I agree with what the South-African Folklore Journal stated twenty years or more ago, that with the "vast strides South Africa is making in the progress of civilization, the native races will either be swept away or so altered as to lose many of their ancient habits, customs, traditions, or at least greatly to modify them."
Knowing that by a collection of this kind these stories could best be preserved, and feeling that others had not read them, I began this collection ten years ago. There is so much done now to preserve what is still Bushmen folklore that I feel this small volume is indeed only a small addition to the folklore world.
"South-African folklore is," the South-African Folklore Journal says, "in its very nature plain, and primitive in its simplicity; not adorned with the wealth of palaces and precious stones to be met with in the folklore of more civilized nations, but descriptive in great measure of the events of everyday life, among those in a low state of civilization; and with the exception of evidences of moral qualities, and of such imagery as is connected with the phenomena of nature, very little that is grand or magnificent must be looked for in it."
Bain gives a story related by a Kaffir which shows "the distribution of animals after the creation." This story could not become typically Kaffir until after the Kaffir came in contact with the European in the last two or three hundred years. However, the story will serve to illustrate the people whose stories appear in this volume and to close the Introduction.
Teco, in Kaffir, is the Supreme Being. Teco had every description of stock and property.
There were three nations created, viz., the Whites, the Amakosa, or Kaffirs, and the Amalouw, or Hottentots. A day was appointed for them to appear before the Teco to receive whatever he might apportion to each tribe. While they were assembling, a honey bird, or honey guide, came fluttering by, and all the Hottentots ran after it, whistling and making the peculiar noise they generally do while following this wonderful little bird. The Teco remonstrated with them about their behavior, but to no purpose. He thereupon denounced them as a vagrant race that would have to exist on wild roots and honey beer, and possess no stock whatever.
When the fine herds of cattle were brought, the Kaffirs became very much excited—the one exclaiming, "That black and white cow is mine!" and another, "That red cow and black bull are mine!" and so on, till at last the Teco, whose patience had been severely taxed by their shouts and unruly behavior, denounced them as a restless people, who would only possess cattle.
The Whites patiently waited until they received cattle, horses, sheep, and all sorts of property. Hence, the old Kaffir observed, "You Whites have got everything. We Kaffirs have only cattle, while the Amalouw, or Hottentots, have nothing."
James A. Honeÿ.
Cambridge, Mass., June, 1910.