DOMESTIC ARTS IN DAMARALAND. 103 



if they had nothing better, two sticks. A stone is made to serve as 

 an anvil. Iron beads and bracelets are made, and the last are adorned 

 with some neatly engraved pattern. Some of the rings of which I 

 have obtained specimens, which have been simply turned upon a stick 

 and welded, would do credit to a European smith. I have seen cop- 

 per bracelets that had been bent into a spiral shape resembling a 

 coiled snake. The Hottentots like bi-acelets and rings made by wind- 

 ing brass and copper wire around a coil of leather, in which patterns 

 are produced by mingling wires of different sizes. The Ovambos 

 wear heavy copper rings on their ankles, which are bent upon the 

 legs. One of these rings, which I presented to the Ethnological Mu- 

 seum in Berlin, is very like some of the rings that are found in north- 

 ern graves. Other works of the South African smith's art are iron 

 lances having the handles ornamented with an ox-tail flier, barbed 

 arrow-heads, double-edged knives and daggers, the latter without 

 guards ; and axe and hatchet blades, which are now used in making 

 wooden articles. Almost everything that is made of wood has to be 

 formed from a single piece, for the art of permanently joining two 

 pieces of wood together seems to be wanting among these people. 

 They do not know how either to dovetail, nail, or glue. Hence, in 

 making every article of wooden-ware, whether a spoon or a boat, 

 the artificer has to be governed by the shape and size of his block. 

 The knife-cases and dagger-sheaths are thus made from one piece ; 

 and, as the natives have no boring-tools, one of the cheeks of the 

 sheath has to be cut entirely away, excepting thin strips at the cor- 

 ners to hold the blade in its place. The tools used for hollowing out 

 the wooden vessels are a double-adze, or trihill, and an axe worked 

 like a chisel. The adze is a triangular iron, shaped so as to present 

 a knife-edge at one end and a point at the other, and is driven through 

 a hole previously burned in the handle, perpendicularly to it, and in 

 such a manner that every blow made with the tool in hewing shall 

 drive it tighter up. The outside of the vessel is shaped with the 

 adze ; all is done by eye, without any such aids as the square or com- 

 pass, and nothing but the hands to hold the block while it is hewed. 

 But the work is performed with a skill and finish that would do 

 credit even to a shop provided with the implements of civilized arti- 

 sans. This kind of work appears to belong to the chief, and to be re- 

 garded as a kind of state function ; for, although it may not be done by 

 the chief himself, it is generally performed under his eye, at the village 

 fire, and is submitted to his inspection from time to time while it is 

 going on. If a wooden vessel becomes cracked, it is not thrown away, 

 but is mended, if possible, by sewing up, or patching with fibers of 

 tough grass, or of the fan-palm common in the country, and then 

 smeared with cow-dung, a substance which the Africans do nob regard 

 as unclean, to make it milk-tight. Round-headed canes, long and 

 short throw-sticks, and arrows of hard wood are carved with knives. 



