The cow constitutes now, in fact, the wealth of the Kaffir, just as was the case in the early patriarchal days. Among those tribes which are not brought into connection with the white man, money is of no value, and all wealth is measured by cows. One of the great inland chiefs, when asking about the Queen of England, was naturally desirous of hearing how many cattle she possessed, and on hearing that many of her subjects had more cows than herself, conceived a very mean opinion of her power. He counted his cattle by the thousand, and if any inferior chief had dared to rival him in his wealth, that chief would very soon be incapacitated from possessing anything at all, while his cattle would swell the number of the royal herds. His idea was, that even if her predecessor had bequeathed so poor a throne to her, she ought to assert her dignity by seizing that wealth which she had not been fortunate enough to inherit.
The cow is the unit of money. The cost of anything that is peculiarly valuable is reckoned by the number of cows that it would fetch if sold, and even the women are reckoned by this standard, eight cows equalling one woman, just as twelve pence equal one shilling. Most of the wars which devastate Southern Africa are caused entirely by the desire of one man to seize the herds that belong to another, and when the white man is engaged in African warfare, he is perforce obliged to wage it on the same principle. During the late Kaffir war, the reports of the newspapers had a singularly unimposing appearance. The burden of their song was invariably cows. General Blank had advanced so far into the enemy’s country, and driven off five thousand head of cattle. Or perhaps the case was reversed; the position of the European troops had been suddenly surprised, and several thousand cattle stolen. In fact, it seemed to be a war solely about cattle, and, to a certain extent, that was necessarily the case. The cattle formed not only the wealth of the enemy, but his resources, so that there was no better way of bringing him to terms than by cutting off his commissariat, and preventing the rebellious chiefs from maintaining their armed forces. We had no wish to kill the Kaffirs themselves, but merely that they should be taught not to meddle with us, and there was no better way of doing so than by touching them on their tenderest point.
The greatest ambition of a Kaffir is to possess cattle, inasmuch as their owner can command every luxury which a savage millionaire desires. He can eat beef and drink sour milk every day; he can buy as many wives as he likes, at the current price of eight to fourteen cows each, according to the fluctuation of the market; he can make all kinds of useful articles out of the hides; he can lubricate himself with fat to his heart’s content, and he can decorate his sable person with the flowing tails. With plenty of cattle, he can set himself up as a great man; and, the more cattle he has, the greater man he becomes. Instead of being a mere “boy,” living with a number of other “boys” in one hut, he becomes a “man,” shaves his head, assumes the proud badge of manhood, and has a hut to himself. As his cattle increase, he adds more wives to his stock, builds separate huts for them, has a kraal of his own, becomes the “umnumzana,” or great man—a term about equivalent to the familiar “Burra Sahib” of Indian life—and may expect to be addressed by strange boys as “inkosi,” or chief. Should his cattle prosper, he gathers round him the young men who are still poor, and who are attracted by his wealth, and the hope of eating beef at his cost. He assigns huts to them within his kraal, and thus possesses an armed guard who will take care of his cherished cattle. Indeed, such a precaution is absolutely necessary. In Africa, as well as in Europe, wealth creates envy, and a man who has succeeded in gathering it knows full well that there are plenty who will do their best to take it away. Sometimes a more powerful man will openly assault his kraal, but stratagem is more frequently employed than open violence, and there are in every tribe certain old and crafty cattle-stealers, who have survived the varied dangers of such a life, and who know every ruse that can be employed.
There is a story of one of these men, named Dutulu, who seems to have been a kind of Kaffir Rob Roy. He always employed a mixture of artifice and force. He used to set off for the kraal which he intended to rob, and, in the dead of night, contrived to place some of his assistants by the entrance of the huts. Another assistant then quietly removed the cattle from the isi-baya, while he directed the operations. Dutulu then caused an alarm to be made, and as the inmates crept out to see what was the matter, they were speared by the sentinels at the entrance. Not one was spared. The men were killed lest they should resist, and the women lest they should give the alarm. Even when he had carried off the cattle, his anxieties were not at an end, for cattle cannot be moved very fast, and they are not easily concealed. But Dutulu was a man not to be baffled, and he almost invariably succeeded in reaching home with his spoil. He never, in the first instance, allowed the cattle to be driven in the direction which he intended to take. He used to have them driven repeatedly over the same spot, so as to mix the tracks and bewilder the men who were sure to follow. More than once he baffled pursuit by taking his stolen herd back again, and keeping it in the immediate neighborhood of the desolated kraal, calculating rightly that the pursuers would follow him in the direction of his own home.
