Man, Past and Present

by A. H. Keane

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]."

FOOTNOTES:

[223] C. Meinhof holds that Proto-Bantu arose through the mixture of a Sudan language with one akin to Fulah. An Introduction to the Study of African Languages, 1915, p. 151 sqq.

[224] Bantu, properly Aba-ntu, "people." Aba is one of the numerous personal prefixes, each with its corresponding singular form, which are the cause of so much confusion in Bantu nomenclature. To aba, ab, ba answers a sing. umu, um, mu, so that sing. umu-ntu, um-ntu or mu-ntu, a man, a person; plu. aba-ntu, ab-ntu, ba-ntu. But in some groups mu is also plural, the chief dialectic variants being, Ama, Aba, Ma, Ba, Wa, Ova, Va, Vua, U, A, O, Eshi, as in Ama-Zulu, Mu-Sarongo, Ma-Yomba, Wa-Swahili, Ova-Herero, Vua-Twa, Ba-Suto, Eshi-Kongo. For a tentative classification of African tribes see T. A. Joyce, Art. "Africa: Ethnology," Ency. Brit. 1910, p. 329. For the classification of Bantu tongues into 44 groups consult H. H. Johnston, Art. "Bantu Languages," loc. cit.