Page:George McCall Theal, Ethnography and condition of South Africa before A.D. 1505 (2nd ed, 1919).djvu/85

Rh There were various kinds of dances, each of which had its appropriate chant, but nearly all consisted of contortions of the body rather than of movements from place to place. Some of them were lascivious to the last degree, for the savages were devoid of all feeling of shame. Others, which perhaps must be considered the highest in order, were imitations of the actions of different animals. These dances caused much excitement, one especially, which was attended with great exertion of the body, frequently causing blood to flow from the noses of some of the performers and ending in the utter exhaustion of others.

The games that they practised were chiefly imitation hunts, in which some or all of them were disguised and represented animals. In this pastime they displayed much cleverness, whether they acted as men, or as baboons, or as lions in pursuit of antelopes. But it was not often that they engaged in play, for the effort to sustain existence was with them severe and almost constant.

At early dawn the Bushman rose from his bed of grass, and scanned the country around in search of game. If any living thing was within range of his far-seeing eye, he grasped his bow and quiver of arrows, and with his dog set off in pursuit. His wife and children followed, carrying fire and collecting bulbs and anything else that was edible on the way. They could pursue his track unerringly by indications that would escape the keenest European eye: a broken twig, a freshly turned stone, or bent blades of grass being sufficient to guide them aright. At nightfall, if they were fortunate, they collected about the body of an antelope, and there they remained till nothing that could be consumed was left. Or if a small animal was killed early in the day, it might be carried to the cave where they and others had their chief abode, to be generously shared with all the occupants, for in this respect the wild people were unselfish to the last degree. Such in general was their mode of existence, varied occasionally by either a great feast with boisterous revelry or a dire famine and tightened hunger belts. And so from day to day and year to year life passed on, without anything of an intellectual nature to ennoble it.