The man’s cunning and audacity were boundless. On one occasion, his own kraal was attacked, but Dutulu was far too clever to fall into the trap which he had so often set for others. Instead of crawling out of his hut and getting himself speared, he rolled up his leather mantle, and pushed it through the door. As he had anticipated, it was mistaken in the semi-darkness for a man, and was instantly pierced with a spear. While the weapon was still entangled in the kaross, Dutulu darted from his hut, sprang to the entrance of his isi-baya fully armed, and drove off the outwitted assailants. Even in his old age his audacity did not desert him, and he actually determined on stealing a herd of cattle in the day-time. No one dared to join him, but he determined on carrying out his desperate intention single-handed. He succeeded in driving the herd to some distance, but was discovered, pursued, and surrounded by the enemy. Although one against many, he fought his foes bravely, and, although severely wounded, succeeded in escaping into the bush, where they dared not follow him.
Undeterred by this adventure, he had no sooner recovered than he planned another cattle-stealing expedition. His chief dissuaded him from the undertaking, urging that he had quite enough cattle, that he had been seriously wounded, and that he was becoming too old. The ruling passion was, however, too strong to be resisted, and Dutulu attacked a kraal on his old plan, letting the cattle be driven in one direction, killing as many enemies as he could, and then running off on the opposite side to that which had been taken by the cattle, so as to decoy his pursuers in a wrong direction. However, his advanced years, and perhaps his recent wounds, had impaired his speed, and as there was no bush at hand, he dashed into a morass, and crouched beneath the water. His enemies dared not follow him, but surrounded the spot, and hurled their assagais at him. They did him no harm, because he protected his head with his shield, but he could not endure the long immersion. So, finding that his strength was failing, he suddenly left the morass, and dashed at his enemies, hoping that he might force his way through them. He did succeed in killing several of them, and in passing their line, but he could not run fast enough to escape, and was overtaken and killed.
So, knowing that men of a similar character are hankering after his herd, their dusky owner is only too glad to have a number of young men who will guard his cattle from such cunning enemies.
The love that a Kaffir has for his cattle induces him to ornament them in various ways, some of which must entail no little suffering upon them. To this, however, he is quite indifferent, often causing frightful tortures to the animals which he loves, not from the least desire of hurting them, but from the utter unconcern as to inflicting pain which is characteristic of the savage, in whatever part of the earth he may be. He trims the ears of the cows into all kinds of odd shapes, one of the favorite patterns being that of a leaf with deeply serrated edges. He gathers up bunches of the skin, generally upon the head, ties string tightly round them, and so forms a series of projecting knots of various sizes and shapes. He cuts strips of hide from various parts of the body, especially the head and face, and lets them hang down as lappets. He cuts the dewlap and makes fringes of it, and all without the least notion that he is causing the poor animal to suffer tortures.
But, in some parts of the country, he lavishes his powers on the horns. Among us the horn does not seem capable of much modification, but a Kaffir, skilful in his art, can never be content to leave the horns as they are. He will cause one horn to project forward and another backward, and he will train one to grow upright, and the other pointing to the ground. Sometimes he observes a kind of symmetry, and has both horns bent with their points nearly touching the shoulders, or trains them so that their tips meet above, and they form an arch over their head. Now and then an ox is seen in which a most singular effect has been produced. As the horns of the young ox sprout they are trained over the forehead until the points meet. They are then manipulated so as to make them coalesce, and so shoot upward from the middle of the forehead, like the horn of the fabled unicorn.
Le Vaillant mentions this curious mode of decorating the cattle, and carefully describes the process by which it is performed. “I had not yet taken a near view of the horned cattle which they brought with them, because at break of day they strayed to the thickets and pastures, and were not brought back by their keepers until the evening. One day, however, having repaired to their kraal very early, I was much surprised when I first beheld one of these animals. I scarcely knew them to be oxen and cows, not only on account of their being much smaller than ours, since I observed in them the same form and the same fundamental character, in which I could not be deceived, but on account of the multiplicity of their horns, and the variety of their different twistings. They had a great resemblance to those marine productions known by naturalists under the name of stag’s horns. Being at this time persuaded that these concretions, of which I had no idea, were a peculiar present of nature, I considered the Kaffir oxen as a variety of the species, but I was undeceived by my guide, who informed me that this singularity was only the effect of their invention and taste; and that, by means of a process with which they were well acquainted, they could not only multiply these horns, but also give them any form that their imaginations might suggest. Having offered to exhibit their skill in my presence, if I had any desire of learning their method, it appeared to me so new and uncommon, that I was willing to secure an opportunity, and for several days I attended a regular course of lessons on this subject.