They have a curious custom of chipping the two upper front teeth, so as to leave a V-shaped space between them. This is done with a flint, and the custom prevails, with some modifications, among many other tribes.
It has been mentioned that the Damaras have many cattle. They delight in having droves of one single color, bright brown being the favorite hue, and cattle of that color being mostly remarkable for their enduring powers. Damara cattle are much prized by other tribes, and even by the white settlers, on account of their quick step, strong hoofs, and lasting powers. They are, however, rather apt to be wild, and, as their horns are exceedingly long and sharp, an enraged Damara ox becomes a most dangerous animal. Sometimes the horns of an ox will be so long that the tips are seven or eight feet apart. The hair of these cattle is shining and smooth, and the tuft at the end of the tail is nearly as remarkable for its length as the horns. These tail-tufts are much used in decorations, and are in great request for ornamenting the shafts of the assagais. As is generally the case with African cattle, the cows give but little milk daily, and, if the calf should happen to die, none at all. In such cases, the Damaras stuff the skin of the dead calf with grass, and place it before the cow, who is quite contented with it. Sometimes a rather ludicrous incident has occurred. The cow, while licking her imagined offspring, has come upon the grass which protrudes here and there from the rudely stuffed skin, and, thrusting her nose into the interior, has dragged out and eaten the whole of the grass.
It has been mentioned that the Damaras find much of their subsistence in the ground. They are trained from infancy in digging the ground for food, and little children who cannot fairly walk may be seen crawling about, digging up roots and eating them. By reason of this diet, the figures of the children are anything but graceful, their stomachs protruding in a most absurd manner, and their backs taking a corresponding curve. Their mode of digging holes is called “crowing,” and is thus managed: they take a pointed stick in their right hand, break up the ground with it, and scrape out the loose earth with the left. They are wonderfully expeditious at this work, having to employ it for many purposes, such as digging up the ground-nuts, on which they feed largely, excavating for water, and the like. They will sometimes “crow” holes eighteen inches or more in depth, and barely six inches in diameter. The word “crow” is used very frequently by travellers in this part of Africa, and sadly puzzles the novice, who does not in the least know what can be meant by “crowing” for roots, “crow-water,” and the like. Crow-water, of course, is that which is obtained by digging holes, and is never so good as that which can be drawn from some open well or stream.
“Crowing” is very useful in house-building. The women procure a number of tolerably stout but pliant sticks, some eight or nine feet long, and then “crow” a corresponding number of holes in a circle about eight feet in diameter. The sticks are planted in the holes, the tops bent down and lashed together, and the framework of the house is complete. A stout pole, with a forked top, is then set in the middle of the hut, and supports the roof, just as a tent-pole supports the canvas. Brushwood is then woven in and out of the framework, and mud plastered upon the brushwood. A hole is left at one side by way of a door, and another at the top to answer the purpose of a chimney. When the fire is not burning, an old ox-hide is laid over the aperture, and kept in its place by heavy stones. Moreover, as by the heat of the fire inside the hut, and the rays of the sun outside it, various cracks make their appearance in the roof, hides are laid here and there, until at last an old Damara hut is nearly covered with hides. These act as ventilators during the day, but are carefully drawn and closed at night; the savage, who spends all his day in the open air, almost invariably shutting out every breath of air during the night, and seeming to have the power of existing for six or eight hours without oxygen. As if to increase the chance of suffocation, the Damaras always crowd into these huts, packing themselves as closely as possible round the small fire which occupies the centre.
As to furniture, the Damaras trouble themselves little about such a superfluity. Within the hut may usually be seen one or two clay cooking-pots, some wooden vessels, a couple of ox-hides by way of chairs, a small bag of grease, another of red ochre, and an axe for chopping wood. All the remainder of their property is either carried on their persons, or buried in some secret spot so that it may not be stolen.
The intellect of the Damaras does not seem to be of a very high order, or, at all events, it has not been cultivated. They seem to fail most completely in arithmetic, and cannot even count beyond a certain number. Mr. Galton gives a very amusing description of a Damara in difficulties with a question of simple arithmetic.
“We went only three hours, and slept at the furthest watering-place that Hans and I had explored. Now we had to trust to the guides, whose ideas of time and distance were most provokingly indistinct; besides this, they have no comparative in their language, so that you cannot say to them, ‘Which is the longer of the two, the next stage or the last one?’ but you must say, ‘The last stage is little; the next, is it great?’ The reply is not, ‘It is a little longer,’ ‘much longer,’ or ‘very much longer,’ but simply, ‘It is so,’ or ‘It is not so.’ They have a very poor notion of time. If you say, ‘Suppose we start at sunrise, where will the sun be when we arrive?’ they make the wildest points in the sky, though they are something of astronomers, and give names to several stars. They have no way of distinguishing days, but reckon by the rainy season, the dry season, or the pig-nut season.
“When inquiries are made about how many days’ journey off a place may be, their ignorance of all numerical ideas is very annoying. In practice, whatever they may possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral greater than three. When they wish to express four, they take to their fingers, which are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding rule is to an English school-boy. They puzzle very much after five, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for ‘units.’ Yet they seldom lose oxen: the way in which they discover the loss of one is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but by the absence of a face they know.
“When bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus, suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks. I have done so, and seen a man first put two of the sticks apart, and take a sight over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied himself that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his surprise that exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the account for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts; the transaction seemed to come out too ‘pat’ to be correct, and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks; and then his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction until two sticks were put into his hand, and one sheep driven away, and then the other two sticks given him, and the second sheep driven away.
“When a Damara’s mind is bent upon number, it is too much occupied to dwell upon quantity; thus a heifer is bought from a man for ten sticks of tobacco, his large hands being both spread out upon the ground, and a stick placed upon each finger. He gathers up the tobacco, the size of the mass pleases him, and the bargain is struck. You then want to buy a second heifer; the same process is gone through, but half sticks instead of whole sticks are put upon his fingers; the man is equally satisfied at the time, but occasionally finds it out, and complains the next day.