ORIGIN OF CERTAIN SOUTH AFRICAN PLACK XA.MKS. l6g 



occupied by the Settlers of 1820; starting at Grahamstown, it 

 was to include the country lying between the Kowie, Kasonga, 

 and Kariega Rivers. The name must therefore have been in 

 existence before the arrival of the Settlers. ' Further, a petition 

 was sent to Earl Bathurst by the Settlers in 1823, in which the 

 name is spelt with a K. which would certainly not have been 

 done had the river been named by them after the doctor. 



The derivation of the Place-Name from the doctor's sur- 

 name would thus a])i^ear to be another exam])lc of Folk-Etvmo- 

 logy — attempting to give a meaning to a name from which the 

 original meaning had departed. 



Like most of the other river names along this part of our 

 coast, there would a])pear to be little question as to its origin ; 

 among the Kaffirs the river is named i Qoyi (palatal click); 

 this is almost certainly the Kaffirised form of an earlier Hotten- 

 tot name. One old Hottentot told me years back that the name 

 meant noisy, rushing, and Kronlein gives the Namaqua word 

 X Kuwi as meaning to make a noise, to roar, and, as the click is 

 the same as that in the Kaf^r name, the three words Kowie, i 

 Qoyi, and | Kuwi may find a meeting place at this river. 



Another name of Hottentot origin that is of interest is Kny- 

 sna ; it js of interest inasumch as two distinct meanings have been 

 given to the name. It is commonly explained as meaning a 

 fern leaf, or having reference to the great number of ferns 

 growing in the neighbourhood ; but in a paragraph in Dc Kerk- 

 bode*, it is said that the name has reference to the two steep 

 kranzes between which men must pass to the little port inside. 

 The old Hottentots, it says, spoke of a straight down cut as "tny 

 or 'tnaai ; and because the two kranzes run straight down into 

 the sea, as if they had been cut off with a huge knife, the place 

 was named l)y the Hottentots 'tnaai 'tnaai, each part having an 

 initial click. This derivation would apj^ear to be the more likely, 

 judging from the fact that the wilder features of nature seemed 

 to impress these peoples before any other. It would have been 

 much more satisfactory, however, if the writer could have given 

 the particular click used, it might then have been possible to 

 trace the name with some degree of certainty to its origin. I can 

 only hesitatingly suggest that the name may be connected with 

 the Hottentot word ! gao || na, meaning, to cut off. 



There is a curiously-shaped mountam on the railway between 

 Rosmead and the Stormberg known as the Thebus Berg. Many 

 of the resid^'iTts of the neighbourhood, if asked the meaning of 

 the name, will direct your attention to the box-like shape of 

 the mountain, and ask if any name could be more appropriate. 

 It is, say they, the exact reproduction on a magnificent scale of 

 an old-fashioned tea-caddy (D. theebus). Others will tell you 

 that the mountain was known originally as the " Phtebus Peak " ; 

 that the original diagram of the farm, which was at one time in 



* November, 26th. foi^. 



