The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in KaffirlandWard, Mrs.
History
The Cape and the Kaffirs: A Diary of Five Years' Residence in Kaffirland
Ward, Mrs.
South Africa -- History -- Frontier Wars, 1811-1878
The latter have a most perfect ear for music, and cannot resist dancing
and chorussing to a tune that pleases them. I have never heard the
Kaffirs evince any disposition to sing, unless I except the monotonous
drawl which the women utter for the men to dance to. Of the Fingo
evensong, I shall have occasion to speak by and by.
It is already well-known that the Bosjemen and Hottentots are the
aborigines of the whole of this part of South Africa. As one great
proof of this, we find the names of the rivers are in the Hottentot
language, between which and the Kaffir there is no affinity. It may, by
the bye, be observed, that the Bosjeman and Kaffir languages have one
thing in common,--a singular click, varying in its sound according to
the letter pronounced: thus, C, T, R, and Q, appear to be the letters
uttered in clicks--T is uttered between the teeth, like _teh_; the R
also resembles T in its pronunciation; Q is produced by a click nearer
the front of the teeth than is requisite for the pronunciation of the C,
which in its turn resembles the noise made in imitation of drawing a
cork, and when two Kaffirs, Fingoes, or Bushmen, are conversing together
on any subject that excites them to unusual rapidity of speech or
gesticulation, the effect is extraordinary.
I desire not to lengthen my work with long quotations from other
writers, though to do so with that experience which a residence in the
country must give, would be to compile a useful and entertaining
chapter; but by here and there comparing what I see of these wild people
with what I have read, much may be gathered together that will throw a
light on matters connected with them in their present domestic state, if
such a term may be applied to a who are not yet tamed, and who, I doubt,
never will be so. Like the lion, the tiger, the panther, and all the
roaming tenants of the bush, the mountain, or the kloof, the Kaffir has
become identified with the country to which he now belongs; and, though
here and there one or two may be brought to understand the meaning of
good principle, as a body, the Kaffirs will fulfil the destiny of their
great progenitor, Ishmael, of whom it has been decreed by God, that his
descendants shall "have their hands against every man, and every man's
hand against them." Even though a man be brought up among Christians
from his youth, and accustomed to his dress by day, and his bed by
night, in manhood he will most joyfully return to his kraal, his kaross,
and his mat. The daughter of Cobus Congo (Konky) is a striking instance
of this. Educated in the house of an excellent missionary, taught the
value of principle, Konky is now married to a chief who has many other
wives; she wears the kaross, and rides an unsaddled horse, after the
same fashion as her husband and his cortege. If, however, the
missionaries fail generally in the one grand object of converting the
Kaffirs and Fingoes to Christianity, many among them may be brought to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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