When the Hottentot boys are eighteen years old, they are formally admitted into the society of men. The company of women, even that of their own mothers, is ever after considered a disgrace to them; and being released from all maternal authority, they not unfrequently beat their mothers and sisters, merely to show manly independence.
The women howl and lament for the dead, in the same manner that prevails in other portions of the continent.
A Hottentot kraal, or village, consists of a circle of low dirty huts, which at a little distance resemble a cluster of bee-hives. The employments of the women are such as generally fall to their lot in a savage state. A great many of them are slaves to the Dutch boors, and of course perform all their most menial and laborious occupations. Their patience and fortitude under suffering are truly wonderful.
Low as the Hottentots are in the scale of humanity, they are by no means destitute of good and agreeable qualities. They are very mild, inoffensive, open-hearted, honest, and grateful. Their affection for each other is so strong, that they will at any moment share their last morsel of food with a distressed companion; and they very seldom quarrel, or speak unkindly to their associates. They seem to be entirely destitute of cunning, and when they have committed a fault rarely fail to tell of it with the utmost simplicity.
M. Vaillant says: “They are the best, the kindest, and the most hospitable of people. Whoever travels among them may be sure of finding food and lodging; and though they will receive presents, they never ask for any thing. If they learn that the traveller has a long journey to accomplish, they will supply him with provisions as far as their circumstances will allow, and with every thing else necessary to enable him to reach the place of his destination. Such did these people appear to me, in all the innocent manners of pastoral life. They excite the idea of mankind in a state of infancy.”
The Hernhüters, or Moravian missionaries, have had a most blessed influence on this poor persecuted race. These missionaries cultivate gardens and fields in the neatest manner, and are themselves engaged in various mechanical trades. The Hottentots by kindness and punctual wages are induced to come and work for them, and the good fathers are ever ready to instruct them in agriculture and the mechanical arts. In 1824, nearly two thousand Hottentots lived in small huts, under the protecting influence of the missionaries, each one cultivating a little patch of ground to raise vegetables for his family. Some of them employed their leisure moments in making mats and brooms, while others obtained a comfortable subsistence by the sale of poultry, eggs, and cattle.
Three hundred of their children attended Sunday school; and they contributed five hundred six dollars to the missionary establishment by voluntary subscriptions. Under the fostering care of true-hearted, humble Christians, their habits of indolence and filth disappeared, and they became distinguished for industry and cleanliness. By the last accounts, about sixty Hottentots were communicants of the church.
Barrow, who visited the establishment in 1798, says: “Early one morning I was awakened by the noise of some of the finest voices I ever heard, and looking out saw a group of female Hottentots sitting on the ground. It was Sunday, and they had assembled thus early to chant the morning hymn. They were all neatly dressed in printed cotton gowns. A sight so different from what we had hitherto observed, with regard to this unhappy class of beings, could not fail of being most grateful.”
“On Sundays, they all regularly attend divine service, and it is astonishing how ambitious they are to appear at church neat and clean. Of the three hundred, or thereabouts, that composed the congregation, about half were dressed in printed cottons. Their deportment was truly devout. One of the fathers delivered a discourse replete with good sense, and well suited to the occasion; tears flowed abundantly from the eyes of those to whom it was particularly addressed. The females sung in a plaintive and affecting style; and the voices were in general sweet and harmonious.”
The Dutch had always excused their own tyranny by saying that their unfortunate victims could not possibly be raised above the level of brutes; and they manifested extreme jealousy of the influence of the Gospel, because it bringeth light and freedom. The same spirit, which always led them to place the poor Hottentot in the worst possible point of view, likewise induced them to represent the amiable and generous Kaffers as a savage, treacherous, and cruel tribe. Yet they knew perfectly well that the Kaffers had shown a remarkable degree of moderation toward the white colonists; and that in the midst of a war, into which they had been driven by a series of iniquitous persecutions, they spared the lives of all the Dutch women and children that fell into their hands, though their own wives and children were murdered by the Dutch without mercy.