The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 1 of 2 / Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics

by J. G. Wood

CHAPTER III.

A KAFFIR’S LIFE, CONTINUED — ADOLESCENCE — BEAUTY OF FORM IN THE KAFFIRS, AND REASONS FOR IT — LIVING STATUES — BENJAMIN WEST AND THE APOLLO — SHOULDERS OF THE KAFFIRS — SPEED OF FOOT CONSIDERED HONORABLE — A KAFFIR MESSENGER AND HIS MODE OF CARRYING A LETTER — HIS EQUIPMENT FOR THE JOURNEY — LIGHT MARCHING-ORDER — HOW THE ADDRESS IS GIVEN TO HIM — CELERITY OF HIS TASK, AND SMALLNESS OF HIS PAY — HIS FEET AND THEIR NATURE — THICKNESS OF THE SOLE, AND ITS SUPERIORITY OVER THE SHOE — ANECDOTE OF A SICK BOY AND HIS PHYSICIAN — FORM OF THE FOOT — HEALTHY STATE OF A KAFFIR’S BODY — ANECDOTE OF WOUNDED GIRL — RAPIDITY WITH WHICH INJURIES ARE HEALED — YOUNG WOMEN, AND THEIR BEAUTY OF FORM — PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAITS — DIFFICULTY OF PHOTOGRAPHING A KAFFIR — THE LOCALITY, GREASE, NERVOUSNESS — SHORT TENURE OF BEAUTY — FEATURES OF KAFFIR GIRLS — OLD KAFFIR WOMEN AND THEIR LOOKS.

When the youths and maidens are in the full bloom of youth, they afford as fine specimens of humanity as can be seen anywhere. Their limbs have never been subject to the distorting influences of clothing, nor their forms to the absurd compression which was, until recently, destructive of all real beauty in this and neighboring countries. Each muscle and sinew has had fair play, the lungs have breathed fresh air, and the active habits have given to the form that rounded perfection which is never seen except in those who have enjoyed similar advantages. We all admire the almost superhuman majesty of the human form as seen in ancient sculpture, and we need only to travel to Southern Africa to see similar forms, yet breathing and moving, not motionless images of marble, but living statues of bronze. This classic beauty of form is not peculiar to Southern Africa, but is found in many parts of the world where the inhabitants lead a free, active, and temperate life.

My readers will probably remember the well-known anecdote of West the painter surprising the critical Italians with his remarks. Bred in a Quaker family, he had no acquaintance with ancient art; and when he first visited Rome, he was taken by a large assembly of art-critics to see the Apollo Belvedere. As soon as the doors were thrown open, he exclaimed that the statue represented a young Mohawk warrior, much to the indignation of the critics, who foolishly took his exclamation as derogatory to the statue, rather than the highest and most genuine praise. The fact was, that the models from whom the sculptor had composed his statue, and the young Mohawk warriors so familiar to West, had received a similar physical education, and had attained a similar physical beauty. “I have seen them often,” said West, “standing in the very attitude of this Apollo, and pursuing with an intent eye the arrow which they had just discharged from the bow.”

There is, indeed, but one fault that the most captious critic can find with the form of the Kaffir, and that is, a slight deficiency in the fall of the shoulder. As a race, the Kaffirs are slightly high-shouldered, though there are many instances where the slope from the neck to the arm is exactly in accordance with the canons of classic art.

These young fellows are marvellously swift of foot, speed reckoning as one of the chief characteristics of a distinguished soldier. They are also possessed of enormous endurance. You may send a Kaffir for sixty or seventy miles with a letter, and he will prepare for the start as quietly as if he had only a journey of some three or four miles to perform. First, he cuts a stick some three feet in length, splits the end, and fixes the letter in the cleft, so that he may carry the missive without damaging it by the grease with which his whole person is liberally anointed. He then looks to his supply of snuff, and, should he happen to run short of that needful luxury, it will add wings to his feet if a little tobacco be presented to him, which he can make into snuff at his first halt.

(1.) YOUNG KAFFIR ARMED.
(See [page 20].)

(2.) KAFFIR POSTMAN.
(See [page 20].)

Taking an assagai or two with him, and perhaps a short stick with a knob at the end, called a “kerry,” he will start off at a slinging sort of mixture between a run and a trot, and will hold this pace almost without cessation. As to provision for the journey, he need not trouble himself about it, for he is sure to fall in with some hut, or perhaps a village, and is equally sure of obtaining both food and shelter. He steers his course almost as if by intuition, regardless of beaten tracks, and arrives at his destination with the same mysterious certainty that characterizes the migration of the swallow.

