( 170) 



CHAPTER XVII. 



The Sepultures. 



If we compare the relics, as now revealed, of the open-air middens, 

 caves, or rock-shelters of the littoral, as well as the few yielded by 

 the inland caves or rock-shelters, one thing stands out, namely, 

 that the culture, as indicated by the stone- coupled with the bone- 

 industry, has many points of affinity, if it is not identical. 



But the style of burial which we know now prevailed, or was 

 followed in ihe George, Outeniqua, Tzitzikama caves, differs so 

 much from what is known to obtain elsewhere in South Africa, that 

 it was quite justifiable to expect that there should be found with the 

 skeletons, and in addition to scraper-knives, some PaliBolithic 

 implements, owing to this style of sepulture being probably more 

 ancient. But such is not the case, and it is the more surprising 

 that these large paleeoliths are almost beyond counting in South 

 Africa, and they are also far from uncommon on the tableland at 

 the foot of the Outeniqua, called the " flats," not far from the cave 

 recesses. 



Sparrman, the most credible of the early travellers in South Africa, 

 visited in 1775 the very parts of the Cape Colony where the burial 

 caves or rock-shelters occur, and he tells us most emphatically that 

 the Hottentots bury their dead naked or wrapped in their 

 " kaross " '■' in the ground, or thrust them into crevices of rock. 

 He, unfortunately, does not mention the attitude imparted to the 

 body after death. Kolben, who preceded him (1705), goes into more 

 details, and although his veracity has been often impugned, I have 

 found that his statements were far from being quite devoid of truth. 

 But he certainly exaggerated the facts, t 



* A covering or mantle made of sheep or any other skin. 



t In the posthumous account of his visit to the Cape by Abbe cle la Caille (1751), 

 whose " severe probity was much shocked at the want of veracity of Kolben," it is 

 admitted that the latter's statements were really culled from, or supplied by, 

 Mynheer Grevenbroek, Secretary of the Council of Policy, who had recorded in 

 writing what the Hottentots whom he had met had told him in answer to his 

 questions. 



