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Bushmen and Hottentots. Former and Present Range.

Towards the south the Negrillo domain was formerly conterminous with that of the Bushmen, of whom traces were discovered by Sir H. H. Johnston[304] as far north as Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika, and who, it has been conjectured, belong to the same primitive stock. The differences mental and physical now separating the two sections of the family may perhaps be explained by the different environments—hot, moist and densely wooded in the north, and open steppes in the south—but until more is known of the African pygmies their affinities must remain undecided.

The relationship between the Bushmen and the Hottentots is another disputed question. Early authorities regarded the Hottentots as the parent family, and the Bushmen as the offspring, but the researches of Gustav Fritsch, E. T. Hamy, F. Shrubsall[305] and others show that the Hottentots are a cross between the Bushmen—the primitive race—and the Bantu, the Bushman element being seen in the leathery colour, prominent cheek-bones, pointed chin, steatopygia and other special characters.

The Wa-Sandawi.

In prehistoric times the Hottentots ranged over a vast area. Evidence has now been produced of the presence of a belated Hottentot or Hottentot-Bushman group as far north as the Kwa-Kokue district, between Kilimanjaro and Victoria Nyanza. The Wa-Sandawi people here visited by Oskar Neumann are not Bantus, and speak a language radically distinct from that of the neighbouring Bantus, but full of clicks like that of the Bushmen[306]. Two Sandawi skulls examined by Virchow[307] showed distinct Hottentot characters, with a cranial capacity of 1250 and 1265 c.c., projecting upper jaw and orthodolicho head[308]. The geographical prefix Kwa, common in the district (Kwa-Kokue, Kwa-Mtoro, Kwa-Hindi), is pure Hottentot, meaning "people," like the postfix qua (Kwa) of Kora-qua, Nama-qua, etc. in the present Hottentot domain. The transposition of prefixes and postfixes is a common linguistic phenomenon, as seen in the Sumero-Akkadian of Babylonia, in the Neo-Sanskritic tongues of India, and the Latin, Oscan, and other members of the Old Italic group.

Hottentot Geographical Names in Bantuland.

Farther south a widely-diffused Hottentot-Bushman geographical terminology attests the former range of this primitive race all over South Africa, as far north as the Zambesi. Lichtenstein had already discovered such traces in the Zulu country[309], and Vater points out that "for some districts the fact has been fully established; mountains and rivers now occupied by the Koossa [Ama-Xosa] preserve in their Hottentot names the certain proof that they at one time formed a permanent possession of this people[310]."

Thanks to the custom of raising heaps of stones or cairns over the graves of renowned chiefs, the migrations of the Hottentots may be followed in various directions to the very heart of South Zambesia. Here the memory of their former presence is perpetuated in the names of such water-courses as Nos-ob, Up, Mol-opo, Hyg-ap, Gar-ib, in which the syllables ob, up, ap, ib and others are variants of the Hottentot word ib, ip, water, river, as in Gar-ib, the "Great River," now better known as the Orange River. The same indications may be traced right across the continent to the Atlantic, where nearly all the coast streams—even in Hereroland, where the language has long been extinct—have the same ending[311].

Hottentots disappearing.

On the west side the Bushmen are still heard of as far north as the Cunene, and in the interior beyond Lake Ngami nearly to the right bank of the Zambesi. But the Hottentots are now confined mainly to Great and Little Namaqualand. Elsewhere there appear to be no full-blood natives of this race, the Koraquas, Gonaquas, Griquas, etc. being all Hottentot-Boer or Hottentot-Bantu half-castes of Dutch speech. In Cape Colony the tribal organisation ceased to exist in 1810, when the last Hottentot chief was replaced by a European magistrate. Still the Koraquas keep themselves somewhat distinct about the Upper Orange and Vaal Rivers, and the Griquas in Griqualand East, while the Gonaquas, that is, "Borderers," are being gradually merged in the Bantu populations of the Eastern Provinces. There are at present scarcely 180,000 south of the Orange River, and of these the great majority are half-breeds[312].

Bushman Folklore Literature.

