THE ‘KITCHEN KAFFIR.’
Fortune, for good or ill, has cast my lot in the little Crown colony of Natal. Let me at once say that I have no intention of going over ground already but too well trodden. What with wars and rumours of wars upon its borders, Natal has lately been ‘written up’ to a considerable extent by enterprising travellers and newspaper correspondents. Minerva has been treading closely on the heels of Mars, and at the first blush, there would seem but little more to tell. However, the hasty grasp at things made by dashing ‘specials’ and travellers may have left some grains of information that will perhaps prove interesting.
It is only necessary to my subject to state, by way of introduction, that Natal has a population of about thirty thousand whites and three hundred thousand blacks—the latter, as will be seen, in a proportion of ten to one. These are, of course, round numbers. The city of Pietermaritzburg, the capital of the colony—where my afore-mentioned lot is cast—contains between six and seven thousand Europeans, a large number of Indian coolies, and a much larger number of natives. A considerable proportion of the last-named fall to be spoken of under the heading of this article—the ‘Kitchen Kaffir.’ Most of the domestic work of the colony is performed by the natives. They come into the town from the surrounding country from distances of twenty, fifty, or a hundred miles, sometimes farther. The Kaffirs, thanks to the indulgence of our paternal government, are allowed to settle and thrive on the available Crown lands of the colony, and their kraals form a frequent feature of the up-country landscape. Though these natives enjoy the protection of the British government, polygamy is allowed under the Native Law. Wives have to be bought with bullocks. The young natives, ambitious to wed, leave the ancestral kraal, and work for wages in the town until they have saved enough money to buy the requisite oxen. Hence the Kitchen Kaffir.
My wife is now sitting at my elbow, sub-editing my remarks. This is needful; for although we have been three years in the colony, I stand second to her in knowledge of Kaffir character, and particularly of Kaffir language. This cannot, of course, be referred to any inferiority in my mental calibre, but to the fact that I am engaged in business in the town all day; while my wife is brought more in contact with the domestic Kaffir. He is named Sam, and has been with us for over two years and a half. Well do I remember the first time I saw him. He was drawing water, for an ungracious mistress, out of the sluit or rivulet-gutter that runs down the side of the Pietermaritzburg streets or roads. I thought I had never seen a happier mortal. He was dressed in an old shirt and trousers. In the latter, appeared a great rent; frayed patches were visible all over his raiment; yet his face beamed with a grin unrivalled in expressive extent by anything outside of a Christy Minstrel entertainment. Our hearts instantly warmed towards Sam, and we invited him to our hearth at the munificent rate of one pound a month. He posed as bashfully as a maiden receiving an offer of marriage. He shoved the back of his horny hand into his capacious mouth, coquettishly paddled in the dust with his right big toe, and took sly, sidelong glances at us with his large and rolling left eye. All this we took to mean ‘Yes.’ A few days afterwards, Sam appeared at the back of our cottage, carrying his sticks—no Kaffir ever goes about without two or three knobkerries in his hand—a rolled-up mat to sleep on, and a wooden pillow. His attire was as ragged as ever; but by means of some of my old clothes he assumed a more respectable air. I must explain that, to suit European ideas of decency, the Kaffirs are not permitted to wear their kraal costume in the town. Whenever they come within the municipal boundary, they have to doff the moochee or fur-kilt and don trousers. They do so with great reluctance. If you happen to be on the outskirts of the town, you will see the departing Kaffirs joyfully throwing off shirt and trousers, tying these in a bundle, re-assuming their moochee, and trotting happily homewards.
The duties of the Kitchen Kaffir are multifarious and fairly well performed. He chops the wood, lights the fire, serves at table, cleans the rooms, goes messages, and nurses the baby. He has weaknesses, of course; but these he possesses in common with the rest of the human family. He smokes and snuffs, and is fully alive to the benefits of frequent leisure. At periodic intervals, generally of six months, he shows a strong desire to go home, to hamba lo kaya. But this intermittent home-sickness, while the gratifying of it may entail some inconvenience on the baas (master) or the meesis, is not an unpleasing feature in the native character. Kraal-life is very patriarchal, and the Kaffirs have strong home-instincts. They are a social race, and the sociality is abundantly visible in the manners and habits of the Kitchen Kaffir. In the ‘Kaffir house’—the outbuilding to be found in the rear of nearly all colonial villas and cottages—there is many a jovial evening spent by the ‘boys.’ When the toil of day is over—few domestic natives work after six or seven o’clock in the evening—they gather together and gossip on the events of the day. They retail all the private life of their masters and mistresses; for they have a wonderful faculty, distinct from prying, of shrewdly finding out everything that is going on. News travels with astonishing speed amongst the native population. The ‘boys’ apparently take it in turn to invite each other to spend the evening and share the porridge supper. Concurrently with the gossiping, they smoke. The pipe is a small bowl fitted into a bullock’s horn, partly filled with water, through which the smoke is drawn. The ‘boys’ generally sit in a circle; and by the light of a stump of candle stuck in a corner, you can see their forms dimly through the stiff clouds which they are blowing. The smoke seems to be continually getting into the Kaffirs’ air-passages, as a loud chorus of coughs is incessantly kept up. So the night wears on. At nine o’clock a bell rings at the police-station, the signal for all Kaffirs to go home. Any native found on the streets after that hour, unless he have a written ‘pass’ from his master, is apprehended and fined half-a-crown.
