Bechuanas

“ These are the slaves of the Bechuanas. Those natives (the Bechuanas) who come down to the diamond fields to work, every one of them has a master, and twenty or thirty of them have to stay in those dry countries and hunt ostriches for their masters. Going farther from south to north one meets, north of the Bakwenas, two tribes of the Bamangwato—the Eastern and the Western Bamangwato, or as I call the Eastern according to their capital, Shoshong, the Shoshong Banmangwato, and the Western ones, which I call, on account of the residence of their king lying near to the Lake N’Gami, Bamangwatos. ”

“ The fear or awe of the unknown is also betrayed amongst the Bechuanas in connection with certain objects which they are forbidden to touch, and certain food which is tabooed by custom. Like mo.st of the North American redskins, each Bechuana tribal group venerates a national token, such as a crocodile, a monkey, some wild beast or fi^h, and celebrates dances in its honour. ”

“ But, though the Bechuanas are a very superior race of men, they frequently conceal cunning and duplicity under an open and dignified exterior. Any act, no matter how disgraceful, if attended with success, will make them perfectly happy. ”

“ Therefore,’ exulting with an air of triumph at the discovery, ‘the white people are so much wiser than we are in making walking houses (wagons) , teaching the oxen to draw them over hill and dale, and instructing them also to plow the gardens, instead of making their wives do it, like the Bechuanas.’”
Dealers in the black art are numerous among the Bechuanas, who place the most implicit confidence in the sayings and prescriptions of the wizards. This applies more especially to those persons who devote themselves to the study of “rain-making.” ”

“ I think that I have already mentioned that the Bechuanas, like the Korannas of Mamusa, possess servants, or more properly slaves, belonging to the Makalahari race, sometimes termed the Bakalahari, who formerly owned the territory between the Zambesi and the Orange River. Although really slaves they are generally treated with much consideration; but besides them, there are two other tribes, the Barwas and the Masarwas, that are reckoned as slaves, and are regarded by the Bechuanas with much more disdain ”

“ Notwithstanding the Bechuanas acknowledge us to be a superior race to themselves, they have no hesitation to pronounce many of our habits and customs both clumsy and troublesome. They laugh at us for putting our legs and arms into bags, and using buttons for the purpose of fastening bandages round our bodies, instead of suspending them as ornaments from the neck or hair of the head. ”

“ The British magistrate—there are about seventy Europeans living in the town—described these Bechuanas as a quiet folk, not hard to manage. They have less force of character and much less taste for fighting than Zulus or Matabili. The main impression which they leave on a stranger is that of laziness. Of the many whom we saw hanging about in the sun, hardly one seemed to be doing any kind of work. Nor do they. They grow a few mealies (maize) , but it is chiefly the women who hoe and plant the ground. ”

“ Astounded at their defeat, they turned to the southward, and invaded the Bechuana country.
“At that time our missionaries had established themselves at Koranna, and when the report of the Mantatees advancing was brought to them, the Bechuanas were in a great consternation; for although finer-looking men than the eastern Caffres, they are not by any means so brave and warlike. ”

“ They are employed as hunters or herdsmen. “If a Makalahiri servant behaves well and kills a good many ostriches for his master, he is allowed to marry a Bechuana woman”542. Conder describes the Makalahiri as “nomadic hunters, living chiefly in the west, and considered in the light of serfs of the chief”543. It is clear that these hunters, living away from the Bechuanas, and considered as “serfs of the chiefs,” are a subjected tribe and not individual slaves. There are two other tribes subjected to the Bechuanas: the Barwa or Masarwa, and the Madenassana. ”

“ They now adopt the usual female dress. "Raised thus from comparative infancy to what they consider womanhood, they view themselves with as much complacency as if they were enrobed in the attire of a daughter of an Eastern potentate. They have reached nearly to a climax in their life, for they expect soon to be married; to be a mother they consider the chief end of a woman's existence."
The Bechuanas generally bury their dead. The ceremony of interment, &c., varies in different localities, and is influenced by the rank of the deceased ”

