"is too deeply rooted in African blood to make it difficult to find an occasion for indulging in it; wherefore the custom of celebrating puberty, harmless in itself, is made the occasion for lascivious practices; the unmarried girls choose companions with whom they cohabit as long as the festival lasts … usually three or four days."
After giving other details, Fritsch thus sums up the situation:
"These diverse facts make it clear that with these tribes (Ama-Xosa) woman stands, if not morally, at least judicially, little above cattle, and consequently it is impossible to speak of family life in one sense of the word."
In his Nursery Tales of the Zulus (255) Callaway gives an account, in the native language as well as in the English, of the license indulged in at Kaffir puberty festivals. Young men assemble from all quarters. The maidens have a "girl-king" to whom the men are obliged to give a present before they are allowed to enter the hut chosen for the meeting. "The young people remain alone and sport after their own fancies in every way." "It is a day of filthiness in which everything may be done according to the heart's desire of those who gather around the umgongo." The Rev. J. MacDonald, a man of scientific attainments, gives a detailed account of the incredibly obscene ceremonies to which the girls of the Zulu-Kaffirs are subjected, and the licentious yet Malthusian conduct of the young folks in general who "separate into pairs and sleep in puris naturalibus, for that is strictly ordained by custom." The father of a girl thus treated feels honored on receiving a present from her partner.[140]
INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE FOR—COWS
The utter indifference of the Kaffirs to chastity and their licentiousness, approved and even prescribed by national custom, were not the only obstacle to the growth of sentiments rising above mere sensuality. Commercialism was another fatal obstacle. I have already quoted Hahn's testimony that a Kaffir "would rather have big herds of cattle than a good-looking wife." Dohne asserts (Shooter, 88) that "a Kaffir loves his cattle more than his daughter," and Kay (111) tells us that
"he is scarcely ever seen shedding tears, excepting when the chief lays violent hands upon some part of his horned family; this pierces him to the heart and produces more real grief than would be evinced over the loss of wife and child."
On another page (85) he says that in time of war the poor women fall into the enemy's hands, because
"their husbands afford them no assistance or protection whatever. The preservation of the cattle constitutes the grand object of their solicitude; and with these, which are trained for the purpose, they run at an astonishing rate, leaving both wives and children to take their chances."
Such being the Kaffir's relative estimation of cows and women, we might infer that in matrimonial arrangements bovine interests were much more regarded than any possible sentimental considerations; and this we find to be the case. Barrow (149) tells us that