Missionary Travels and Researches in South AfricaLivingstone, David
Religion
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa
Livingstone, David
Missions -- South Africa; South Africa -- Description and travel
The Griquas and Bechuanas were in former times clad much like the
Caffres, if such a word may be used where there is scarcely any clothing
at all. A bunch of leather strings about eighteen inches long hung from
the lady's waist in front, and a prepared skin of a sheep or antelope
covered the shoulders, leaving the breast and abdomen bare: the men wore
a patch of skin, about the size of the crown of one's hat, which barely
served for the purposes of decency, and a mantle exactly like that
of the women. To assist in protecting the pores of the skin from the
influence of the sun by day and of the cold by night, all smeared
themselves with a mixture of fat and ochre; the head was anointed with
pounded blue mica schist mixed with fat; and the fine particles of
shining mica, falling on the body and on strings of beads and brass
rings, were considered as highly ornamental, and fit for the most
fastidious dandy. Now these same people come to church in decent though
poor clothing, and behave with a decorum certainly superior to what
seems to have been the case in the time of Mr. Samuel Pepys in London.
Sunday is well observed, and, even in localities where no missionary
lives, religious meetings are regularly held, and children and adults
taught to read by the more advanced of their own fellow-countrymen; and
no one is allowed to make a profession of faith by baptism unless he
knows how to read, and understands the nature of the Christian religion.
The Bechuana Mission has been so far successful that, when coming from
the interior, we always felt, on reaching Kuruman, that we had returned
to civilized life. But I would not give any one to understand by this
that they are model Christians--we can not claim to be model Christians
ourselves--or even in any degree superior to the members of our country
churches. They are more stingy and greedy than the poor at home; but in
many respects the two are exactly alike. On asking an intelligent chief
what he thought of them, he replied, "You white men have no idea of how
wicked we are; we know each other better than you; some feign belief to
ingratiate themselves with the missionaries; some profess Christianity
because they like the new system, which gives so much more importance to
the poor, and desire that the old system may pass away; and the rest--a
pretty large number--profess because they are really true believers."
This testimony may be considered as very nearly correct.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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