PRliSIDliNTlAL ADDRESS SECTION K. I4I 



Colonial Law (which is Roman-Dutch) operated adversely. This 

 was, and is, only to be expected for a time. Cases of assaults, 

 murders, and the like, came to be tried in the Courts of Law, 

 and offenders were punished, and thus men w^re either dis- 

 couraged from practisino^ witchcraft by reason of the penalties, 

 or else the fact that they could no longer reap the fruits in the 

 shape of the cattle of the accused, which were usually confiscated, 

 a course now no longer possible since injured parties could 

 appeal to the Courts for protection, deterred them from ventur- 

 ing upon the old trickery. Nevertheless, the old superstitions 

 still remain deeply ingrained. With the possible exception of 

 rare cases of extreme old age, no person dies in the Transkei, 

 even to-day, without his .friends suspecting that some enemy 

 has accomplished his death by means of witchcraft. 



As a result of this intense communism, which had no place 

 for even the smallest expression of individualism, the obstacles 

 to anything in the nature of advancement were well-nigh insur- 

 mountable. But once the breach was made in the walls the city 

 was in danger of capture, and from very small beginnings we 

 have been privileged to see not merely the widening of the 

 breach, but the razing of the walls. 



Individualism has come to stay. The ancient conservatism 

 of the Bantu is yielding. But, in the meantime, the natives are 

 as the negroes of America when they were emancipated from 

 slavery ; they were quite unprepared for freedom. In the home 

 of their master there had been no necessity to take thought for 

 the morrow, and questions involving planning and organisation 

 had never confronted them, so that when liberty was thrust upon 

 them they scarcely knew how to exercise their freedom, and for 

 a time at least their liberty proved a greater burden than their 

 slavery had ever beer 



So is it with our natives. Now that the communistic bonds 

 are being broken, each must perforce paddle his own canoe. 

 And in utter bewilderment they face the task, steadied only by 

 the measure of education placed within their reach by the mis- 

 sionaries, leavened by that section of the people who have 

 accepted the Christian evangel, and encouraged by the experience 

 gained in the service of the white man. But they have yet a 

 long, long wav to go. and in their weary pilgrimage deserve our 

 sympathy, patience, and guidance. 



The full tale, however, is not yet told, and in any case 

 must be retold from other angles, so that we pass on to other 

 considerations with which we are concerned. 



The main point for us is that very strong impetus has been 

 given to the tendency towards individualism by the direct pro- 

 hibition of these communal practices, or at least the objectionable 

 elements in them. Prohibitions, however, only deal with the 

 subject from an external, detached point of view, and the far 

 more fundamental movement naturally emanates from within, in 

 this case shewing itself unmistakably and strikingly in the tran- 



