WHO BUILT THE RHODESIAN RUINS? 



By William Hammond Tooke. 



(Received November, 1917. Read, July 11, igi8.) 



The article on " Rhodesian Ruins and Native Tradition,'' 

 by the Rev. Samuel S. Dornan, which appeared in a former 

 volume,,* is one of much interest, and there is no doubt but that 

 it will receive the appreciation and attention it deserves. The 

 views of one who has himself examined the ruins, and personally 

 interviewed the natives whose testimony he adduces, naturally 

 deserve respect, even when they do not meet with ready con- 

 currence ; and the present writer regrets that he cannot lay claim 

 to this first-hand acquaintance with the subject. 



But other evidence also merits a certain degree of respect, and 

 even that deservedly-contemptible creature, the armchair critic, 

 may be allowed to weigh and test the methods by which the con- 

 clusions as to the Bantu origin of these ruins derived from the 

 author's researches have been reached. 



Travellers and missionaries, before casting discredit on the 

 evidence of their predecessors of three hundred years ago, will, 

 of course, take the precaution of making themselves acquainted 

 at first-hand with the documents tliey have left us, instead of 

 taking such fragments as they may find in a popular work. 



The author begins by expatiating on the value of native 

 tradition, maintaining its superiority as an instrument of enquiry 

 over " old Portuguese chroniclers." He continues : "With regard 

 to the veracity of old Portuguese writers very different opinions 

 have been held ; many of them are fairly trustworthy ; others are 

 full of unsifted and unveracious statements. I have read several 

 of them, and do not attach more importance to their information 

 than I do to Hakluyt's ' Voyages,' for example." He does not 

 explain exactly what importance he attaches to Hakluyt's 

 " Voyages/' so the comparison is wanting in precision. 



Having thus lumped the Portuguese writers together indis- 

 criminately, and extracted a "general average" of unreliability, 

 he proceeds to borrow a short con'tracted citation from one of 

 them which he credits to Count Wilmot, the well-known author 

 of " Monomotapa " (p. 209). I attach the full quotation, show- 

 ing the discrepancies in italics. It is taken from the Reverend 

 Jesuit Father 'Monclaro's " Relation of a Journey made with 

 Francesco Barreto in the Conquest of Monomotapa in the year 

 1569" Cnot 1572) :— 



Of the mines and the abundance of gold and silver many have written 

 at length, but the sum of what is known is much less than the reports that 

 are current in Portugal. Nez'crtheless the land in the interior is full of 

 mines more or less rich, and viore or less gold is extracted from them 

 according to their size. They dig in them at certain times when they 

 want to buy cloth to cover themselves. They value gold much more 



*Rept. S.A.A.A.S. (1915) Pretoria, 502-516. 