Despite their extremely low state of culture, or, one might say, the almost total lack of culture, the Bushmen are distinguished by two remarkable qualities, a fine sense of pictorial or graphic art[313], and a rich imagination displayed in a copious oral folklore, much of which, collected by Bleek, is preserved in manuscript form in Sir George Grey's library at Cape Town[314]. The materials here stored for future use, perhaps long after the race itself has vanished for ever, comprise no less than 84 thick volumes of 3600 double-column pages, besides an unfinished Bushman dictionary with 11,000 entries. There are two great sections, (1) Myths, fables, legends and poetry, with tales about the sun and moon, the stars, the Mantis and other animals, legends of peoples who dwelt in the land before the Bushmen, songs, charms, and even prayers; (2) Histories, adventures of men and animals, customs, superstitions, genealogies, and so on.

Bushman-Hottentot Language and Clicks.

In the tales and myths the sun, moon, and animals speak either with their own proper clicks, or else use the ordinary clicks in some way peculiar to themselves. Thus Bleek tells us that the tortoise changes clicks in labials, the ichneumon in palatals, the jackal substitutes linguo-palatals for labials, while the moon, hare, and ant-eater use "a most unpronounceable click" of their own. How many there may be altogether, not one of which can be properly uttered by Europeans, nobody seems to know. But grammarians have enumerated nine, indicated each by a graphic sign as under:

From Bushman—a language in a state of flux, fragmentary as the small tribal or rather family groups that speak it[315]—these strange inarticulate sounds passed to the number of four into the remotely related Hottentot, and thence to the number of three into the wholly unconnected Zulu-Xosa. But they are heard nowhere else to my knowledge except amongst the newly-discovered Wa-Sandawi people of South Masailand. At the same time we know next to nothing of the Negrillo tongues, and should clicks be discovered to form an element in their phonetic system also[316], it would support the assumption of a common origin of all these dwarfish races now somewhat discredited on anatomical grounds.

Bushman Mental Characters.

M. G. Bertin, to whom we are indebted for an excellent monograph on the Bushman[317], rightly remarks that he is not, at least mentally, so debased as he has been described by the early travellers and by the neighbouring Bantus and Boers, by whom he has always been despised and harried. "His greatest love is for freedom, he acknowledges no master, and possesses no slaves. It is this love of independence which made him prefer the wandering life of a hunter to that of a peaceful agriculturist or shepherd, as the Hottentot. He rarely builds a hut, but prefers for abode the natural caves he finds in the rocks. In other localities he forms a kind of nest in the bush—hence his name of Bushman—or digs with his nails subterranean caves, from which he has received the name of 'Earthman.' His garments consist only of a small skin. His weapons are still the spear, arrow and bow in their most rudimentary form. The spear is a mere branch of a tree, to which is tied a piece of bone or flint; the arrow is only a reed treated in the same way. The arrow and spear-heads are always poisoned, to render mortal the slight wounds they inflict. He gathers no flocks, which would impede his movements, and only accepts the help of dogs as wild as himself. The Bushmen have, however, one implement, a rounded stone perforated in the middle, in which is inserted a piece of wood; with this instrument, which carries us back to the first age of man, they dig up a few edible roots growing wild in the desert. To produce fire, he still retains the primitive system of rubbing two pieces of wood—another prehistoric survival."

Bushman Race-names.

Touching their name, it is obvious that these scattered groups, without hereditary chiefs or social organisation of any kind, could have no collective designation. The term Khuai, of uncertain meaning, but probably to be equated with the Hottentot Khoi, "Men," is the name only of a single group, though often applied to the whole race. Saan, their Hottentot name, is the plural of Sa, a term also of uncertain origin; Ba-roa, current amongst the Be-Chuanas, has not been explained, while the Zulu Abatwa would seem to connect them even by name with Wolf's and Stanley's Ba-Twa of the Congo forest region. Other so-called tribal names (there are no "tribes" in the strict sense of the word) are either nicknames imposed upon them by their neighbours, or else terms taken from the localities, as amongst the Fuegians.

We may conclude with the words of W. J. Sollas: "The more we know of these wonderful little people the more we learn to admire and like them. To many solid virtues—untiring energy, boundless patience, and fertile invention, steadfast courage, devoted loyalty, and family affection—they added a native refinement of manners and a rare aesthetic sense. We may learn from them how far the finer excellences of life may be attained in the hunting stage. In their golden age, before the coming of civilised man, they enjoyed their life to the full, glad with the gladness of primeval creatures. The story of their later days, their extermination and the cruel manner of it, is a tale of horror on which we do not care to dwell. They haunt no more the sunlit veldt, their hunting is over, their nation is destroyed; but they leave behind an imperishable memory, they have immortalised themselves in their art[318]."