The uncivilized races of men in all countries of the world; vol. 1 of 2 / Being a comprehensive account of their manners and customs, and of their physical, social, mental, moral and religious characteristics

by J. G. Wood

In places where neither rocks nor bushes are to be found, these easily contented people are at no loss for a habitation, but make one by the simple process of scratching a hole in the ground, and throwing up the excavated earth to windward. Sometimes they become rather luxurious, and make a further shelter by fixing a few sticks in the ground, and throwing over them a mat or a piece of hide, which will answer as a screen against the wind. In this hole a wonderful number of Bosjesmans will contrive to stow themselves, rolling their karosses round their bodies in the peculiar manner which has already been mentioned. The slight screen forms their only protection against the wind—the kaross their sole defence against the rain. When a horde of Bosjesmans has settled for a time in a spot which promises good hunting, they generally make tent-like houses by fixing flexible sticks in the ground, bending them so as to force them to assume a cage-like form, and then covering them with simple mats made of reeds. These huts are almost exactly like the primitive tents in which the gypsies of England invariably live, and which they prefer to the most sumptuous chamber that wealth, luxury, and art can provide.

So much for his houses. As to his food, the Bosjesman finds no difficulty in supplying himself with all that he needs. His wants are indeed few, for there is scarcely anything which a human being can eat without being poisoned, that the Bosjesman does not use for food. He has not the least prejudice against any kind of edible substance, and, provided that it is capable of affording nourishment, he asks nothing more. His luxuries are comprised in two words—tobacco and brandy; but food is a necessary of life, and is not looked upon in any other light.

There is not a beast, and I believe not a bird, that a Bosjesman will not eat. Snakes and other reptiles are common articles of diet, and insects are largely used as food by this people. Locusts and white ants are the favorite insects, but the Bosjesman is in no wise fastidious, and will eat almost any insect that he can catch. Roots, too, form a large portion of the Bosjesman’s diet, and he can discover the water-root without the assistance of a baboon. Thus it happens that the Bosjesman can live where other men would perish, and to him the wild desert is a congenial home. All that he needs is plenty of space, because he never cultivates the ground, nor breeds sheep or cattle, trusting entirely for his food to the casual productions of the earth, whether they be animal or vegetable.

It has already been mentioned that the Bosjesman obtains his meat by hunting. Though one of the best hunters in the world, the Bosjesman, like the Hottentot, to whom he is nearly related, has no love of the chase, or, indeed, for any kind of exertion, and would not take the trouble to pursue the various animals on which he lives, if he could obtain their flesh without the trouble of hunting them. Yet, when he has fairly started on the chase, there is no man more doggedly persevering; and even the Esquimaux seal-hunter, who will sit for forty-eight hours with harpoon in hand, cannot surpass him in endurance.

Small as he is, he will match himself against the largest and the fiercest animals of South Africa, and proceeds with perfect equanimity and certainty of success to the chase of the elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion, and the leopard. The former animals, whose skins are too tough to be pierced with his feeble weapons, he entraps by sundry ingenious devices, while the latter fall victims to the deadly poison with which his arrows are imbued. The skill of the Bosjesman is severely tested in the chase of the ostrich, a bird which the swiftest horse can barely overtake, and is so wary as well as swift, that a well-mounted hunter, armed with the best rifle, thinks himself fortunate when he can kill one.

The little Bosjesman has two modes of killing these birds. If he happens to find one of their enormous nests while the parent birds are away, he approaches it very cautiously, lest his track should be seen by the ever-watchful ostrich, and buries himself in the sand among the eggs. The reader will doubtless remember that several ostriches deposit their eggs in one nest, and that the nest in question is simply scraped in the sand, and is of enormous dimensions. Here the tiny hunter will lie patiently until the sun has gone down, when he knows that the parent birds will return to the nest. As they approach in the distance, he carefully fits a poisoned arrow to his bow, and directs its point toward the advancing ostriches. As soon as they come within range, he picks out the bird which has the plumpest form and the most luxuriant plumage, and with a single arrow seals its fate.

The chief drawback to this mode of hunting is, that the very act of discharging the arrow reveals the form of the hunter, and frightens the other birds so much that a second shot is scarcely to be obtained, and the Bosjesman is forced to content himself with one dead bird and the whole of the eggs. Fortunately, he is quite indifferent as to the quality of the eggs. He does not very much care if any of them should be addled, and will eat with perfect composure an egg which would alarm an European at six paces’ distance. Neither does he object to the eggs if they should be considerably advanced in hatching, and, if anything, rather fancies himself fortunate in procuring a young and tender bird without the trouble of chasing and catching it. Then the egg-shells, when the contents are removed, are most valuable for many purposes, and especially for the conveyance of water. For this latter purpose they are simply invaluable. The Bosjesmans always contrive to have a supply of water, but no one except themselves has the least notion where it is stored. If a Bosjesman kraal is attacked, and the captives interrogated as to the spot where the supply of water has been stored, they never betray the precious secret, but always pretend that they have none, and that they are on the point of dying with thirst. Yet, at some quiet hour of the night, a little yellow woman is tolerably sure to creep to their sides and give them a plentiful draught of water, while their captors are trying to lull their thirst by sleep. How they utilize their egg-shells of water, the reader will see in another place.

The eyes of the ostrich are keen enough, but those of the Bosjesman are keener, and if the small hunter, perched on his rocky observatory, happens to catch a glimpse of a number of ostriches in the far distance, he makes up his mind that in a few hours several of those birds will have fallen before the tiny bow and the envenomed arrow which it projects. He immediately creeps back to his apology for a hut, and there finds a complete hunter’s suit which he has prepared in readiness for such an occasion. It consists of the skin of an ostrich, without the legs, and having a stick passed up the neck. The skin of the body is stretched over a kind of saddle, which the maker has adapted to his own shoulders.

He first rubs his yellow legs with white chalk, and then fixes the decoy skin on his back, taking care to do it in such a manner, that, although it is quite firm as long as it has to be worn, it can be thrown off in a moment. The reason for this precaution will be seen presently. He then takes his bow and arrows and sets off in pursuit of the ostriches, using all possible pains to approach them in such a direction that the wind may blow from them to him. Were he to neglect this precaution, the watchful birds would soon detect him by the scent, and dash away where he could not possibly follow them.

As soon as the ostriches see a strange bird approaching, they cease from feeding, gather together, and gaze suspiciously at their supposed companion. Were the disguised hunter to approach at once, the birds would take the alarm, so he runs about here and there, lowering the head to the ground, as if in the act of feeding, but always contriving to decrease the distance between himself and the birds. At last he manages to come within range, and when he has crept tolerably close to the selected victim, he suddenly allows the head of the decoy-skin to fall to the ground, snatches up an arrow, speeds it on its deadly mission, and instantly raises the head again.