“ The Vaal bush is the most common in this province; it flowers in the winter, and has a pleasant perfume; the tea made from its leaves is an excellent tonic. Many of the Bechuanas live in small kraals along the Campbell Randt, the Harts river, and at Great and Little Boetsap, and possess many waggons and spans of oxen, supplying the people at the Diamond-Fields with vegetables, corn, cattle, and also wood from their forests, to keep the machinery at work. ”

“ The first acquaintance of Europeans with the Bechuanas dates from an early period of the history of the Cape Colony. There is reason to believe that this nation once extended as far as the Orange River, but at the present day none of the tribes are found beyond the 28th parallel of south latitude. ”

“ Among the Bechuanas, in those six independent kingdoms, one tusk of ivory goes to the king, and the other is kept by the native hunter. The one from the side on which the elephant falls to the ground belongs to the king and the tusk on the other side to the native. The white and best feathers of all ostriches shot have to be given to the king, and all the other feathers the man can keep. ”

“ To wash the body instead of lubricating it with grease and red ochre seems to them a disgusting custom, and cleanliness about one’s food, house, bedding, &c., often creates their mirth and ridicule.
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The Bechuanas are great snuff-takers, and they indulge in the luxury to excess. Sharing the contents of your snuff-box with a stranger is almost the greatest compliment that can be paid to him. Knowing their propensity in this respect, I brought with me a large supply, but, on my arrival at the Lake, was astonished to find that they scarcely deigned to look at it. ”

“ Now a Bechuana of very moderate rank would be ashamed of such an edifice by way of a residence; and even the poor—if we may use the word—can build houses for themselves quite as good as that of Dingan. Instead of being round-topped, like so many wickerwork ant-hills, as is the case with the Kaffir huts, the houses of the Bechuanas are conical, and the shape may be roughly defined by saying that a Bechuana’s hut looks something like a huge whipping-top with its point upward. ”

“ Painful as this ordeal must be, the reader must not think that it is nearly so formidable to the Bechuanas as it would be to Europeans. In the first place, the nervous system of an European is far more sensitive than that of South African natives, and injuries which would lay him prostrate have but little effect upon them. Moreover, their skin, from constant exposure to the elements, is singularly insensible, so that the stripes do not inflict a tenth part of the pain that they would if suffered by an European. ”

“ The rough treatment that they have received from the Bechuanas, as punishment for their misdemeanours, makes them very shy of the white man; and in travelling across the Kalahari desert, or through such woods as we had just traversed, or through those between Shoshong and the Zooga, or, again, between the Salt Lakes and the Zambesi, a European may be followed unawares by people of this tribe, who keep their distance from mere fear of being maltreated or put to hard work ”

“ One Bechuana lost his life while too eagerly seeking for plunder. The slain of the enemy was between four and five hundred.
"The Mantatees are a tall, robust people, in features resembling the Bechuanas; the dress, consisting of prepared ox-hides, hanging doubly over their shoulders. The men, during the engagement, were nearly naked, having on their heads a round cockade of black ostrich feathers. Their ornaments were large copper rings, sometimes eight in number, worn round their necks, with numerous arm, leg, and ear rings of the same material. ”

“ Sometimes the magic sympathy takes effect not so much through an act as through a supposed resemblance of qualities. Thus some Bechuanas wear a ferret as a charm because, being very tenacious of life, it will make them difficult to kill.33 Others wear a certain insect, mutilated but living, for a similar purpose.34 Other Bechuana warriors wear the hair of an ox among their own hair and the skin of a frog on their mantle, because a frog is slippery and the ox from [pg 012] which the hair has been taken has no horns and is therefore hard to catch ”

“ The Masarwas appear to act with more consideration for their wives than the Bechuanas and the Makalahari; they impose upon them no harder duties than fetching water, and carrying the ordinary domestic utensils; the vessels in which the water is conveyed being generally made of ostrich-shells, or of gourds bound with bast or strips of leather. They also show great regard for their dogs, and treat them in away that is in marked contrast with the ill-usage that the Bechuanas bestow upon them. ”

