188 Annals of the South African Museum. 



made of what may have been a stone implement. It is the story in 

 the O'Tyiherero, or Damara language, of the " Unreasonable Child 

 to whom the Dog gave its desert." '■' 



We read : " . . . Her father gave her the axe. Going further she 

 met the lads who were in charge of the cattle. They were busy 

 taking out honey, and in order to get at it they were obliged to cut 

 down the trees wltJi stones. She addressed them : Our sons, how is 

 it that you use stones in order to get at the honey ? Why do you 

 not say, ' Our first-born give us the axe? ' " &c. . . . 



It must, however, not be forgotten that the Damaras were prob- 

 ably for considerable times in contact with the Bush people. In 

 fact, the language of the Berg-Damaras is no longer Bantu, but 

 Hottentot. The Damaras and their northern neighbours, the Ovam- 

 pos, are skilful smiths both in iron and copper, and it is not too 

 much to say that it is this sense of superiority f that emphasises in 

 the tale the foolishness of the boys proceeding to cut down a tree 

 by means of stone tools. 



Whether the Bantu-speaking races originated in Equatorial Africa^ 

 in the region of the Lakes, as it is claimed for them, or whether they 

 migrated there from India or elsewhere, ;[ they are so ancient that 

 they must have lived at some time or another in the Stone Ages. 

 Yet, besides the few instances which I have given of the use of 

 stone as a material, there is little or no evidence to show that the 

 South African Kaffirs were the makers of the palaeoliths or of the 

 neoliths, large or small, which abound in South Africa, and which, 

 judging from the finds made hitherto, are probably as equally 

 abundant from beyond the Zambesi to the northern parts of the 

 Congo, as they are in Nigeria, Mauritania, Somaliland, &c., not to 

 mention the valley of the Nile. 



It cannot be said that the Bantu-speaking negro is still partly 

 in the Stone Age. But such a proposition cannot be advanced 

 in regard to the South African representative of the San, as my 

 account of the occurrence of the stone industry proves, I submit,, 

 without shadow of doubt. 



* Bleek's "Reynard the Fox in South Africa," London, 1864. 



t Von Luschan is of opinion that the manufacture of iron originated with the 

 African negro, who transmitted the process to Egypt, whence it passed to Asia 

 Minor, and from there to Northern Europe (Eisentechnik in Afrika : Zeits. f. 

 Ethnol, xli., 1909). 



I The Ariahs had to contend in India against the black Daysus that lived in the 

 mountains, and the yellow Daysus, probably Mongols, that occupied the plains. 



