Thoughts on South Africa

by Olive Schreiner

The Kaffir branch, on the other hand, differs from the Chuana in being more warlike; agriculture is left much more to the women. The Kaffir is more proud, more sensitive, more inclined to dominate and rule than the Chuana. He has in full development all the virtues of the military type, but has perhaps fewer of those of the industrial. He is absolutely without fear, and faithful to his word when in his savage condition. The Chuana will fight in defence of his land or his beloved property; the Kaffir merely to maintain his own freedom and for the love of conquest. He prefers power to wealth, and independence to security. But when cultured he shows the same avidity for study as the Chuana.[26] In both his vices and his virtues he curiously resembles the Anglo-Saxon of the past.

At the time of the arrival of the white man all these Bantu peoples were organized (as they still are to-day wherever unbroken by the white man's power) into tribes, under chieftains to whom the whole people owed an absolute devotion, but who were largely aided in their deliberations by the older and leading men. They were in a state of civilization apparently much higher than that of the Britons at the time of the Roman Conquest, and more resembling that of the Saxons before the first introduction of Christianity. They had well-built round or square houses, kept sheep, goats, and cattle; their skin clothing and shields were often shaped with high art; and they had a complex agriculture, rich in grains and vegetables; they made serviceable and ornamental pottery, smelted iron, and their weapons and hoes were of marvellous workmanship, when the rude nature of their tools is considered. Their social feeling was, as it is at the present day when not destroyed by contact with Europeans, almost abnormally developed. The devotion of the tribe to its chief, and of the tribesmen to each other, and the intensity of their family feeling, can hardly be understood by those who have not lived among them. When a chief or headsman is arraigned, innocent men will often step in, blaming themselves to shield him. An interesting case of this kind occurred some years ago, when the headsman of a village being tried in a Colonial Court for a crime of which, by no possibility, could more than one man have been guilty, three of his men stood up, each declaring that he, and he alone, was the guilty person! The heaviest punishment that can be inflicted on a Bantu is to sever him from his family and social surroundings; death has, when compared to this, small torture for him.

Each Bantu tribe holds its land in common; re-apportioning it as the increase or diminution of its numbers may require. The doctrine that land can become the private property of one is a doctrine morally repugnant to the Bantu. The idea which to-day is beginning to haunt Europe, that, as the one possible salve for our social wounds and diseases, it might be well if the land should become again the property of the nation at large, is no ideal to the Bantu, but a realistic actuality. He finds it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile his sense of justice with any other form of tenure. And it is only painfully and slowly (and perhaps never quite successfully!) that under the pressure of autocratic European rule he is brought to allow that absolute, individual property in land may be consistent with right. It may be remarked in passing that if it be desired to deal justly with the South African native, it is as necessary to grasp this mental attitude of his with regard to the possession of land as in dealing with the Boer it is necessary never to forget his theocratic conception of his claim on South Africa, and his passionate affection for it.[27]

The laws and traditions of all Bantu races are very complex, and, though orally transmitted from age to age, they are scrupulously observed. "It is our custom," ends all argument with the Bantu. Their etiquette in ordinary social life, before they have come in contact with the lower phases of civilization, seems often based on a higher sense of honour than that which governs the ordinary relations of Europeans. When one Kaffir approaches two who are talking he frequently stands still at some distance from them, and then comes nearer. When asked why he does this he replies: "Lest they should not see me coming, and I should overhear what they say."

In the division of labour women have the almost entire charge of agriculture and manufacture. House-building, pottery-making, the shaping of clothes and implements are left to them—and especially among the Kaffir branches, all agriculture is entirely in their hands. The men fight and hunt and make their weapons, and the young lads tend the cattle, leaving all other labour to the females.

It was by these three orders of native people that South Africa was inhabited when the first white men settled here. And, as we have seen, it was especially with the little, lively, child-like yellow-faced Hottentots, inhabiting the Cape Peninsula, that the newcomers came in contact. The white men had apparently received orders from the East India Company to treat the natives well, in order that they might be induced to trade; and at first it would seem that good feeling existed between the friendly little Hottentots and the white newcomers. The Hottentots gladly sold their cattle to the Company for brandy, beads, or knives; and the Company made vast profits by the trade.

Later, when the white men began to enclose the ground of the Peninsula, and ordered off the Hottentots with their cattle, the Hottentots (who, in common with most African races, can easily understand the sharing of lands, but little, or not at all, their exclusive possession by individuals) resented this exclusion from the lands on which for countless ages their forefathers had fed their cattle and built their huts.

There was much bitter feeling, and finally there was war. The little Hottentots were exterminated or driven back; and the white men settled down peacefully on the beautiful Cape Peninsula, and in the fruitful valleys beyond.

Then it was that the white men began to look about for slaves to till their ground and build their houses, as was everywhere the manner of seventeenth-century colonists. But it was not among the native races of South Africa that they found what they were in search of.

It is a curious little fact, and one which it may be forgiven to the South African, if he, having so little else in the past history of his peoples to be proud of, gloats over for a moment, that of all the races which, within the range of historic record, have inhabited South Africa, not one of them has lent itself readily and completely to the uses of slavery! Be it the effect of our climate, with its curious tendency to excite and exhilarate the nervous system, be it the reflex action of our scenery with its vast untamed features, breeding in us an intense consciousness of individuality and a rebellion against all restrictions, or be it merely a coincidence, this remains certain: that Boer, Bantu, Bushman, Hottentot, or Englishman—not one of us has been of the stuff of which serviceable slaves are made! This characteristic is the one bond that unites our otherwise discordant nationalities. We do not easily bow our wills at the dictation of another, nor are we readily shaped into mere beasts of burden.