It is not so easy to address a letter in Africa as in England, and it is equally difficult to give directions for finding any particular house or village. If a chief should be on a visit, and ask his host to return the call, he simply tells him to go so many days in such a direction, and then turn for half a day in another direction, and so on. However, the Kaffir is quite satisfied with such indications, and is sure to attain his point.

When the messenger has delivered his letter, he will squat down on the ground, take snuff, or smoke—probably both—and wait patiently for the answer. As a matter of course, refreshments will be supplied to him, and, when the answer is handed to him, he will return at the same pace. Europeans are always surprised when they first see a young Kaffir undertake the delivery of a letter at so great a distance, and still more at the wonderfully short time in which he will perform the journey. Nor are they less surprised when they find that he thinks himself very well paid with a shilling for his trouble. In point of fact, the journey is scarcely troublesome at all. He has everything his own way. There is plenty of snuff in his box, tobacco wherewith to make more, the prospect of seeing a number of fellow-countrymen on the way, and enjoying a conversation with them, the dignity of being a messenger from one white chief to another, and the certainty of obtaining a sum of money which will enable him to adorn himself with a splendid set of beads at the next dance.

Barefoot though he be, he seldom complains of any hurt. From constant usage the soles of his feet are defended by a thickened skin as insensible as the sole of any boot, and combining equal toughness with perfect elasticity. He will walk with unconcern over sharp stones and thorns which would lame a European in the first step, and has the great advantage of possessing a pair of soles which never wear out, but actually become stronger by use. Mr. Baines, the African hunter, narrates a rather ludicrous instance of the insensibility of the Kaffir’s foot. Passing by some Kaffir houses, he heard doleful outcries, and found that a young boy was undergoing a medical or surgical operation, whichever may be the proper name. The boy was suffering from some ailment for which the medicine-man prescribed a thorough kneading with a hot substance. The plan by which the process was carried out was simple and ingenious. A Kaffir man held his own foot over the fire until the sole became quite hot. The boy was then held firmly on the ground, while the man trampled on him with the heated foot, and kneaded him well with this curious implement of medicine. When that foot was cold, he heated the other, and so proceeded till the operation was concluded. The heat of his sole was so great that the poor boy could scarcely endure the pain, and struggled hard to get free, but the operator felt no inconvenience whatever from subjecting his foot to such an ordeal. The dreaded “stick” of the Orientals would lose its terrors to a Kaffir, who would endure the bastinado with comparative impunity.

Among these people, the foot assumes its proper form and dimensions. The toes are not pinched together by shoes or boots, and reduced to the helpless state too common in this country. The foot is, like that of an ancient statue, wide and full across the toes, each of which has its separate function just as have the fingers of the hand, and each of which is equally capable of performing that function. Therefore the gait of a Kaffir is perfection itself. He has not had his foot lifted behind and depressed in front by high-heeled boots, nor the play of the instep checked by leathern bonds. The wonderful arch of the foot—one of the most astonishing pieces of mechanism that the world affords—can perform its office unrestrained, and every little bone, muscle and tendon plays its own part, and none other.

The constant activity of the Kaffirs, conjoined to their temperate mode of life, keeps them in perfect health, and guards them against many evils which befall the civilized man. They are free from many of the minor ailments incident to high civilization, and which, trifling as they may be singly, detract greatly in the aggregate from the happiness of life. Moreover, their state of health enables them to survive injuries which would be almost instantly fatal to any ordinary civilized European. That this comparative immunity is owing to the mode of life and not to the color of the skin is a well-known fact, Europeans being, when in thorough good health, even more enduring than their dark-skinned companions. A remarkable instance of this fact occurred during the bloody struggle between the Dutch colonists and Dingan’s forces in 1837. The Kaffirs treacherously assaulted the unsuspecting Dutchmen, and then invaded their villages, spearing all the inhabitants and destroying the habitations. Near the Blue Krantz River was a heap of dead, among whom were found two young girls, who still showed signs of life. One had received nineteen stabs with the assagai, and the other twenty-one. They were removed from the corpses, and survived their dreadful wounds, reaching womanhood, though both crippled for life.

On one occasion, while I was conversing with Captain Burton, and alluding to the numerous wounds which he had received, and the little effect which they had upon him, he said that when the human frame was brought, by constant exercise and simple diet, into a state of perfect health, mere flesh wounds were scarcely noticed, the cut closing almost as easily as if it had been made in India-rubber. It may also be familiar to my readers, that when in this country men are carefully trained for any physical exertion, whether it be pedestrianism, gymnastics, rowing, or the prize-ring, they receive with indifference injuries which would have prostrated them a few months previously, and recover from them with wonderful rapidity.

