448 XOSA ARTS AND CRAFTS. 



buried in the ground to make it tough, then taken out and 

 sprinkled with sweet milk. Pieces of wood were fixed in the flap 

 to give it the proper shape. It was again buried, taken out, 

 stretched, rubbed smooth and trimmed, when it was ready to 

 put on. 



The making of shoes, izi-Jilangu, shields, ama-kaka, and cases 

 or quivers for assegais, imi-palane, was the work of the shoe- 

 maker. For making soles of shoes the skin of an ox's forehead 

 was spread out and dried. The soles were cut out so as to stand 

 out a finger-breadth all round the foot. A flap two inches broad 

 attached to each side and a broader piece behind formed the 

 uppers. These three pieces were knotted together with a piece 

 of thong. Shoes were little used except in war and on a long 

 journey. The hard, dry hide, in-tloii:^e, of ox or bull that was to 

 form a shiekl was first pounded with a stone, sisila, to make it 

 tough and strong. It was made of an oval shape, rather pointed 

 at the ends, and ornamented with strips of leather in various 

 colours. A shield, or buckler, made to protect the face was /;; - 

 (jicclctshetshc. This craftsman also made the war head-dress (^f 

 crane's feather, which was attached to the head by a leather band, 

 so arranged that the black wing feathers stood up perpendicularly. 



The method by which riems or thongs are prepared for use 

 in {ploughing and inspanning oxen in waggons is so well known as 

 practised by white men as well as Kaffirs, that it does not need 

 description here. 



Small thongs, or laces, for tying, iim-tya, ti-ntyi, and for 

 vvhi{)-cords. i-::iiiiya, were made by cutting off strips, ncwela, of a 

 dressed skin, i-tzvat7va, of the bushbuck or other antelope. 



Milk-sacks, im-vaba^ were made of goat-skin carefully cur- 

 ried. An eye was worked near one corner oi the sack with a bit 

 of thong, by means of which it was suspended. Bags, i-nxozva, 

 were made from the entire skin of a kid. including the skin of 

 rhe legs. These appendices to the bag became losing-places for 

 small articles, and were also used as hiding-places for stolen 

 things. In the praise-song of Kreli he is called the skin bag wirh 

 legs, in which he hid Pato and Maqoma from the English during 

 the War of the Axe. 



Among the fine arts the Xosas have nothing in the way of 

 painting to be compared with that of the Bushmen, yet they are 

 not without some artistic sense. They decorate, tsliiaafshisa, the 

 outside and sometimes the inside of their huts with patterns of 

 lines, circles and chevrons. .Such drawings are called isa-zobc, 

 and to draw a pattern is soha. They decorate their persons not 

 with proper tattooing, but with patterns made by raising lines of 

 incisions (keloids) on the skin, uku-vamha ; these are sometimes 

 elaborate. Their most artistic work is shown in their carvings on 

 wood, uku-rola or uku-qingqa, and their notchings and cross- 

 hatchings, uku-qoqa.. These are mostly done on walking anrl 

 dancing sticks. Some of them are adepts at inlaying, uku-tyiih. 

 with lead, iron, brass, or ivory. This is done both on sticks and 

 on pipe-bowls. 



