doubts have been thrown upon some of his statements, yet travellers and missionaries who have resided among the tribes in Great Namaqualand confirm and endorse the greater part of them. All authorities agree in representing the natural disposi tion of the Hottentots as mild, placable, and ingenuous. Mutual affection was the greatest of their virtues. They held in contempt the man who could eat, drink, or smoke alone. They were hospitable to strangers ; indeed, their munificence often left them scarcely anything for them selves. Another characteristic was indolence. While not deficient in talents or capacity, they seemed to lack the energy to call them into action. They did not, however, disdain to look after their cattle. Hunting they pursued for pleasure as well as sustenance, and when once aroused they were nimble and active, as well as bold and ardent. In personal appearance they were of a medium height, the females rather smaller than the men. Their bodies were slender but well proportioned, with small hands and feet. Their skin was of a leathery brown colour ; their face oval, with prominent projecting cheekbones ; eyes dark chestnut or black and wide apart ; nose broad and thick and flat at the root ; chin pointed, and mouth large, with thick turned-up lips. Their woolly hair grew in short thick curly tufts on their head, and the beard very scanty. The women, especially as they advanced in years, had flabby breasts hanging down low ; abnormal developments of fat were somewhat common among them ; and cases occurred of extraordinary elongation of the labia minora and of the prceputium ditoridis. 1 The dress of the men was very simple. A cloak or kaross, varying according to the fashion of the tribe, was usually thrown across the shoulders and a smaller one across the loins. Those of the chiefs or captains were usually of tiger or wild-cat skins, those of the commonalty of sheep skins. They wore the cloaks all the year round, turning the hairy side inward in winter and outward in summer ; they slept in them at night, and when they died they were interred in them. They had suspended around their necks little bags or pouches, containing their knives, their pipes and tobacco or daccha (Cannabis, or hemp), and an amulet of burnt wood. On their arms were rings of ivory. When they drove their herds to pasture they wore sandals on their feet, and some of them carried a jackal s tail fastened on a stick to wipe their face with when heated and drive away the flies. The women also wore karosses, a lesser under a greater, fashioned much like those of the men, but with the addition of a little apron, to which were appended their ornaments. In a leather bag sus pended round their neck they carried daily, whether at home or abroad, some victuals, together with their daccha, tobacco, and pipe. They also wore an ornamented skin cap on their heads, armlets of iron or copper on their arms, strings of beads round their wrists, and round their legs thongs of ox-hide sometimes covering half the leg or more. They loved to besmear their bodies and their dress with J See paper by Messrs Flower and Murie in Journ. Comp. Anat. and Physiology, 1867; and Fritsch, Die Eingebornen Siid-Afrikas, Breslau, 1873. greasy substances. The wealthy Hottentots were very lavish in the matter of butter and fat, the use of which was the grand distinction between rich and poor. They also perfumed themselves with the powdered leaves of a shrub called by them bucchu (Diosma crenata). An oint ment formed of soot and grease and the powder of bucchu was held in very high estimation. The sites of their villages or kraals were usually on green meadow grounds. They never entirely exhausted the grass or herbage, but kept moving at intervals from one spot to another. The huts or tents, which they could strike, carry, or pitch where they chose, were ranged in circles, the area of which varied with the pastoral wealth of the community. The small cattle were placed inside the circle, and the larger cattle outside. In the centre of the huts a hole served for a fire-place, around which the members of the family were fond of squatting upon their haunches while they passed the tobacco pipe from one to another. On each side of the hearth small excavations an inch or two deep were made in the ground, and thereon mats were spread upon which the men, women, and children rolled up in their karosses lay down and slept. Their household effects con sisted only of some earthen vessels for cookery, tortoise shells for spoons and dishes, and calabashes, bamboos, and skins for holding milk and butter. The weapons for hunt ing or warfare the assegai, the bow and poisoned arrows, the shield, and the kerrie (a stick with a large knob at one end) were also part of the furniture. Women were held in high repute : the most sacred oath a Khoi-Khoi could take was to swear by his sister or mother ; yet the females ate apart from the men, and did all the work of the kraal. Their usual food consisted of milk, the flesh of the buffalo, hippopotamus, antelope, or other game, and edible roots and bulbs or wild fruits. Cows milk was commonly drunk by both sexes, but ewes milk only by the women, and when cows milk was scarce the women were obliged to keep to ewes milk or water. Meats wore eaten either roasted or boiled, but for the most part half raw, without salt, spices, or bread. Some meats they carefully abstained from, such as swine s flesh. Hares and rabbits were forbidden to the men, but not to the women ; while the pure blood of beasts and the flesh of the mole were for bidden to the women, but not to the men. Their social pleasures consisted in feasting, smoking, dancing, and singing. Every signal event of life, and every change of abode and condition was celebrated with a feast. On the formation of a new kraal an arbour was constructed in the centre, and the women and children adorned and perfumed it with flowers and branches of trees and odorifer ous herbs. The fattened ox was killed and cooked, and the men partook of it in the arbour, while the women sitting apart regaled themselves with broth. Upon such occasions they indulged in no other intoxication than what arose from their smoking tobacco or daccha. Circumcision, which is common to the Kaffre tribes, was unknown to them, but when a youth entered upon manhood a particular ceremony was performed. One of the elders or officiating priests, using a knife of sharp quartz, made incisions on the young man s body, and afterwards be sprinkled the same with urine. When a man for the first time distinguished himself by killing an elephant, hippopotamus, or rhinoceros, similar marks were made on his body, and were regarded as insignia of honour. There was no purchase of wives, but in every case of marriage the consent of the parents had to be first obtained. If his proposals were accepted, the suitor accompanied by all his kindred drove two or three fat oxen to the house from which he was to take his destined bride. There her assembled relations received them with kindly greetings and caresses ; the oxen were then immediately slain, and