“ He prays to the wicked Spirits, and they hear him and send the pestilence! Every day, for many weeks past, he and the young prophet have been praying to the Spirits to punish the Bechuanas, because they will not worship his bad gods. Why does not Chuma forbid him? Why does he not punish him? Does not Chuma care that our cattle die? Chuma’s own cattle will die also. ”

“ The same ceremony is repeated at sunset.89 When the sun rises behind clouds—a rare event in the bright sky of Southern Africa—the Sun clan of the Bechuanas say that he is grieving their heart. All work stands still, and all the food of the previous day is given to matrons or old women. They may eat it and may share it with the children they are nursing, but no one else may taste it. The people go down to the river and wash themselves all over. Each man throws into the river a stone taken from his domestic hearth, and replaces it with one picked up in the bed of the river. ”

“ They call out to the star how many cattle they have, and beg of it not to send sickness.”124 The Bechuanas are also much alarmed at the appearance of a meteor. If they happen to be dancing in the open air at the time, they will instantly desist and retire hastily to their huts.125 The Ewe negroes of Guinea regard a falling star as a powerful divinity, and worship it as one of their national gods, by the name of Nyikpla or Nyigbla. In their opinion the falling star is especially a war-god who marches at the head of the host and leads it to victory, riding like Castor and Pollux on horseback. ”

“ The operation is described by the Sechuana word “rupa,” and amongst the Bechuanas is preliminary to the rite of circumcision.
In many districts the Masarwas are above middle height, and sometimes, in the country of the Bamangwatos and Bakuenas, are, like the dominant race, quite tall. After the repulsiveness of their features, there is nothing about them that strikes a traveller so much as the red, half-raw scars that they continually have on their shin-bones, and not unfrequently on their arms, feet, and ankles. ”

“ They call themselves Bayeiye, i.e., men; but the Bechuanas call them Bakoba, which contains somewhat of the idea of slaves. They have never been known to fight, and, indeed, have a tradition that their forefathers, in their first essays at war, made their bows of the Palma Christi, and, when these broke, they gave up fighting altogether. They have invariably submitted to the rule of every horde which has overrun the countries adjacent to the rivers on which they specially love to dwell. They are thus the Quakers of the body politic in Africa. ”

“ At any rate slavery, if it exists, is not much developed, the chief function of slaves probably being reinforcement of the tribe in warfare.
The Bechuana group consists of several tribes, the principal being, according to Schurtz540, the Basuto, the Makololo, the [142] Bamangwato, the Bakwains and the Bakalahari. Fritsch, describing the Bechuanas in general, makes no mention of slaves. According to Holub, however, they have Makalahiri slaves541. But from some particulars it appears that these Makalahiri are rather a tribe subjected as a whole than individual slaves. ”

“ These are the Amakosa tribe, whose warriors have just left us; the Tambookies, whose territory we have recently quitted, and to the northward of them by Port Natal, the Hambonas. These are the Eastern Caffres.
"On the other side of the Mambookei chain of mountains, and in the central portion of Africa, below the tropic, are the Bechuanas, who inhabit an extent of country as yet imperfectly known to us. ”

“ Most other tribes are known by the terms applied to them by strangers only, as the Caffres, Hottentots, and Bushmen. The Bechuanas alone use the term to themselves as a generic one for the whole nation. ”

“ It was reasonable that woman should attend to household affairs and the lighter parts of labor, while man, wont to boast of his superior strength, should employ his energy in more laborious occupations; adding, she wished I would give their husbands medicine to make them do the work.”
The Bechuanas who inhabit the shores of the Ngami are rich in sheep and goats, but possess comparatively few horned cattle. Like other tribes of that nation, they are excessively fond of their oxen, but more particularly prize their [455] cows, which scarcely any thing can induce them to part with. ”