Of course for the comparative philologist, and for any one who takes an interest in observing the working of the human mind in its most primitive stages, [[26]]these pieces of Kafir and Negro native literature will also have their own interest; it is therefore to be hoped that time and circumstances may soon allow us to publish also the other portions of South African native literature extant in manuscript in your library.
Among these we have principally to mention, as new contributions (received after your departure), twenty-three pieces in o Tyi-hereró, or the Damara language, as written down by natives themselves, copied by the Rev. J. Rath (Rhenish Missionary, formerly in Damara Land, now at Sarepta Knils River), and accompanied with a German translation by him.[5] [[27]]
Among these pieces there are seven ghost stories, four accounts of transformation of men or animals, eleven other household tales, one legend, and one fable. This last piece (No. 11, pp. 27, 29) is probably of Hottentot origin. I have therefore thought it best to give it a place in this little book (No. 14), where it precedes that Hottentot Fable, to which its concluding [[28]]portions bear such a striking resemblance. It is not unlikely that the beginning of this Hottentot Fable of The Giraffe and the Tortoise is missing. It may have been similar to the beginning of the corresponding one in Damara. As far as it goes the Hottentot Fable is however evidently more original than the o Tyi-hereró text. As a specimen of o Tyi-hereró household tales, I have given Rath’s fifteenth piece, the story of The Unreasonable Child to whom the Dog gave its Deserts.
You will also approve of my having added the Zulu legend of the Origin of Death, which in its mixture of Fable and Myth, and even in several details of its composition, shows a great analogy to the Hottentot treatment of the same subject, of which I am able to give here four different versions.
A second version of two or three other fables, and of one legend, has also been given from one of the two important manuscripts in German, regarding the Hottentots and their language, prepared for you by Mr. Knudsen.[6] The same manuscript [[29]]supplied also a legend of The Origin of Difference in Modes of Life between Hottentots and Bushmen, which we do not yet possess in the Hottentot language.
To make our available stock of Nama Hottentot literature quite complete, three fables and four tales [[30]]have been taken from Sir James Alexander’s “Expedition,” &c., and inserted here, with only few insignificant verbal alterations.
The “Songs of Praise,” given as notes to some of the Fables in this volume, are merely intended as specimens of Hottentot poetry. They can hardly be expected to amuse or interest the general reader—at least, not in the form in which they appear here, though a Longfellow might be able to render some of them in a way that would make them attractive.
In the same manner the materials contained in these Hottentot Fables might be worked out similarly to Goethe’s “Reinecke Fuchs;” and we should hereby probably gain an epical composition, which, though not ranking so high as the latter poem, would yet, as regards the interest of its subject-matter, far exceed Longfellow’s “Hiawatha” in adaptation to the general taste.
How much Native productions gain when represented skilfully and properly, your admirable work on “Polynesian Mythology” has shown. But you had sterner and more important work on hand, and so I have had to do this without you. That it does not appear in a still more imperfect form, I owe [[31]]mainly to the help of one who naturally takes the greatest interest in all my pursuits.
In writing the last lines of this Preface, the interest which I feel for these Hottentot Fables is almost fading away before those rich treasures of your library which have just arrived from England; and as all our present efforts are of course given to the proper settling of these jewels of our library, I can merely send, with grateful acknowledgments, our most fervent wishes for your well-doing, and our sincere hope of seeing you, at no distant day, again in the midst of us.