NATIVES OF AFRICA IN TIIF i6tII CENTURY. 1 5/ 



Hiditiji!^- seems to have been more developed near Liliambane 

 than in Delagoa Ray. I^>rnandez gives a vivid account of the 

 manner in which Gamba men succeeded in killing- elephants. Tlie 

 hunting- party numbered as many as 150 men, and, after having- 

 forced the beasts into a narrow passage in the forest, tried to 

 wound the legs so that the elephants would fall un^lcr the 

 \veight of their own bodies. 



The way of drcssiii<^ of all these tribe^ has not been clearly 

 described by the travellers. The Xatives are represented as 

 naked in Caffraria (I. 76), and in Inhaca's country ( T. 137). 

 Lavanha, on the contrary, asserts that the Tizombe jiut on a coat 

 of ox-hide with the hair outside, and, as regards the Inhambane 

 clans, in 1560 already the women at Gamba's Court had adopted 

 cotton clothing- adorned with beads twisted togetlier. This 

 description exactly answers to the short skirts worn by all the 

 Thonga-Shangaan wouien in the interior. The national costume, 

 however, worn by common people, consisted of skins cr strips of 

 bark, and they already manufactured blankets by sowing together 

 pieces of the bark of the mpharna fig-tree. These blanket^, which 

 are remarkably strong, are called ntjahi. The taste for crua- 

 iiienfs was very great, and was the real incentive for commercial 

 transactions. Beads of Indian make, of red clay, were met bv 

 the shipwrecked men as far as 7,2° S. Father Fernandei: 

 minutely describes the horns which Gamba men made by twisting 

 their hair in such a way " that the 'head was no Icnger to be seen." 

 Some wore as many as ten of theiu ! This seemed rather a 

 worldly fashion to the missionary, and he asks one of his friends 

 to forward to him a picture of the last judgment representing 

 devils provided with horns in order to show his converts that this 

 is altogether an infernal custom ! I have not heard of any clan 

 still practising this curious treatment of the hair. 



(4) The Psychic Life. 



Is it possible to get some glimpses of the mental life of the 

 South African Bantus of the sixteenth, century from these 

 Reports? Occasional visitors, not knowing the language, arc 

 apt to make the greatest mistakes on such a subject. However, 

 I discovered a few illusions in them which take a special interest 

 when put in relation with what we actually know of Bantu rites 

 and ideas. There are, of course, many more in the letters of 

 the missionaries. 



As regards the vioral character of the race, it was ^o plain 

 as to be at once detected. The curious mixture of generosity 

 and selfishness, of good humour and of treachery, of mildness 

 and of cruelty, which is still noticed in native morals, appears 

 clearly in the relations they had with their first visitors. Fer- 

 nandez puts one of these contrasts of the Bantu character in the 

 following pleasing and apt way : '' Though so poor, they are 

 very proud, and each of them is a king of the woods !'" In some 

 cases they treated their unfortunate gues's very badly. The 



