The [portrait] on the next page was taken from a sketch by Mr. Baines, and represents the only true Ovambo that he ever saw. While he was at Otjikango Katiti, or “Little Barman,” a Hottentot chief, named Jan Aris, brought out a young Ovambo girl, saying that she was intrusted to him for education. Of course, the real fact was, that she had been captured in a raid, and was acting as servant to his wife, who was the daughter of the celebrated Jonker, and was pleased to entitle herself the Victoria of Damara-land. The girl was about fourteen, and was exceedingly timid at the sight of the stranger, turning her back on him, hiding her face, and bursting into tears of fright. This attitude gave an opportunity of sketching a remarkable dress of the Ovambo girl, the rounded piece of hide being decorated with blue beads. When she was persuaded that no harm would be done to her, she turned round and entered into conversation, thereby giving an opportunity for the second sketch. Attached to the same belt which sustains the cushion was a small apron of skin, and besides this no other dress was worn. She was a good-looking girl, and, if her face had not been disfigured by the tribal marks, might have even been considered as pretty.
The headdress of the women consists chiefly of their own hair, but they continually stiffen it with grease, which they press on the head in cakes, adding a vermilion-colored clay, and using both substances in such profusion that the top of the head looks quite flat, and much larger than it is by nature. The same mixture of grease and clay is abundantly rubbed over the body, so that a woman in full dress imparts a portion of her decorations to every object with which she comes in contact.
Round their waists they wear such masses of beads, shells, and other ornaments, that a solid kind of cuirass is made of them, and the centre of the body is quite covered with these decorations. Many of the women display much taste in the arrangement of the beads and shells, forming them into patterns, and contrasting their various hues in quite an artistic manner. Besides this bead cuirass, they wear a vast number of necklaces and armlets made of the same materials. Their wrists and ankles are loaded with a profusion of huge copper rings, some of which weigh as much as three pounds; and, as a woman will sometimes have two of these rings on each ankle, it may be imagined that the grace of her deportment is not at all increased by them. Young girls, before they are of sufficient consequence to obtain these ornaments, and while they have to be content with the slight apparel of their sex, are as graceful as needs be, but no woman can be expected to look graceful or to move lightly when she has to carry about with her such an absurd weight of ornaments. Moreover, the daily twelve hours’ work of the women tends greatly toward the deterioration of their figures. To them belongs, as to all other South African women, the labor of building the houses.
(1.) PORTRAIT OF OVAMBO GIRL.
(See [page 316].)
(2.) WOMEN POUNDING CORN.
(See [page 319].)
The severity of this labor is indeed great, when we take into consideration the dimensions of the enclosures. The houses themselves do not require nearly so much work as those of the Bechuanas, for, although they are of nearly the same dimensions, i. e. from fourteen to twenty feet in diameter, they are comparatively low pitched, and therefore need less material and less labor. A number of these houses are placed in each enclosure, the best being for the master and his immediate family, and the others for the servants. There are besides grain-stores, houses for cattle, fowl-houses, and even sties for pigs, one or two of the animals being generally kept in each homestead, though the herds are rigidly excluded. Within the same enclosure are often to be seen a number of ordinary Bosjesman huts. These belong to members of that strange tribe, many of whom have taken up their residence with the Ovambos, and live in a kind of relationship with them, partly considered as vassals, partly as servants, and partly as kinsfolk.
Moreover, within the palisade is an open space in which the inhabitants can meet for amusement and consultation, and the cultivated ground is also included, so that the amount of labor expended in making the palisade can easily be imagined. The palisade is composed of poles at least eight feet in length, and of corresponding stoutness, each being a load for an ordinary laborer. These are fixed in the ground at short intervals from each other, and firmly secured by means of rope lashing.