Kaffir folk-lore

by George McCall Theal

The mode of incorporation was in most instances a selection of Hottentot females after the destruction of their clan in war; but in at least one case a Hottentot tribe became gradually a Kaffir clan by mixture of blood through adoption of Kaffir refugees. The people of this tribe, a pure Hottentot one in 1689 and then called the Gqunaqua, were found by a traveller a century later to resemble Kaffirs [[4]]more than Hottentots in appearance, and, except a few families, they are now undistinguishable from other members of the Amaxosa. Their original language has been lost, but their old tribal title is yet retained in the Kaffir form Amagqunukwebe.

This large admixture of Hottentot blood has not affected the mode of government or the general customs of the Amaxosa, as is seen on comparing them with other tribes to the north; but it has affected their personal appearance and their language. Many words in use by the women, though appearing in a Kaffir form, can be traced to Hottentot roots. Owing to this, their traditional stories may have been modified to some, though not to any great, extent

In a condition independent of European control, each Kaffir tribe is presided over by a great chief, whose government is, however, but little felt beyond his own immediate clan, each petty division being under a ruler who is in reality nearly independent. The person of a chief is inviolable, and an indignity offered to one of them is considered a crime of the gravest nature. Such offshoots of the ruling house as are not of themselves chiefs are of [[5]]aristocratic rank, and are exempt from obedience to the laws which govern the commonalty. With regard to the common people, the principle of the law is that they are the property of the rulers, and consequently an offence against any of their persons is atoned for by a fine to the chief. Murder and assaults are punished in this manner. Thus in theory the government is despotic, but in practice it has many checks. The first is the existence of a body of councillors about the person of each chief, whose advice he is compelled to listen to. A second is the custom that a man who can escape from a chief whose enmity he has incurred will be protected by any other with whom he takes refuge, so that an arbitrary or unpopular ruler is in constant danger of losing his followers.

The chief in council makes the law and administers it, but from the courts of the petty chiefs there is an appeal to the head of the tribe. Only two kinds of punishment are known: fines and death. Lawsuits are of frequent occurrence, and many Kaffirs display great ability and remarkable powers of oratory in conducting them. The judges are guided in [[6]]their proceedings by a recognised common law and by precedents, though some of them are exceedingly venal. They will sit, however, with exemplary patience, for days together, to hear all the details of a case, and, where bribery is impossible, their sentences are usually in accordance with strict justice.

The manner in which the Kaffirs became divided into independent tribes in ancient times is clearly shown by the law of succession to the chieftainship which is in force to the present day. The first wives of a chief are usually the daughters of some of his father’s principal retainers; but as he increases in power his alliance is courted by great families, and thus it generally happens that the last of his wives is the highest in rank. Probably she is the daughter of a neighbouring chief, for it is indispensable in her case that the blood of the ruling line should flow in her veins. She is termed the great wife, and her eldest son is the principal heir.

Another of his wives is invested at some period of his life, with the consent of his councillors and friends, with the title of wife of the right hand, and to her eldest son is allotted [[7]]a portion of the tribe, with which he forms a new clan. The government of this is entrusted to him as soon as he is full grown, so that while his brother is still a child he has opportunities of increasing his power. If he is the abler ruler of the two, war between them follows almost to a certainty as soon as the great heir reaches manhood, and is invested with a separate command. Should peace be maintained, upon the death of his father the son of the right hand acknowledges his brother as superior in rank, but pays him no tribute, nor admits of his right to interfere in any manner with the internal government of the new clan.

Thus there was always a tendency to division and subdivision of the tribes, which was the great fault of the system. But while it operated against unity, it tended towards a rapid expansion of the people in a country where only a slight opposition could be made by the earlier inhabitants. The less powerful chief of the two would naturally desire to reside at a considerable distance from his competitor, and thus a new tract of country would be taken possession of. About six generations ago a practice was introduced of dividing each tribe into three [[8]]sections, by the elevation of a third son to power, with the title of representative of the ancients. But it was not generally adopted until Gaika, about the beginning of the present century, gave it his countenance, since which time this custom has been almost universally followed by the Amaxosa, so that the number of petty chiefs and little clans is now very great.

The Kaffir of the coast region is a model of a well-formed man. In general he is large, without being corpulent, strong, muscular, erect in bearing, and with all his limbs in perfect symmetry. His skull is shaped like that of a European; but here the resemblance ends, for his colour is a deep brown, and his hair is short and woolly. His intellectual abilities are of no mean order, and his reasoning powers are quite equal to those of a white man. He is haughty in demeanour, and possesses a large amount of vanity. For anything approaching frivolity he has a supreme contempt. The men are handsomer than the women, which is owing to the difference in their mode of living.

Their language is rich in words, and is musical in expression, owing to the great [[9]]number of vowels used. With very few exceptions the syllables end in vowels. In structure it differs greatly from the languages of Europeans. The inflections take place at the beginning, not at the end of words. Thus the plural of indoda, a man, is amadoda, men; of umfazi, a woman, is abafazi, women; of isikali, a weapon, is izikali, weapons. And so with every part of speech which is capable of being inflected. This difference is, however, a slight one, when compared with the changes which the other parts of speech undergo to make them harmonize in sound with the principal noun in the sentence. According as the noun commences with a particular syllable, so the first syllable of the adjective, the verb, the adverb, and even the preposition, must be altered to agree with it in sound. Only the root syllables of these parts of speech remain the same in all combinations.

Kaffir words are in most instances combined together to form sentences in such a way that they cannot be separated from each other as English words are. What appears in writing to be only one word, is often really three or four, but as in another combination [[10]]these would change their positions, and as very frequently a single letter represents a word, it would create much greater confusion to separate them than to write them as one.