J 44 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



judging the more important matters, has lowered the position of the 

 chief. In some places they have been removed because they had been 

 troublesome. To remove a chief is to emasculate the tribe. Any 

 revolt occurring, any trouble caused, will tend to the same result. 

 The wonderful organisation of the Zulu yim-pi, which was copied 

 by many other tribes, will soon be a thing of the past. The manifold 

 customs connected with it, the wax crown of the men, the high praise 

 of the chiefs sung by their " poet laureate," all those picturesque 

 scenes where assegais and ox-hide shields have a prominent placf. 

 will disappear, and the war songs which used to send their frightful 

 clamours to the echoes, will be forgotten bv the new generation. 



What will the native life be without ancestrolatry, without lobola, 

 without polygamy, without divinatory bones, without witchcraft? 

 What will the native be<"ome with c^hiefs of diminished power and 

 without an army? 



The friends of picturesque primitive life will regret the result 

 of that evolution. True friends of natives will recognise that it is- 

 an absolute necessity. The disappearance of the old system is the 

 condition sine qua non to the adaption of the race to a changed 

 environment. The fact that a great many natives have already con- 

 .sented to it is a proof of the vitality of the Bantu nation. But, 

 if the religion, the mentality, the social life are about to change,, 

 the Bantu will remain and the Bantu soul also, and the time will 

 come when the educated South African aborigines will long to know 

 something of their old status. They will have learned that the past 

 explains the present, and that they cannot know themselves pr.tjjerly 

 without inquiring into their previous conditions. It is just the same 

 with us. Barbarians of old, having been transformed under the influ- 

 ence of Judaic Christianity, and of Roman and Greek culture, how 

 much we should like to have a deeper knowledge of our Celtic and 

 German forefathers ! We are obliged to be satisfied with very little 

 indeed. The Bantu of the future will be more fortunate. If we 

 educated white people do our duty, science will provide them with a 

 full account of their former, primitive stage. 



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To preserve the customs and habits of the Bantu tril)es in 

 a scientific form is a very important and very urgent task indeed, 

 and the friends of science, as well as the friends of the natives, can 

 be thankful in seeing that the question is now before the public, and 

 that it is likely to attract more attention in South Africa than it has 

 done before. There is no time to lose. Let us devise the means 

 to arrive at a full, precise, and intelligent description of the native life 

 which is on the verge of disappearing. Only let these means, wjien 

 pointed out, be used on a large scale, and our generation will have 

 the honour of having done its work well. Science will be thankful 

 to us as the material gathered will be of an immense value to the 

 future Anthropologist, I mav even say to the students of humanity. 

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