PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS SECTION E. I43 



Then after a time followed the extension of the Colony 

 towards the East, and more and more of the Kaffir Territory 

 came to he absorhed by the white man, whose influence and rule 

 afforded the natives a new security. The nomadic tribes then 

 found that they were able to anchor themselves to the chosen 

 locality, and free to enjoy life without fear of hostile attack. 

 While the women of the kraal looked after the gardens, and the 

 sons cared for the flocks and herds, the adult males were free 

 to go off huntino;-, or to spend their time in social intercourse at 

 a neighbour's feast. If they lived on farms they were expected 

 to help at certain seasons of the year, but even then they were 

 free to move on to the crown lands and set up their abodes there 

 if the work proved at all irksome to their taste. This ctjiitinued 

 for a time, until, in 1820, the settlers began to arrive, and the 

 movement for the enclosure of the farms was commenced, when 

 the native began to find himself constantly inconvenienced by 

 long lines Oif fences stretching across the hitherto open country. 

 The fences then shut him up to three possible courses, namely, 

 to stay on the farm paying rent (which usually took the form 

 of giving his labour), or to move to the Native Reserves, or to 

 " squat " on the unalienated Crown Lands in the Colony PVoper. 

 A fourth possible course developed later, and that was to acquire 

 or rent private property in towns or villages. 



As time went on, however, the native found himself more 

 and more cramped for space, hemmed in on all sides by fences, 

 and confined to a limited area. Where before he had been wont 

 to make a garden at any spot he cared to choose, cultivating that 

 patch only once perhaps, now as the population increased he was 

 compelled to use the same ground year in and year out. At the 

 same time the ancient communal system of land tenure began 

 to give way to individual tenure, and the profoundest oif a!l the 

 changes in native life began to take place, the passing from 

 tribalism to individualism. Rooted and grounded in the ques- 

 tion of land tenure, the change in that department has carried 

 with it a transformation in other departments of native life. 



Thus, to sketch the picture lightly, in ancient times the tribe 

 was everything, the individual nothing. The chief represented 

 the tribal spirit, and the individual had no rights apart from 

 the tribe. The cattle ran in open pasturage, and no man ever 

 thought of permanently enclosing his garden lot ; for it is well 

 to remember that the communal system, which dates back to 

 time immemorial, in itself was constructed for, and by, primi- 

 tive peoples, who did not wrsh the trouble, if indeed they had 

 the means, of fencing their fields. In passing, perhaps, it 

 should be noted that as the crops were maturing, the men usually 

 constructed some sort of rough hedge, made of branches. 



Their 'Ivvellings, built on a given site, were usually to be 

 found on the ridges, which were not suitable for garden land, 

 and often amongst the stones, or in places not readily accessible. 



Their gardens occupied the good land along river banks, in 



