In appearance the Damaras are a fine race of men, sometimes exceeding six feet in height, and well proportioned. Their features are tolerably regular, and they move with grace and freedom. (See [illustration No. 1], on p. 308.) They are powerful, as becomes their bulk; but, as is the case with many savages, although they can put forth great strength on occasions, they are not capable of long and continued exertion.
The bodily constitution of the Damaras is of the most extraordinary character. Pain for them seems almost non-existent, and an injury which would be fatal to the more nervously constituted European has but little effect on the Damara. The reader may remember the insensibility to pain manifested by the Hottentots, but the Damaras even exceed them in this particular. Mr. Baines mentions, in his MS. notes, some extraordinary instances of this peculiarity. On one occasion a man had broken his leg, and the fractured limb had been put up in a splint. One day, while the leg was being dressed, Mr. Baines heard a great shout of laughter, and found that a clumsy assistant had let the leg fall, and had rebroken the partially united bones, so that the leg was hanging with the foot twisted inward. Instead of being horrified at such an accident, they were all shouting with laughter at the abnormal shape of the limb, and no one seemed to think it a better joke, or laughed more heartily, than the injured man himself. The same man, when his injuries had nearly healed, and nitrate of silver had to be applied freely to the parts, bore the excruciating operation so well that he was complimented on his courage. However, it turned out that he did not feel the application at all, and that the compliments were quite thrown away.
On another occasion, a very remarkable incident occurred. There had been a mutiny, which threatened the lives of the whole party, and the ringleader was accordingly condemned to death, and solemnly executed by being shot through the head with a pistol, the body being allowed to lie where it fell. Two or three days afterward, the executed criminal made his appearance, not much the worse for the injury, except the remains of a wound in his head. He seemed to think that he had been rather hardly used, and asked for a stick of tobacco as compensation.
Yet, although so indifferent to external injuries, they are singularly sensitive to illness, and are at once prostrated by a slight indisposition, of which an European would think nothing at all. Their peculiar constitution always shows itself in travelling. Mr. Baines remarks that a savage is ready to travel at a minute’s notice, as he has nothing to do but to pick up his weapons and start. He looks with contempt upon the preparation which a white man makes, and for two or three days’ “fatigue” work will beat almost any European. Yet in a long, steady march, the European tires out the savage, unless the latter conforms to the usages which he despised at starting.
He finds that, after all, he will require baggage and clothing of some kind. The heat of the mid-day sun gives him a headache, and he is obliged to ask for a cap as a protection. Then his sandals, which were sufficient for him on a sandy soil, are no protection against thorns and so he has to procure shoes. Then, sleeping at night without a rug or large kaross cannot be endured for many nights, and so he has to ask for a blanket. His food again, such as the ground-nuts on which the poorer Damaras chiefly live, is not sufficiently nutritious for long-continued exertion, and he is obliged to ask for his regular rations. His usual fashion is to make a dash at work, to continue for two or three days, and then to cease altogether, and recruit his strength by passing several days in inaction.
The dress of the Damaras is rather peculiar—that of the women especially so. The principal part of a man’s dress is a leathern rope of wonderful length, seldom less than a hundred feet, and sometimes exceeding four or even five hundred. This is wound in loose coils round the waist, so that it falls in folds which are not devoid of grace. In it the Damara thrusts his axes, knob-kerries, and other implements, so that it serves the purpose of a belt, a pocket, and a dress. His feet are defended by sandals, made something like those of the Bechuanas, and fastened to the feet in a similar manner, but remarkable for their length, projecting rather behind the heel, and very much before the toes, in a way that reminds the observer of the long-toed boots which were so fashionable in early English times. Sometimes he makes a very bad use of these sandals, surreptitiously scraping holes in the sand, into which he pushes small articles of value that may have been dropped, and then stealthily covers them up with the sand.
They are very fond of ornament, and place great value on iron for this purpose, fashioning it into various forms, and polishing it until it glitters brightly in the sunbeams. Beads, of course, they wear, and they are fond of ivory beads, some of which may be rather termed balls, so large are they. One man had a string of these beads which hung from the back of his head nearly to his heels. The uppermost beads were about as large as billiard balls, and they graduated regularly in size until the lowest and smallest were barely as large as hazel-nuts. He was very proud of this ornament, and refused to sell it, though he kindly offered to lend it for a day or two.
(1.) DAMARA WARRIOR AND WIFE.
(See [pages 305], [306].)