HOTTENTOT CUSTOMS.
It will not, perhaps, be out of place here to consider the Hottentots in their native condition, before the white man invaded their country and homes.
It was no uncommon thing to find skilled artisans among them, practicing the art of skinner, tailor, or blacksmith, while the women were expert mat and rope makers.
Their methods of procedure were as simple as they were novel. The tanner took the sheep's skin, warm from the freshly slaughtered carcass, and rubbed as much fat into it as it would contain. This process was conducted slowly and carefully, until the skin became tough and smooth, and the wool rendered secure from falling off.
This was the process if he cured the skin for a European; but if for the use of one of his own tribe, he would give it alternate rubbings with fat and manure from the cattle pen, and then place it in the sun to dry.
The tanner rubbed wood ashes in abundance into the hair of the hide he wished to tan, whether that of a cow or an ox. He then sprinkled it with water. If this process did not sufficiently loosen the hair, another application of the wood ashes and water was made, and so on until the hair could easily be removed. After the hair had been taken from the skin and as much fat rubbed into it as it would absorb, the skin was then vigorously curried.
The Hottentot skinner usually plied the vocation of tailor too. When he cut out the different parts of the native dress, he employed neither pattern nor rule, but measured accurately with his eye, and performed his work with speed and dexterity. When the several parts were cut out, he assumed a squatting position, and employed as his tools the bone of a bird for an awl, and the split sinews of animals for thread, in fashioning his garment.
If he wished to cut a hide up into straps, he made holes at short distances along its edges. He then tied a string in each hole. To each string he then fastened a peg, and by means of the several pegs stretched the hide to its full extent upon the ground.
Then with a knife, guided only by his eye, he cut out a strap, no matter what its length, with the greatest precision. Whether short or long, the width of the strap rarely varied from one end to the other.
These straps were of great service. The natives used them to tie up the materials for building their huts and their hut furniture, when they migrated to new cattle kraals. By means of the straps they girded these goods upon the backs of their oxen, and employed them in various ways.
The mat makers were chiefly women. They went out in bands to gather the flags, reeds, and bulrushes which they needed. These they brought home and laid in the sun to dry. When sufficiently dry for the purpose, they were woven by the fingers into mats. If the materials for weaving became too dry, they were moistened slightly in water to render them pliable. So closely were these mats woven that neither light, wind, nor rain could penetrate them.
The mats were used to cover the frames for the huts, and hence the care taken to render them impervious to the action of the elements. A good stock was usually kept on hand; for, in the course of time, as some decayed, new ones had to be provided to replace them.
The ropes were made of the same materials as those used for the mats. The flags, reeds, and bulrushes were twisted separately into small strings. These strings were joined, till each length measured about four yards. When a sufficient number of these lengths had been obtained, they were twisted tightly one around another until the cord was about an inch in thickness. The entire work was done by the hands; yet so strong were these ropes that if they were perfect ones, even oxen rarely broke them when drawing a load.
The Europeans at the Cape frequently bought these ropes of the Hottentots and used them for drawing their plows and in various other ways. When required to do so, these rope makers could by the same process produce a rope of any desired length.
Each family of Hottentots made its own supply of earthen pots. They used for the purpose the mold from the immense ant hills, of which we shall read in time.
This mold was taken from the surface of the ground, cleaned from every particle of sand or gravel, kneaded closely in order to bruise and mix with it the ant eggs which were scattered through it. These ant eggs acted as a cement.
The mold, which had now become a clay, or dough, was then taken, in sufficient quantity to make a pot of the required size, and shaped on a smooth, flat stone by the aid of the hands. These pots were similar in form to the Roman urn.
When shaped, the vessel was first carefully smoothed both inside and out, and then set on the stone for a couple of days to dry in the sun. When thoroughly dried, it was removed from the stone, to which it had adhered, by drawing a dried sinew back and forth between the stone and the base of the vessel, or pot.
