ABORIGIXES OF EASTEKX PROVIXCE. -^15 



resemblance between (ionaqua pottery and that iioni the 

 Western Province referred to strandloopers by Dr. PeringiTey. 

 But the evidence of the pottery must not be pressed too far, 

 as it seems possible that such pots were also made by the 

 typical pastoral Hottentots of the AVestern Province. 



BUSTIMEX. 



In the earliest days of South African history most of the 

 mountainous districts of South Africa were occupied by Bush- 

 men. At the Cape, in Van Piebeek's time, they were known as 

 Souqua (Sanqua) or mountain Hottentots, " a very wild people 

 without houses or cattle " ; and others called Obiqua earned a 

 bad reputation among-st the pastoral Hottentots as cattle thieves 

 and murderers. However, they were few in numbers near the 

 Cape, and were not a menace to the settlement, the adjacent 

 territory being- held by Hottentot tribes. On Kolben's map, 

 Sonquas T^alie and Ubiquas Xalie are represented far inland 

 near the Rio de Infantes. They have also been known from 

 much earlier times under their Bantu name Buhia or Batoa,* 

 and thus are represented on Pig-afetta's map (1591) occupying- 

 ten'itory near Monomotapa. Under such names they have 

 always fig-ured in history as inland or mountain tribes, main- 

 taining' continual warfare with the pastoral peoples of the 

 coast belt. 



Although rock-paintings occur in and around Grahams- 

 town, I have failed to find documentary evidence for the former 

 existence of Bushmen there. They probably retired northwards 

 long" before the arrival of the European settlers in the pastoral 

 districts of the Eastern Province, or it may be, as their name 

 sug'g-ests, that the Uamasouqua Hottentots contained l^ushman 

 admixture and that our rock-paintings may be referred to this 

 tribe. Thus mig-ht be explained the fact that several of the 

 painting's have a modern apnearance, both in freshness of colour 

 and in tlie quasi-European dress of certain human figures there 

 represented. 



The Bushmen were described bv Le Vaillant in the follow- 

 ing temis : — "A collection of Mulattos, jS^egroes, Bastard 

 whites, and sometimes Hottentots; mongrels of all kinds and 

 every shade of colour, resembling each other only in treachery 

 and A'illainy." This was probably the ordinary meaning of 

 the term. Le Yaillant also realised a more modern conception 

 of a Bushman race, for he says :■ — ■ 



" Under the name of Boshis-men are likewise confounded a 

 nation different from the Hottentots, who, though they use the 

 .same kind of chicking, liave a particular kind of pronunciation and 



* Tlie Suto rendering is Baroa, and, accordiiig to Rev. I. Torrends, 

 S.J., in his " Grammar of the Soiith African Bantu Languages," this 

 is no other than the modern form of Parua-im mentioned in the 

 Old Testament: " and the gold was the gold of Parvaim " (Parua-im), 

 2 Chron., iii, 6. This seems a reasonable suggestion in view of thei 

 fact that the ancient gold mines af Mashonaland were in the land of 

 the Bushmen. But biblical expositors have offered other suggestions, 

 one of them even connecting the word with Peru in the New World ! 



