Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/124

100 together with sinews. The women wore at all times a head-dress of fur, an under apron, and a wrapper or a girdle of leather strings suspended from the waist. In cold weather, or when carrying infants on their backs, they added a scanty kaross. Children wore no clothing whatever. Round their legs the females sewed strips of raw hide like rings, which, when dry, rattled against each other, and made a noise when they moved.

Both sexes ornamented their heads with copper trinkets, and hung round their necks strings of shells, leopards' teeth, or any glittering objects they could obtain. Ivory armlets were worn by the men. From earliest infancy their bodies were smeared with grease, and rubbed over with clay, soot, or powdered buchu, and to this partly may be attributed the stench of their persons. The coat of grease and clay was not intended for ornament alone. It protected them from the weather and from the vermin that infested their huts and clothing.

Their dwellings were constructed by planting long pieces of supple undressed wood in the ground, and bending the upper ends inward, where they were attached by thongs to short pieces laid horizontally, so that the whole frame resembled approximately a rough hemisphere. Withes were then twisted round the structure and tied on outside, and the whole was covered with rush mats. The huts were so low that a tall man could not stand upright inside, and they had but one small opening through which the inmates crawled. In cold weather a fire was made in a cavity in the centre. The huts of a kraal were arranged in the form of a circle, the space enclosed being used as a fold for cattle. They could be taken to pieces, placed on pack-oxen, removed to a distance, and set up again, with very little labour and no waste. The furniture within them consisted merely of mats to sleep on, skins, weapons, cooking utensils, wooden milk dishes, and ostrich egg shells used for carrying and containing water. Unlike the Bushman, who doubled himself up to sleep on a little grass, the Hottentot stretched himself at full length on a mat in his hut.