Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/136

112 dried skin of an antelope over a hollow block of wood, can be so called. In the early records of the Cape Colony there are several descriptions of Hottentot dances performed in honour of Europeans who visited their kraals. After the first terrible outbreak of small-pox they ceased to be practised south of the Orange river, but in the secluded district of Great Namaqualand, where the language and ancient customs were preserved inviolate, the dances of various kinds to the music of reeds were performed until the middle of the nineteenth century. Captain Alexander, who explored Great Namaqualand in 1836–7, in An Expedition of Discovery into the Interior of Africa, through the hitherto undescribed countries of the Great Namaquas, Boschmans, and Hill Damaras, performed under the auspices of Her Majesty's Government and the Royal Geographical Society, and conducted by James Edward Alexander, K.L.S., Captain in the British, Lieutenant-Colonel in the Portuguese service, F.R.G.S. and R.A.S., etc. (two demi octavo volumes, published in London in 1838), describes one that he witnessed in the following words:

“On the 20th February the chief, according to Namaqua custom, presented me with six sheep, and gave me a grand reed dance, as follow:—A dozen men assembled, and with reeds, which, closed at one end, were from one foot long to seven, like the horns, of different sizes, of the Russian horn bands, the music of which I used to hear float like that of a grand piano, over the waters of the Neva. Women and girls also came, and, throwing off their karosses, stood by. One man then blew on his reed, holding it in the left hand, and with the fingers opening and shutting to undulate the sound, while in his right hand, pressed close to his ear, he held a slight stick to clear the reed; the leader blew strongly, his head stooping forwards, and his feet stamping the ground to beat time; the others blew also to accompany their leader; wild music arose, while the musicians circled round, looking inward, stooping and beating time. The music quickened, the women sang, then sprang forward, clapping their hands, and ran round the circle of reed players, giving their bodies various odd twists, and ending by dexterously throwing up the skirt oi their skin half-petticoat behind, previous to falling into their places. Sometimes the women got into the middle, and the men stamped and blew their reeds round them; and thus they continued for two or three hours, with occasional pauses, to favour me with the reed dance, which I had never seen or heard of before.” Active in this exercise and in hunting, in all other respects they were extremely indolent. The labour of collecting wild plants and most of that of building and removing huts was performed by the women.

Their filthiness of person, clothing, and habitation was