NATIVES OF AFRICA IN THE i6tH CENTURY. I55 



depreciate the valuable metal as a means of exchan.u'c. I'ut it is 

 evident that these few wrecks did not provide all the dans with 

 their assegais. In Amatong-aland the Natives possessed so 



many of them that, according to the highly coloured narrative 

 of Perestrello. for two hours these assegais formed a cloud in 

 the air ! The South African Bantu must have known the art of 

 metallurgy already in those remote times. So the iron foundries 

 still met with in the Xorthern Transvaal are not a moderu imita- 

 tion of white methods. 



Col'pcr was also plentiful, at least on the borders of the 

 Limpopo, and very much. a]>preciated. It was used in the manu- 

 facture of large bracelets, of which the Inhaca chief wore many 

 on his arms. Xo doubt these ornaments were also of Native 

 make ; the co])per proceeded perhaps from the Palaora mine in 

 Zoutpansberg, where certain Basuto have mined the ore exten- 

 sively up to our times. On the other hand, gold and sili'cr were 

 quite unknown ( \'. p. 27 ) ; at any rate the San AJhc'to crew did 

 not see an}- trace of them. This corresponds with the fact that 

 there exist no indigenous words in the Thonga-Shangaan lan- 

 guage to designate those two precious metals, whilst iron and 

 co])per are called nsiinhi and iisiiku, two typical Bantu words. 



Iinplcincnfs ap])ear to have been few: pots dried by the rays 

 of the sun, wooden dishes are mentioned amongst the Tizombe. 

 But basket work of the present type, which is evidently primitive. 

 must have been i^resent everywihere. 



The Jiufs had already their present round form, the two pre- 

 sent ]:)atterns having been duly noticed by the San Alberto crew : 

 the bee-hive hut of the Zulu {rcdondas c baixas, V. 21), and the 

 hut provided with a wall and conical roof (como as nossas 

 cJioiipaiias dc rinha — "similar to our huts in the vineyards"), 

 which is met with first at Inhaca's sister's village and is the 

 tvpical dwelling of the Thonga-Shangaan. I found no descrip- 

 tion (if (iama's huts. 'J'he villages V\'ere circular, surrounded by 

 a fence (\ . 2\ ) with the cattle inside the enclosure. 



Tlic agricultural ciistoiiis were also nearly on the same level 

 as three centuries later, before the introduction of new and im- 

 proved seeds. I'erestrello was surprised to see the Tnhaca 

 peo])le cultivating .so little ground: 



Tlie people of these parts, he says, live in forests, naked, without law. 

 without custom, without clothina;, and have no other wants which may 

 induce them to gather provisions and keep the surplus which they may 

 obtain in favourable times for times of scarcity. They live on roots and 

 herbs which the bush provides, and sometimes on the flesh of elephants 

 and hippopotami, without thinking of tilling the ground by the products of 

 wliich tliey all live, chiefs as well as subjects. 



This description, which is not very clear, does not prove that 

 the Inhaca people did not cultivate fields, as they ate Kafir corn. 

 but that they did so on a very small scale; so when a troop of 

 sixty or seventy white people arrived amongst them they were 

 not prepared for that eventuality which it was impossible to 

 foresee, and the poor Portuguese sufifered bitterly from hunger. 



