Man, Past and PresentKeane, A. H. (Augustus Henry)
History
Man, Past and Present
Keane, A. H. (Augustus Henry)
Anthropology; Ethnology
They are nomadic hunters and collectors, never resorting to agriculture.
They have no domestic animals. Only meat is cooked. They wear no
clothing. They use bows and poisoned arrows. Their language is unknown.
They live in small communities which centre round a cunning fighter or
able hunter. Their dead are buried in the ground. They differ from
surrounding Negroes in having no veneration for the departed, no
amulets, no magicians or professional priests. They have charms for
ensuring luck in hunting, but it is uncertain whether these charms
derive their potency from the supreme being, though evidence of belief
in a high-god is reported from various pygmy peoples.[303]
THE BUSHMEN AND HOTTENTOTS.
Towards the south the Negrillo domain was formerly conterminous with
that of the Bushmen, of whom traces were discovered by Sir H. H.
Johnston[304] as far north as Lakes Nyasa and Tanganyika, and who, it
has been conjectured, belong to the same primitive stock. The
differences mental and physical now separating the two sections of the
family may perhaps be explained by the different environments--hot,
moist and densely wooded in the north, and open steppes in the
south--but until more is known of the African pygmies their affinities
must remain undecided.
The relationship between the Bushmen and the Hottentots is another
disputed question. Early authorities regarded the Hottentots as the
parent family, and the Bushmen as the offspring, but the researches of
Gustav Fritsch, E. T. Hamy, F. Shrubsall[305] and others show that the
Hottentots are a cross between the Bushmen--the primitive race--and the
Bantu, the Bushman element being seen in the leathery colour, prominent
cheek-bones, pointed chin, steatopygia and other special characters.
In prehistoric times the Hottentots ranged over a vast area. Evidence
has now been produced of the presence of a belated Hottentot or
Hottentot-Bushman group as far north as the Kwa-Kokue district, between
Kilimanjaro and Victoria Nyanza. The _Wa-Sandawi_ people here visited by
Oskar Neumann are not Bantus, and speak a language radically distinct
from that of the neighbouring Bantus, but full of clicks like that of
the Bushmen[306]. Two Sandawi skulls examined by Virchow[307] showed
distinct Hottentot characters, with a cranial capacity of 1250 and 1265
c.c., projecting upper jaw and orthodolicho head[308]. The geographical
prefix _Kwa_, common in the district (Kwa-Kokue, Kwa-Mtoro, Kwa-Hindi),
is pure Hottentot, meaning "people," like the postfix _qua_ (_Kwa_) of
Kora-_qua_, Nama-_qua_, etc. in the present Hottentot domain. The
transposition of prefixes and postfixes is a common linguistic
phenomenon, as seen in the Sumero-Akkadian of Babylonia, in the
Neo-Sanskritic tongues of India, and the Latin, Oscan, and other members
of the Old Italic group.
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