2— THE BEST MEANS OF PRESERVIXG THE TRADI- 

 TIONS AND CUSTOMS OF THE VARIOUS SOUTH 

 AFRICAN NATIVE RACES. 



(In a form available for future Scientific Research.) 



By Rev. H. A. Junod. 



[Sargant Prize Essay.] 



The native tribes are undergoing rapid changes. Even the 

 most superficial observer must be struck by the fact. Twenty years 

 ago had he passed through the kraals in a remote part of the 

 country with a hunting party, he would have been delighted to see the 

 natives living in their old and picturesque way, clad as children of 

 aialure ; to-dav, if he happens to go to the same place, he finds the 

 men wearing trousers and jackets, sometimes even huge, high, white 

 collars. They all have hats, some of them boots. The women have 

 preserved the old style better, but they all long for covering their 

 body with gowns, and a good many would gladly submit themselves 

 to the injurious habit of stays ! Instead of the nice and characteristic 

 conical shaped or rounded hut, square houses of poles or even bricks 

 are built almost everywhere, first by the chiefs and by the christianised 

 natives, but also by heathens. 



But it is not only the outside appearance which changes rapidly. 

 The mentality of the tribes also, their ideas, ideals, their customs 

 and habits undergo the same transformation. Of course, the process 

 is slower. A new conception of life is not so easily adopted as a 

 pair of trousers or a white collar. However, the evolution has begun, 

 and it will not stop before it has entirely changed the native. Dr. 

 Bryce, in his " Impressions of South Africa," foretells that in 40 

 ■years' time " there will probably be no more pagan rites practised 

 in Cape Colony"; in 80 years, perhaps even sooner, there will be 



none in Matabeleland if the gold reefs turn out well." If 



the distinguished economist who wrote these lines is right, the religious 

 and moral change which has already started everywhere, would be 

 completed in the middle of the century, and very little of the old 

 customs would be found amongst the natives at that time. 



Let us consider that transformation somewhat closer to see how 

 far it will reach. 



The last words of the quotation we have just made point to 

 the real cause of that ethnical phenomenon. " If the gold reefs 

 turn out well." Africa has now become more or less a white man's 

 country. The white man has penetrated everywhere, conquered it 

 entirely, and tried to impart his ideas and his religion, to the natives. 

 Hence the change. The contact between him and his black brother is 

 «very day more intimate, the influence already exercised will become 

 more and more predominant. At present three principal agents are 

 acting on the native tribe as a dissolvant, and are doomed to cause, in 

 course of time, the entire disintegration of the old system of Kaffir 

 life : Christian ideals, scientific knowledge, and the European 

 political domination. 



