rRADITIONS AND CUSTOMS OF S.A. RaCES. I45 



The subject before us presents two different aspects, a 

 theoretical one and a practical one. The theoretical aspect of the 

 question is this : It being admitted that science wants a full account 

 of the native life, by what means must the needed work be done? 

 The means here devised are the theoretical means. The practical 

 aspect is this : How can we get that work done ? I should 

 include under that head suggestions about the practical means to be 

 employed in order to make existing materials useful, or to collect 

 those which are still lacking (practical means). 



PART I.— THEORKTICAL METHODS. 



Science cannot be satisfied unless it possesses a full and intelli- 

 gent description of the habits, customs, ideas, folklore, arts and 

 crafts, physical features, and language, of each South African tribe. 

 The complete historical, anthropological, linguistic and physical 

 record can be obtained by the use of four different means : The 

 publication of books, museums, photographs, and phonographs. Let 

 us consider what ought to be done in these four directions. 



A. The Publication of Books. 



Each South African tribe ought to be described under four or 

 five different aspects, each of which might be the subject of a book 

 of considerable size. These aspects are as follows : Ethnography, 

 Ethnology,* Folklore, Language, Physical Features. Let us try 

 to imagine what would be the best plan in building up that con- 

 struction. 



(i) The Ethnographical Book. 



It is certainly the most needed of all, because the customs and 

 ideas of the natives are undergoing more rapid changes than their 

 physical features or their languages. I should conceive an ethno- 

 graphical description as an attempt to understand the life of the 

 tribe under its various manifestations, beginning with the life of the 

 individual, and studying then the life of the family and of the kraal, 

 the national life, the agricultural and industrial life, the literary 

 and artistic life, and, as crowning of the building, the religious and 

 moral life. 



Dealing first with the life of the individual member of the tribe, 

 I would try to give an account of the evolution of the man an(^ of 

 the woman, from their birth to their death. What an amount of 

 material might be gathered all along this career which seems so 

 uneventful to the superficial observer, but which is full of interest 

 when you come to know it in its details : The boy is born, what is 

 done for him, who receives him in this world ; how is premature 



* In accordance with Topinard in his " Anthropologia," I should use this 

 term Ethnography for the description of customs and ideals, and Ethnology 

 for the history, migrations, relations of the tribes or clans. 



