154 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



eyes, with scientific culture. The traveller is the best investigator in 

 the first phase of Anthropological study. What he can do now in 

 South Africa is to reveal to people on the spot what is worth observing 

 and how to observe. 



Three categories of individuals remain who can gather the 

 needed information : The Native Commissioners, the missionaries 

 and the educated natives. 



The Native Commissioners know, or are generally supposed to 

 know, one or two of the vernacular languages. They have the 

 opportunity of studying the natives, at least their " indaba," not 

 all of them (as the petty civil offences are generally left to the chief 

 to judge), but the most important of them. They are therefore in 

 position of learning a lot, and can provide precious information 

 regarding the laws of the native tribunal. Some of them are men 

 of learning and have wonderfully understood the Bantu mentality. 

 j't is sufficient to mention the names of Somtseu (Shepstone) and the 

 charming stories of Scurvy. 



But tlie missionaries can do and have done much more than the 

 Government officials. Their calling itself induces them to studv the 

 customs, ideas, and beliefs of the heathen, and, as they are generally 

 in the very midst of them, in the proximity of the capital, they see 

 and hear more of them than any other class of people. Most of the 

 information published so far has been gathered by them. Tt is true 

 that many of them, in their professional zeal to destroy wron.i ideas 

 of heathenism, are apt to despise them altogether, and to reject at 

 once as diabolical invention every manifestation of the savage life, 

 without that sympathy which seeks and finds in primitive beliefs 

 and superstitions some diffused rays of truth, some \oyoe fr-mpfja-rit^o^ 

 of aspirations to a higher life. But now many of them have abandoned 

 the old conception, and even if they do not find much spirituality 

 in the heathen system, they are aw^are that it must be studied, because 

 Kaffir Christianity will be greatly influenced by the previous beliefs 

 and by the former character of the new converts. Let them be 

 encouraged and guided in that study, and the result will be great. 



Educated natives would also form a first rate source of informa- 

 tion " a priori " speaking. They know better the Bantu mentality 

 than any white man, being Bantu themselves. But unhappily, in 

 most cases, the more they get educated, the less interest they find in 

 their old ideas. Moreover, just as an historian cannot easily 

 write contemporary history because he is too near the events 

 to appreciate them properly, a native still amongst his savage 

 surroundings is not able to describe in a comprehensi-s-e way 

 the national life of his tribe. Let us add, however, that he would 

 be less accessible to preconceived ideas and prejudices than a white 

 man, who is always apt to introduce foreign conceptions in his 

 descriptions. The interesting book of Azaria Sesheke about the 

 habits and customs of the Suto, partly translated by the Rev. Jacottet 

 in the Bulletin dc la Societe dc Geographic of Neiichdtel, shows 



