Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/119

Rh The manner in which the various Hottentot tribes were formed has already been explained. They usually took their distinctive titles from the name of the chief under whose guidance they commenced to lead a separate existence, by adding to it the suffix qua, which signified those of or the people of, thus the Cochoqua were the people of Cocho, the Gonaqua the people of Gona. Sometimes, however, they called themselves after some animal, as the springbucks, the scorpions, or from some accidental circumstance, as the honey eaters, the sandal wearers. Many of the tribes consisted of several clans, more or less loosely joined together, though all tending to become independent in course of time. The tribes were almost constantly at war with each other, the object being to obtain possession of the cattle and girls of the opponent, and often the weaker ones were reduced to great poverty and distress. New combinations would then be formed, and the victors of one year frequently became the vanquished of the next. These internecine quarrels were not attended with much loss of life. There was never a slaughter of the whole of the conquered people, as was the case when a band of Bushmen was surrounded and overpowered.

Every tribe had its own hereditary chief, whose authority, however, was very limited, as his subjects were impatient of control. The succession was from father to son, and in the absence of a son to brother or nephew. The heads of clans not long formed recognised the supremacy in rank of the head of the community from which they had branched off, who was accounted the paramount chief, but unless he happened to be a man of more force of character than the others, he exercised no real power over them. The petty rulers, or heads of clans, were commonly jealous of each other, and only united their strength in cases of extreme danger to all. The government was thus particularly frail, and a very slight shock was sufficient to break any combination of the people into fragments. The powerful religious sentiment which binds the people of a Bantu tribe so strongly to their ruler was altogether wanting in a Hottentot community. The chief was not regarded as a divinity or the descendant of a divinity, but as a mere man like any of his