Sam, when solitary, amuses his evenings by playing on what I may call a one-stringed harp. It consists of a wire strung on a wooden bow about four feet long, near one extremity of which is fastened a hollow gourd to give resonance. It is played by being struck with a stick; and by pressing the wire, Sam can increase the range of the instrument to two notes—‘tim-tum, tim-tum,’ by the hour together. He also, to its accompaniment, sings certain wild melodies, probably with impromptu words. The Kaffirs are noted improvisatores. You cannot even send one on an errand without his chanting the object of his mission in loud tones all down the street. It certainly goes against all ideas of fitness to hear your Kaffir, as he ambles along, singing out in Zulu, with endless repetitions, and to an incoherent melody: ‘Oh! missis is going to make soup, and I’m off to buy the peas;’ or, ‘We’re right out of firewood, and I’m to borrow some from Mrs Jones;’ or, ‘Master’s sick, and I’m hurrying for the physic!’ If these domestic revelations were only heard by the Kaffir population, it would not matter so much; but the words are almost equally patent to the white people. However, as everybody’s Kaffir sings his errands, there is a certain compensation!
It should now be remarked that Kitchen Kaffir is also the name of the modified Zulu spoken by the domesticated native. It is as peculiar in its way as ‘Pidgin English,’ or any other of those langues de convenance which have originated in the intimate relations existing between the British and some ultra-continental peoples. The Zulu language proper is a well-developed tongue, elaborate in mood, tense, and case, as can be seen in the erudite volume of the late Bishop Colenso, who was as great an authority in Ethiopian grammar as in arithmetic. Here and there, one may find old colonists, traders, or missionaries who have a thorough knowledge of ‘Zulu;’ but the settlers in general have neither the opportunity nor perhaps the inclination to learn it. The prevailing custom of England seems to be to restrict her subject races to their own tongue.
The Kitchen Kaffir is slightly heterogeneous. A number of English and Dutch words have crept into it, with certain modifications to adapt them to the genius of the Zulu language. Amongst the former we would cite callidge (carriage), follik (fork), nquati (note, or letter), lice (rice), and so on, the pronunciation being governed by the fact that the Kaffirs experience difficulty in articulating r. The letter x is also a stumbling-block. Hence ‘box’ is transformed into bogus, and a popular English Christmas institution transplanted to the colony is known as a ‘Kissmiss bogus.’ ‘Sunday,’ again, is spoken of as Sonda or Sonto; and ‘horse’ is ihashi. In denoting money there are also some peculiar terms. A threepenny piece is known as a pen, and the latter word is pretty generally used amongst the Europeans themselves. I may here interject the remark that the threepenny piece is about the lowest coin in circulation in the colony. Pennies are scarce, and farthings an unknown quantity. I was told by a Natal schoolmistress that one of the greatest difficulties she met with was in teaching the children how many farthings made up a penny; and a little colonial-born girl once said to me: ‘Oh! how I would like to go to England to see farthings!’ The Kaffirs look down with contempt upon coppers. A half-crown is called, by a strange phonetic twist, a facquelin, and a florin—well, thereby hangs a tale. Some years ago, a contractor in Natal, who hailed from the north of the Tweed, hit upon a brilliant idea, which he thought would result in a great saving of expenditure. In giving his Kaffir labourers their weekly payment, he substituted two-shilling pieces—till then unknown among the natives—for half-crowns, thinking the ‘untutored savage’ would not detect the difference. They went away contented; but it was not long ere the storekeepers had enlightened their minds as to the true value of the money. I forget how the matter ended; but it is a sad fact that to this day the Kaffirs always speak of a florin as a ‘Scotchman.’ Traces of Dutch in Kitchen Kaffir are numerous.
As to the Zulu element in Kitchen Kaffir, I would premise that the written Zulu bears no very great resemblance to the spoken language. This is partly owing to the number of ‘clicks,’ which originally formed no characteristic of the Zulu tongue, but were many years ago borrowed from the Hottentots, who revel in these verbal impediments. There are three clicks, represented on paper by c, q, and x. The c is made by pressing the tongue against the teeth, as when one is slightly annoyed; while q is like a ‘cluck,’ and x like the ‘chick’ made to start a horse. These, however, are what musicians would term ‘accidentals,’ and but little interrupt the sonorous, melodic flow of Kaffir utterance. To those who know the Zulu language only through books, such words as gqugquza (to stir up) and uqoqoqo (windpipe) may seem next to unpronounceable; but in the native’s lips they lose much of their angularity. So, too, with such combinations as ubugwigwigwi (whizzing-sound) and ikitwityikwityi (whirlwind).
But now to return briefly to Sam. In many respects he is an excellent servant, and like most of the unsophisticated Kaffirs, could be trusted with untold gold. The average Kitchen Kaffir is frequently left in charge of a house during the absence of the family, and would no more think of making away with the valuables than would a watch-dog. One evening Sam asked and received permission to go to the ‘school,’ by which is meant the mission-school, where the Kaffirs are taught to read and write, and where they also receive religious instruction. The effect upon Sam was instantaneous. He invested in a new coat and trousers, a waistcoat, and a white shirt with long cuffs. Big boots adorned his feet, and a felt hat his head. A few days later he had acquired a paper collar, gloves, and leggings, and finally he blossomed out into an umbrella. His evenings are now spent in laborious vivâ voce attempts to master the alphabet, and the rude scrawls upon the whitewashed wall testify to his efforts at caligraphy.
There is much diversity of opinion in Natal as to the results attending the religious training of the native, and perhaps it would be well if a little more of the ‘sweet reasonableness’ of Matthew Arnold were imported into the discussion. There is, however, the fact that many of the Kaffirs are taught to read and write, and this cannot in the long-run be an evil. What has yet been accomplished, even at such institutions as that founded by Bishop Colenso at Bishopstowe, and that at Lovedale in the Cape Colony, is perhaps comparatively small; but it may be as pregnant with encouragement as the humble blue flower that cheered the heart of Mungo Park in the African desert.