Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/81

Rh solely from the chase and the natural products of the earth in any part of South Africa at any time, and more especially after the Hottentots and the Bantu had taken possession of the choicest sections. When a Bushman tribe is spoken of therefore, the term implies only a puny horde never exceeding two or three hundred souls at most. Such a band claimed the right to a fairly well defined tract of country, and any aggression beyond its borders would naturally be resented by the occupants of the next section. If a mountain intervened, the probabilities would be that the dialects of the language spoken on the different sides would vary so greatly as to prevent intercourse, had there been no other cause to keep each little band within its own bounds. Mr. Stow ascertained that these groups called themselves by the names of the animals that were depicted on the walls of their principal caves or engraved on the rocks at their principal residences, thus one band would be the people of the ostrich, another the people of the python, another the people of the eland, and so on.

The early Dutch colonists observed that they were amazingly prolific, a circumstance that is not surprising if one reflects that they were much less subject to disease than Europeans, and that every woman without exception bore children. Their numbers must therefore in remote times have been kept down by war or violence among themselves, just as they were kept down by constant strife in the territory bordering on that occupied by the Hottentots and Bantu after the intrusion of those people. In such a condition of society there could never have been peace for any length of time, for with a rapid growth of population the only alternatives would have been aggression or death from famine.

There was a difference in the disposition of individual Bushmen, though not to the same extent as is seen in civilised people. Towards the invaders that despoiled them of their game and their hunting grounds it was but natural that they should show vindictiveness and relentless cruelty; but they were fierce and passionate in their dealings with each other. Human life, even that of their nearest kindred, was sacrificed on very slight provocation.