HOTTENTOT-BUSHMAN RACE

[s. 331] : When the southern angle of Africa was first visited by Diaz and De Gama four centuries since, as when it began to be colonized also by Europe ans in 1652, it was found to be occupied by a somewhat peculiar aboriginal race, which soon came to be known Out of this parent stock have as the Hottentots. come several affiliated groups known as Bushmen, Namaquas, Korannas, and Griquas. The Hottentots called themselves originally KhoiKhoi, “Men of Men.” Prichard regarded their present name as a corruption of Houteniqua, the name of an extinct tribe. But those who know the language, finding in it no roots of such a word, prefer the opinion advanced by T. Hahn, a scholar who knew the language as his mother tongue, having been born and bred among them as the son of a mi ionary, that the Dutch gave them this name, Hottentot, because of the curious sounds, especially in the clicks, in which their language abounds, as if they stammered and Indeed, in Low German, the word stuttered. Hottentot, or Huttentilt, is found, meaning, it is More than two centuries since, said, a “quack.” they were represented by the traveler, Dapper, as “speaking with clicks like Calicut hens.” These clicks, of which there are several kinds, as labial, palatal, dental, or lateral, seem to have had their origin in the onomatopoetic principle, in the Hottentot tongue, and from this to have Hottentot HoTvrah been taken over and adopted into some of the neighboring languages, especially into Kaffir and The Hottentot abounds also in harsh conZulu. sonants and aspirated gutturals, which, with the The clicks, are hard for a foreigner to acquire. eminent comparative philologist, Dr. Bleek, who had the best of means for forming a correct opinion, calls the Hottentot a suffix-pronominal, sex-denoting language, and cla es it with the Hamitic of North Africa. According to T. Hahn, strictly monosyllabic, and every root ends in a vowel. It uses suffixes and postpositions, it is has three grammatical genders and three numfour clicks and three tones. It has an extensive oral literature of songs and animal stories, is highly developed, and anything but the mere jargon which the early Dutch settlers fanbers, cied it to be. Grout, in his Zulu- Land, says: “The geographical position of the Hottentot, from the time he was first known to the European, situated as he was at the southern extreme of the African continent, and flanked from sea to sea on his north or inland side by a broad belt of people of a very different language and appearance, would seem to indicate that any search for his pedigree and ancestry, provided the present be not his original home, must be made in regions far removed in respect to both time and place. Happily, within the last few years, a careful study of his language and a comparison of this with the old Egyptian and Coptic tongue have given a clew to his ancient abode. If we may credit some of the most learned and acute philologists of the present day, and those who have had the best opportunities for studying the Hottentot and Bushman, together with other African dialects, this Gariepine tongue of the southern extreme belongs to the same family as the old Egyptian and Coptic, the Berber, and Ethiopic, in the farthest north of the continent; and what is also highly interesting and important, this southern branch of the family is found to surpa all the rest in the integrity with which it has preserved the more e ential characteristics of the original stock.”Admitting the correctne of these views, we can have no doubt as to the early ancestry of the Hottentot and Bushman cla , including the 314 impre ions among the antiquities of Egypt so like the Hottentot as to make it certain, as they think, that the original of these representatives must have been people of this race. Then again, the Hottentots of South Africa, in days of old, as the early travelers in that region and their own traditions tell us, were wont to worship the moon the like to which, the historian tells us, was found among the northern nations of Africa in their sidereal worship. And yet we find no trace of this worship among their neighbors of the Bantu race. The gods of the Zulus — are regarded as having their home beneath and never above. The northern nations of olden times, like the Hottentots from time immemorial, made use of the bow and arrow, while the Zulu and his neighbors of the Bantu race use the spear, short sword, and war club. And yet it is in looking at the more permanent and marked feature of the Hottentot, his language, and its likene to that of the old Egyptian, that we find the strongest proof that he is related to the men of North Africa. With facts like these before us, it is easy to believe this stock, originally one, was, at an early age, split and separated into the two parts we now find, one in the extreme north and another in the extreme south of the continent, by the incoming of the sundering wedge of another race, as the Bantu, from the northeast. Eruptions from that quarter, in those early ages, were not uncommon, as we know from the incoming of the Israeli tes and of the Shepherd Kings. As the families in the northeast grew and multiplied, it was but natural that some of them should pre to the south and west, as from the Euphrates into Egypt. Finding Egypt already filled by a previous family, some of which had, doubtle , begun to move on up the Nile, southward, it was easy for the new race to split the old, and push a part before it, each advancing up the Nile and onward to the south, like one wave after another, till finally that in the lead was crowded into the extreme south and flanked by the other on its northern border, the former now called the Hottentot, the latter the Bantu race, each of them continuing to keep up its distinctive aboriginal traits in a remarkable manner. In personal appearance the Hottentot is short Koranna and Namaqua, and that their origin is the same as that of the nations of northern Africa, the old Egyptian, and kindred tribes, including, perhaps, the Libyan or Berber and the in stature, of a yellowish Guanches.” described as pastoral in their pursuits, rich in cattle, scant in dre , living in huts, and remarkable for the excellence of their morals. But almost everything in respect to their freedom, mode of life, and morals was greatly changed, often for the worse, by the coming in of the white man. Subsequently, by the introduction of a better rule and much mi ionary work in their behalf, the condition of many of them was greatly