The pot was then put into a hole just its depth, but more than twice its circumference. A brisk fire was then built over and around it. Here it was left to bake till the fire burnt itself out. The Hottentots believed that while the pot was baking in this simple oven, the substances of which the ant eggs were composed spread throughout its surface and gave it the great strength which characterized all their pottery.
The process of smelting iron ore was as primitive as it was unique. A hole was first made in a mound of earth. This hole was large enough to contain a good quantity of iron stones, of which there was an abundance. A fire was then kindled about the mouth of it. On the slope of the mound, about a foot and a half from this hole, a second hole, much smaller than the first, was made. This was to receive the melted iron.
When the iron in this receiver became cold, it was taken out and broken into pieces with stones. When needed, these pieces of iron were heated in fresh fires and beaten out into shape by means of stones.
One writer thus describes the process, though he neglects to say anything of the action of the fire: "They take a piece of new or old iron, and without any other implement than stone, make a weapon of it. They get the hardest flat stone they can, and putting the iron upon it as on an anvil, bend it with a roundish stone, which serves them for a hammer, into the desired form. They then grind it on the flat stone, and afterwards polish it so nicely that it comes out a very valuable piece of work both for beauty and service, and which no European smith could, perhaps, produce the like to, by the like means."
One traveler watched with interest the process by which a Hottentot smith made knives and spears. His tools were few and primitive. A stone served him for an anvil, while a roughly made hammer and two small bellows made of skin completed his outfit.
The head of the hammer weighed perhaps a pound. The bellows had "a piece of cow horn at one end through which the blast went, the other end being open like a purse and sewed to two round pieces of wood. The two pairs of bellows were laid upon the ground opposite the fire, with a heavy stone to keep the under side steady." In order to make a blast the workman quickly raised and lowered the upper side of each pair of bellows, and with the greatest ease blew both pairs at once.
The Hottentot woman, as she sat in the shade near her dwelling, often employed her time by twisting cord from the bark of the acacia tree, while some of her companions chopped down its branches or stripped off long pieces of bark from its stems. Others, while working at cord making, busily chewed the fibers of the bark instead of pounding them upon a stone. This was not considered a task, but rather a pleasant pastime, since the juices of the bark had an agreeable taste.
Notwithstanding the laborious process of making this cord, it was done very expeditiously. The worker sat upon the ground with a quantity of prepared bark close beside her. By a clever process she was able to make two yards at once. By rolling them down her thigh with her palm, and then, by bringing them close together and rolling them upwards, with a turn in the contrary way, they were quickly and neatly twisted into a strong, compact cord.
The making of wooden bowls was another industry among the Hottentots when the Cape was first colonized. These bowls and jugs were skillfully carved from green willow wood.
As these willow trees had trunks often a foot or a foot and one-half in diameter, cutting them down was a task well calculated to test the perseverance of this people, whose only tools were small hatchets, that could make but little impression at a time upon anything so formidable. Yet often a fallen tree might be found hacked through by these apologies for hatchets.
The tree once felled was cut into desired lengths, according to the utensils destined to be carved from the pieces. The soft, tough nature of the wood made it especially valuable for the purpose.
After a rough log had been chopped with the hatchet into a semblance of the desired shape, a common knife was the only tool used to smooth and complete the outer surface. Another knife, with its top bent into a semi-circular hook, was used with the greatest dexterity and neatness to cut and hollow out the inner surface.
When this work was done, the whole surface of the bowl, or jug, was thoroughly rubbed over with fat. This was to keep the wood from warping and splitting on account of the heat and dryness of the atmosphere.
The bowls were of various sizes. Most frequently they measured from twelve to eighteen inches in diameter. In form they were mostly oval and quite shallow. The jugs, or jars, were made in the form of a cylinder, quite short, with the mouth, or neck, only about two-thirds the size of the body. These jugs held usually about a gallon; but they were made of other sizes also, to hold from a pint to five gallons.
The Hottentots also carved ivory rings. These were worn as arm ornaments. They were cut from an elephant's tooth, and from the time the carver began the operation till the completion of the perfect ring—round, smooth, and brightly polished—he employed no other tool than his knife. The process, of course, was an exceedingly tedious and laborious one.