Darwin has well observed that a false argument is comparatively harmless because subsequent discussion is sure to demolish it, whereas a false fact may perplex speculation for ages. Chapman's assertion that there is love in all Bushman marriages is one of these false facts, as our cross-examination has shown. In passing now to the neighbors of the Bushmen, the Hottentots, let us bear in mind the lesson taught. They called themselves Khoi-Khoin, "men of men," while Van Riebeck's followers referred to them as "black stinking hounds." There is a prevalent impression that nearly all Africans are negroes. But the Hottentots are not negroes any more than are the Bushmen, or the Kaffirs, whom we shall consider next. Ethnologists are not agreed as to the relationship that exists between Bushmen and Hottentots, but it is certain that the latter represent a somewhat higher level of civilization. Yet, here again we must guard carefully against "false facts," especially in reference to the topic that interests us—the relations of the sexes. As late as 1896 the eminent American anthropologist, Dr. Brinton, had an article in Science (October 16th), in which he remarked that "one trait which we admire in Hottentots is their regard for women," He was led into making this assertion by an article entitled "Woman in Hottentot Poetry," which appeared in the German periodical Globus (Vol. 70, pp. 173-77). It was written by Dr. L. Jakobowski, and is quite as misleading as Chapman's book. Its logic is most peculiar. The writer first shows (to his own satisfaction) that the Hottentots treat their women somewhat better than other South Africans do, and from this "fact" he goes on to infer that they must have love-songs! He admits, indeed, that (with a few exceptions, to be presently considered) we know nothing of these songs, but it "seems certain" that they must be sung at the erotic dances of the natives; these, however, carefully conceal them from the missionaries, and as Jakobowski naïvely adds, to heed the missionaries "would be tantamount to giving up their old sensual dances."
What facts does Jakobowski adduce in support of his assertion that
Hottentots have a high regard for their women? He says:
"Without his wife's permission a Hottentot does not drink a drop of milk, and should he dare to do so, the women of his family will take away the cows and sheep and add them to their flocks. A girl has the right to punish her brother if he violates the laws of courtesy. The oldest sister may have him chained and punished, and if a slave who is being castigated implores his master by the name of his (the master's) sister to desist, the blows must cease or else the master is bound to pay a fine to the sister who has been invoked."
EFFEMINATE MEN AND MASCULINE WOMEN
If all these statements were real facts—and we shall presently see that they are not—they would prove no more than that the modern Hottentots, like their neighbors, the Bushmen, are hen-pecked. Barrow (I., 286) speaks of the "timid and pusillanimous mind which characterizes the Hottentots," and elsewhere (144) he says that their
"impolitic custom of hording together in families, and of not marrying out of their own kraals, has, no doubt, tended to enervate this race of men, and reduced them to their present degenerated condition, which is that of a languid, listless, phlegmatic people, in whom the prolific powers of nature seem to be almost exhausted."
It does not, therefore, surprise us to be told (by Thunberg) that "it frequently happens that a woman marries two husbands." And these women are anything but feminine and lovable. One of the champions of the Hottentots, Theophilus Hahn, says (Globus, XII., 304) of the Namaqua women that they love to torture their slaves: "When they cudgel a slave one can easily read in their faces the infernal joy it gives them to witness the tortures of their victims." He often saw women belaboring the naked back of a slave with branches of the cruel acacia delinens, and finally rub salt or saltpetre into the wounds. Napier (I., 59) says of the Hottentots, that
"if the parents of a newly born child found him or her de trop, the poor little wretch was either mercilessly buried alive, or exposed in a thicket, there to be devoured by beasts of prey."
While he had to take it for granted that there must be love-songs among these cruel Hottentots, Jakobowski had no trouble in finding songs of hate, of defiance, and revenge. Even these cannot be cited without omitting objectionable words. Here is one, properly expurgated:
"Take this man away from me that he may be beaten and his mother weep over him and the worms eat him…. Let this man be brought before your counsel and cudgelled until not a shred of flesh remains on his … that the worms would care to eat; for the reason that he has done me such a painful injury," etc.