improved. Some of the tribes have been civilized, and many of the people become good citizens, intelligent, steady, and industrious, and not a few are brought to embrace the Gospel. Many are in the employ of the Dutch farmers; The likene of the Hottentot, in many respects, to the old Egyptian family would indicate that the former was once a part of the latter. It follows, then, that these extreme southern tribes were once sundered by some dividing wedge from the extreme northern, and by this new incoming power or alien race, of a very different language, were driven on southward from age to age, till they finally reached their present abode in the southern angle of the continent, from which they could be driven no farther. The linguistic argument is supported by the fact that the appearance, manners, customs of the Hottentots, differ in many respects e entially from those of the Bantu race on their northern border, and yet afford good ground for cla ing them with the old Egyptian and other North African nations. Some of the learned at the Cape of Good Hope have found pictures and brown in color, like a faded leaf, with high cheek bones, chestnut eyes, nose flat, hair twisted into clusters. When first mentioned by the Portuguese, Hottentots are but their tribal home, so far as they have any, is on the Orange River, from the Atlantic eastward half acro the continent. Out of this original Hottentot stock, at an early date, came a large branch, the San tribe, now called the Bushmen. This name is an Angli- 816 form of the Dutch Bosjes-men. Indeed, 8ome speak of the original stock as opening out into two branches, the Khoikhoi and the San, cized the former being, primarily, given to the pastoral mode of life, the latter to hunting. For this wandering, hunting, predatory kind of life the Bushmen of to-day have the same love as their ancestors, the San, had when first seen centuries ago by Europe ans. Their habitat is here and there among the wild regions of the Orange, in the bush, among the rocks and ravines of the hills, or secluded rece es of the mountains, on the outskirts of other tribes. They build no houses, have neither flocks, herds nor tents. They are diminutive in stature, very of a dark yellow color, their hair like wool twisted together in small They have no nationality, and it would tufts. seem that their religion consists chiefly in a few superstitious notions concerning evil demons. In their unsettled, wandering condition it has been difficult to carry on mi ion work among them, tho some have been induced to join stations among other tribes, being in this way brought to a knowledge of the Gospel. They speak e entially the same language as the Hottentots, and yet the points of difference are many. In one respect they are an enigma, that is, in the “signs they have given of intelligence and artistic skill; for,” as Dr. Oust says, “they have exhibited a wonderful power of graphic illustration. The rocks of Cape Colony and the Drakenberg have everywhere examples of San drawing, figures of men, women and children, animals characteristically sketched, and as a proof that the art is not figures of their enemies, the Boers, appear unmistakably. Rings, cro es, and other signs have given rise to the speculation, quite unsupported, that they may represent some form of indigenous writing, but the facts, such as they are, must not be stretched beyond what they extinct, actually evidence, and this is sufficiently noteworthy.” Another tribe of Hottentots, the Namaquas, nomads near the Atlantic along the Orange River, the Great Namaquas on the north side and the Little Namaquas on the south, speak e entially the same language, have the same complexion, kind of eyes and hair, as the Bushmen and other Hottentots, and yet are tall, well-proportioned, and under the training of mi ionaries have come to be somewhat enterprising and industrious. Many of them have been educated and led to embrace the Christian faith. Not unlike to these are the Korannas and the Hottentot tribes who live also along the Orange, to the east of the Nam,aquas. Going still farther east, to a region near to where the Vaal and Modder enter the Orange, we come to where the noted Griqua tribes began to be gathered and consolidated with others a century since. Being a mixed race, many of them the offspring of colonists and Hottentot women, they speak two languages, the Hottentot and the Dutch, tho the latter is fast supplanting the former. Their well watered valley, a little north of the Orange, had an attraction for others, and soon became the abode of free blacks and Hottentot refugees from the Cape Colony; and soon they were joined by two companies of mixed bands from Little living as Nam aqua land, in the lead of Adam Kok and his sons, all of mixed blood. Neighboring clans of Korannas and Bushmen became a part of the settlement. A mi ion station was formed Hottentot HoTrrab among them at Klaarwater, and Me rs. Anderson and Kramer began to teach them the Gospel, how to read, to cultivate the soil, and build houses more substantial than mat huts. Their history for all these generations, like that of other Hottentot and Bushmen tribes, has been remarkably diversified in many respects sad, and full of wrongs. Many of them, profiting by the teachings of the mi ionaries, as the years have — gone by, have become intelligent, industrious. Christian men, while others have continued to prefer the savage life. A negro race on the west coast, north of the Orange, having been subjugated by the Namaquas and called Damara, or “conquered,” tho adopting the language of their conquerors, do not really belong to the Hottentot race. Those of the Damara who speak the Hottentot are called the Hill Damara, to distinguish them from the Herero, who are of the Bantu race, and called Damara. For all these tribes much good mi ion work has been done. Through the patient endurance of many trials, in face of much opposition from those who should have been helpers together with them, the mi ionaries laboring to raise Cattle these benighted, persecuted tribes to a better plane of life have seen their labors greatly ble ed, have seen great secular, social, civil good brought to them, and souls, not a few, fitted for immortality. Merriman, Pa ages of Mi ionary Life, London, 1853; Moffat (H.), Mi ionary labors and Scenes in South Africa, London, 1842; Fritsch (G.), Die Eingeborenen Sud-Afrikas, Breslau, 1873; Ridsdale, Scenes and Adventures in Great Naniairualand, London, 1883; Wendland, Bethanien in Namaland, Berlin, 1885. 333