The young Kaffir women are quite as remarkable for the beauty of their form as are the men, and the very trifling dress which they wear serves to show off their figures to the best advantage. Some of the young Kaffir girls are, in point of form, so perfect that they would have satisfied even the fastidious taste of the classical sculptor. There is, however, in them the same tendency to high shoulders which has already been mentioned, and in some cases the shoulders are set almost squarely across the body. In most instances, however, the shoulders have the proper droop, while the whole of the bust is an absolute model of perfection—rounded, firm, and yet lithe as the body of a panther.

There is now before me a large collection of photographs, representing Kaffir girls of various ages, and, in spite of the invariable stiffness of photographic portraits, they exhibit forms which might serve as models for any sculptor. If they could only have been photographed while engaged in their ordinary pursuits, the result would have been most artistic, but the very knowledge that they were not to move hand or foot has occasioned them to assume attitudes quite at variance with the graceful unconsciousness of their ordinary gestures.

Besides the stiffness which has already been mentioned, there are several points which make a really good photographic portrait almost an impossibility. In the first place, the sunlight is so brilliant that the shadows become developed into black patches, and the high lights into splashes of white without the least secondary shading. The photographer of Kaffir life cannot put his models into a glass room cunningly furnished with curtains and tinted glass. He must take the camera into the villages, photograph the inhabitants as they stand or sit in the open air, and make a darkened hut act as a developing-tent.

Taking the portrait properly is a matter of extreme difficulty. The Kaffirs will rub themselves with grease, and the more they shine the better they are dressed. Now, as every photographer knows, nothing is more perplexing than a rounded and polished surface in the full rays of the sunbeams; and if it were only possible to rub the grease from the dark bodies, and deprive them of their gloss, the photographer would have a better chance of success. But the Kaffir ladies, old and young alike, think it a point of honor to be dressed in their very best when their portraits are taken, and will insist upon bedizening themselves exactly in the way which is most destructive to photography. They take fresh grease, and rub their bodies until they shine like a well-polished boot; they indue every necklace, girdle, bracelet, or other ornament that they can muster, and not until they are satisfied with their personal appearance will they present themselves to the artist. Even when they have done so, they are restless, inquisitive, and rather nervous, and in all probability will move their heads just as the cap of the lens is removed, or will take fright and run away altogether. In the case of the two girls represented in the [illustration], on page 25, the photographer has been singularly fortunate. Both the girls belonged to the tribe commanded by the well-known chief Goza, whose [portrait] will be given on a subsequent page. The girls are clad in their ordinary costume of every-day life, and in fact, when their portraits were taken, were acting as housemaids in the house of an European settler.

Unfortunately, this singular beauty of form is very transient; and when a girl has attained to the age at which an English girl is in her full perfection, the Kaffir girl has begun to age, and her firm, lithe, and graceful form has become flabby and shapeless. In the series of portraits which has been mentioned, this gradual deterioration of form is curiously evident; and in one example, which represents a row of girls sitting under the shade of a hut, young girls just twenty years of age look like women of forty.

(1.) UNMARRIED KAFFIR GIRLS.
(See [page 21].)

(2.) OLD KAFFIR WOMEN.
(See [page 27].)

The chief drawback to a Kaffir girl’s beauty lies in her face, which is never a beautiful one, according to European ideas on this subject. It is mostly a pleasant, good-humored face, but the cheek-bones are too high, the nose too wide, and the lips very much too large. The two which have been already represented are by far the most favorable specimens of the collection, and no one can say that their faces are in any way equal to their forms. It may be that their short, crisp, harsh, woolly hair, so different from the silken tresses of European women, produces some feeling of dislike; but, even if they were furnished with the finest and most massive head of hair, they could never be called handsome. People certainly do get used to their peculiar style, and sometimes prefer the wild beauty of a Kaffir girl to the more refined, though more insipid, style of the European. Still, few Englishmen would think themselves flattered if their faces were thought to resemble the features of a Kaffir of the same age, and the same rule will apply to the women as well as to the men.

Unfortunately, the rapidity with which the Kaffir women deteriorate renders them very unsightly objects at an age in which an European woman is in her prime. Among civilized nations, age often carries with it a charming mixture of majesty and simplicity, which equally command our reverence and our love. Among this people, however, we find nothing in their old age to compensate for the lost beauty of youth. They do not possess that indefinable charm which is so characteristic of the old age of civilized woman, nor is there any vestige of that spiritual beauty which seems to underlie the outward form, and to be even more youthful than youth itself. Perhaps one reason for this distinction may be the uncultivated state of the mind; but, whatever may be the cause, in youth the Kaffir woman is a sylph, in old age a hag.