CHAPTER XL.
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.