South Africa, vol. II.

by Anthony Trollope

A short catalogue of some of the most noticeable of the Kafir habits may be interesting. I have taken my account of them from the papers published under Colonel Maclean’s name. As polygamy is known to be the habit of Kafirs, usages as to Kafir marriages come first in interest. A Kafir always buys his wife, giving a certain number of cattle for her as may be agreed upon between him and the lady’s father. These cattle go to the father, or guardian, who has the privilege of selling the young lady. A man therefore to have many wives must have many cattle,—or in other words much wealth, the riches of a Kafir being always vested in herds of oxen. Should a man have to repudiate his wife, and should he show that he does so on good ground, he can recover the cattle he has paid for her. Should a man die without children by a wife, the cattle given for her may be recovered by his heirs. But should a woman leave her husband before she had had a child, he may keep the cattle. Should only one child have been born when the husband dies, and the woman be still young and marriageable, a part of the cattle can be recovered. I have known it to be stated,—in the House of Commons and elsewhere,—that wives are bought and sold among the Kafirs. Such an assertion gives a wrong idea of the custom. Wives are bought, but are never sold. The girl is sold, that she may become a wife; but the husband cannot sell her. The custom as it exists is sufficiently repulsive. As the women are made to work,—made to do all the hard work where European habits have not been partially introduced,—a wife of course is valuable as a servant. To call them slaves is to give a false representation of their position. A wife in England has to obey her husband, but she is not his slave. The Kafir wife though she may hoe the land while the husband only fights or searches for game, does not hold a mean position in her husband’s hut. But the old are more wealthy than the young, and therefore the old and rich buy up the wives, leaving no wives for the young men,—with results which may easily be understood. The practice is abominable,—but we shall not alter it by conceiving or spreading false accounts of it. In regard to work it should be understood that the men even in their own locations are learning to become labourers and to spare the women. The earth used to be turned only by the hoe, and the hoe was used by the women. Ploughs are now quite common among the Kafirs, and the ploughing is done by men.

There is no system of divorce; but a man may repudiate his wife with or without reason, getting back the cattle or a part of them. A wife often leaves her husband, through ill-usage or from jealousy,—in which case the cattle remain with the husband and, if not as yet paid in full, can be recovered. According to law not only the cattle agreed upon but the progeny of the cattle can be recovered;—but it seldom happens that more than the original number are obtained. When there is a separation the children belong to the father.

When a man has many wives he elects one as his “great wife,”—who may not improbably be the youngest and last married. The selection is generally made in accordance with the rank of the woman. Her eldest son is the heir. Then he makes a second choice of a “right hand wife,”—whose eldest son is again the heir of some portion of the property which during the father’s life has been set apart for the right hand house. If he be rich he may provide for other children, but the customs of his tribe do not expect him to do so. If he die without having made such selections, his brothers or other relatives do it for him.

A husband may beat his wife,—but not to death. If he do that he is punished for murder,—by a fine. If he knock out her eye, or even her tooth, he is fined by the Chief. The same law prevails between parents and children as long as the child remains domiciled in the parents’ family. A father is responsible for all that his child does, and must pay the fines inflicted for the child’s misdeeds;—unless he has procured the outlawing of his child, which he can do if the child has implicated him in many crimes and caused him to pay many fines. Near relations of criminals must pay, when the criminals are unable to do so.

Kafir lands are not sold or permanently alienated. Any man may occupy unoccupied land and no one but the Chief can disturb him. Should he quit the land he has occupied, and another come upon it, he can recover the use of the land he has once cultivated.

Murder is punished by a fine,—which seems to be of the same amount whatever be the circumstances of the murder. The law makes no difference between premeditated and unpremeditated murder,—the injury done being considered rather than the criminality of the doer. A husband would be fined for murder if he killed an adulteress, let the proof have been ever so plain. Even for accidental homicide a Chief will occasionally fine the perpetrator,—though in such case the law does not hold him to be guilty. For adultery there is a fine of cattle, great or small in accordance with the rank of the injured husband. Rape is fined, the cattle going to the husband, if the woman be married. If a girl be seduced, the seducer is fined,—perhaps three head of cattle. The young man probably has not got three head of cattle. Then his older friends pay for him. Among Kafir customs there are some which might find approbation with a portion of our European communities. It cannot, at any rate, be said that the Kafirs have a bloody code.

All theft is punished by a fine of cattle, the fine being moderated if the property stolen be recovered. But the fine is great or small according to the rank of the injured person. If a Chief have been robbed general confiscation of every thing is the usual result of detection. The fine is paid to the injured person. A Chief cannot be prosecuted for theft by one of his own tribe. The children of Chiefs are permitted to steal from people of their own tribe, and no action can be brought against them. Should one be taken in the fact of so stealing and be whipped, or beaten, all the property of the whipper or beater may be confiscated by the Chief. There was a tribe some years ago in which there were so many royal offshoots, that not a garden, not a goat was safe. A general appeal was made to the paramount Chief and he decided that the privilege should in future be confined to his own immediate family.

For wilful injury a man has to pay the full amount of damage; but for accidental injury he pays nothing. This seems to be unlike the general Kafir theory of law. There is no fine for trespass; the idea being that as all lands are necessarily and equally open, the absence of any recovery on account of damage is equal to all. When fencing has become common this idea will probably vanish. If cattle that are trespassing be driven off and injured in the driving, fines can be recovered to the amount of the damage done.

When illness comes a doctor is to be employed. Should death ensue without a doctor a fine is imposed,—which goes to the Chief.

There are many religious rites and ceremonies and many laws as to cleanness and uncleanness; but it would hardly interest the reader were I to describe them at length. At the age of puberty, or what is so considered among the Kafirs, both boys and girls go through certain rites by which they are supposed to be introduced to manhood and woman-hood. There is much in these ceremonies which is disgusting and immoral, and it has been the anxious endeavours of missionaries to cause their cessation. But such cessation can only come by the gradual adoption of European manners. Where the Kafirs have lived in close connexion with the Europeans many of these customs have already been either mitigated or abandoned.