152 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



bones of the native divinator, what will the visitor see? Some shells, 

 seeds, nails of beasts, astragalus bones, and that will be useless for 

 him. If, on the contrary, you dispose these strange objects in a 

 definite order, as they might have fallen when a " mungoma " has 

 cast the dice, and explain how they have come to signify such and 

 such a thing, to give such and such an advice, then the student will 

 have learned something worth his visit, and he will be induced to 

 search for more knowledge. 



In the same order of ideas, I would suggest exhibiting not only 

 finished implements, but also baskets, arms, costumes, in course 

 of manufacture. Small representations of a village, with its huts, 

 disposed as they are in the veldt, the inhabitants attending to their 

 various occupations, working with their various tools, would be very 

 interesting, and give at once, at a short glance, more comprehension 

 of the Kaffir life than many descriptions in ethnographical hooks. 

 There is much to be done to make anthropological museums more 

 attractive and more useful for scientific purposes. 



C. Photographs. 



The value (jf photographs of the native life for science is 

 obvious. Nowadays, every scientific work tries to be illustrated, and 

 photography has made that pretension possible. But what kind of 

 photographs ought specially to be taken ? When vou look to the 

 windows of our South African towns where representations of native 

 life are exposed, you see any amount of stout women, half naked 

 girls, " KallSr beauties," as they say, which are bought by customers 

 — likely not for their scientific value — as physiological samples of 

 mankind, but from quite different motives. I remember having seen 

 amongst all these more or less esthetic forms a quite different picture : 

 It was the representation of a son-indaw, walking in a Zulu kraal, 

 and happening to come into the proximity of the mother of his wife, 

 sitting down, at the door of the hut ; at once the man, who holds 

 an ox-hide shield in his hand, elevates it to the height of his eyes 

 to conceal his face. Who is the artist who was clever enough and 

 fortunate enough to catch that characteristic scene? Such is the 

 kind of photograph which is badly wanted in view of future 

 scientific research ! If there were a collection of such pictures taken 

 in the midst of each tribe, how interesting and useful they would 

 be ! It is, however, very difficult to get them, and only those who 

 have an intimate knowledge of the natives, and who have won their 

 confidence, will be able to obtain such precious material. 



Whv do not painters pav more attention to picturesque 

 native life, in the midst of the splendid South African scenerv ? We 

 see hundreds of pictures of Arabian tents on the border of the Sahara, 

 and almost nothing of the Bantu kraals ! It even seems as if Fine 

 Art did not consider them worth being represented at all, except in 

 caricaturing them ! These caricatures of a hideous negro, with red 

 lips and a stupid smile, are found everywhere. Science might expect 

 something better from painters of this generation ! 



