258 Report S.A.A. Advancement of Science. 



chiefly as a result of polygamy, there were 121 wives to every 100 

 husbands. 



Very large families, the progeny of one father, are by no means 

 exceptional. A headman in the Tsolo district has seven wives, who 

 have borne thirty-five children, of whom twenty are alive ; another 

 native in the Herschel district has four wives with thirty-seven 

 children, of whom thirty-three survive. 8o far as my information in 

 this connection goes, Makaula, the chief of the Bacas in Mount Frere 

 district, is an easy first with twenty-three wives, who have borne 

 a hundred and twenty children, of whom eighty are living ! As a rule, 

 however, the number of children to a father does not vary directly 

 witli the number of wives ; where the husband has three or more 

 wives one or more of them are often sterile, and those who have 

 children have not, on an average, as many as tlie wives of mono- 

 gamous husbands. 



Illegitimacy also plays an important part in the growth of the 

 native population. Probably in no other race do the women exliibit 

 the same zeal in carr3?ing out the scriptural injunction tu " be fruitful 

 and multiply and replenish the earth." The Kafir female regards this 

 as woman's first and most important duty. A native wife, past the 

 child-bearing age, will often urge her husband, if he has snfiicient 

 means to pay lohola, to marry a second and younger wife. If the 

 native female cannot exercise this instinct legitimately, she does it 

 otherwise. Among unmarried Kafir women under twenty-two illegiti- 

 macy is i-are — only about 1 per cent. ; after this age the rate increases 

 rapidly ; over 90 per cent, of Kafir women remaining unmarried after 

 thirty bear illegitimate children. Mr. W. P. Leary, Resident Magis- 

 trate of Mount Frere, informs ipe that lie knows of no single women of 

 thirty in the district who have not borne children. Women who have 

 had illegitimate children rarely get married, but they go on bearing 

 children, anfl as a rule the chances of sui-vival of these cliildren are 

 not materially less than those of cliildren born in wedlock. It will 

 thus be seen that practically the whole Bantu female population within 

 child-bearing ages is actively engaged augmenting the " natural " in- 

 crease of the race. 



Furthei' factors are that the great bulk of the Bantu population is 

 living under very healthy "natural" conditions— theii- diet, consisting 

 mainly of mealies, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and sour milk (jr amass, 

 with meat occasionally and as a luxury, is healtliy and nutritious; 

 home-brewed Kafir beer, a beverage of low intoxicity and high nutri- 

 tive and anti-scorbutic value, is their chief stimulant ; they lead a 

 largely open-air life, their huts, though badly \entilated, are not as a 

 rule overcrowded, and in the absence of disease infections, such as that 

 of tuberculosis, possess undoubted advantages in a climate which, 

 though generally warm, is subject to extreme changes of temperature ; 

 their clothing is simple and suitable; there is very little undue crowd- 

 ing of dwellings — the unit as a rule being the kraal of two, three, or 

 sometimes more liuts belonging to one family, and at a distance from 

 other kraals. Epidemic diseases are rare : the fatalitj' from small-pox — 



