ig8 STUDY OF NATIVE PHILOLOGY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



but the Bantu languages are considered by the students 

 of them to be likely to throw great light on general 

 philology, and Bantu folk custom is highly developed. At present 

 the study of them is largely left to Germans, and their books are 

 published by their Government. We have published almost nothing 

 but translations of Meinhof , because there is no public ; nor will 

 there be one, until the Universities take up the work which is 

 done in Germany by the Kolonial Institut and the Orientalisches 

 Seminar. With the long-belated London School of Languages, we 

 are at last waking up. That school has a reader in Swahili, etc. ; 

 Africa itself has nothing. Surely she can afford one Chair for 

 all sciences connected with the major part of her population ! 



Here are some of the lines of research which tirgently need 

 doing, for every month some old man dies, with whom also dies 

 all reliable information about some branch of native lore or 

 history : — 



(a) Native philology proper: comparative phonetics (the 

 basis of all) , comparative vocabularies and etymology, 

 comparative syntax, and general grammar. ; 



{b) Grouping of dialects; a work largely phonetic, and at 

 present very problematic- The field is open for South 

 African workers. 



(c) Relation of Bantu to Hamitic, especially the Hottentot 



on the South and Masai on the North ; to Sudanese 

 languages on the North-East ; and to Bushman and 

 other pigmy dialets. 



(d) Special lines of research leading to the solution of 

 ethnological, prehistorical, historical, and social ques- 

 tions ; e.g., star-names, native music and poetry, tribal 

 and local and family history (e.g., of chiefs); such 

 subjects have the widest bearing on general ethnology 

 and the special folk-wanderings of Africa. 



(e) Native psychology, which mainly can be learned through 



language only, and is so valuable a guide in the admin- 

 istration of native areas, Union natives, native educa- 

 tion, mission work, etc. Our native troubles have 

 largely come about through our not understanding the 

 psychology of the people- We cannot rule or use a 

 people, not to say educate them, if we do not know 

 their psychology. Study of peoples' languages and 

 customs would have saved many a punitive expedi- 

 tion.* In Nigeria, as I heard from an official, the 

 Government discouraged mission work till an ethnolo- 

 gist should be found for it, and I am not at all sure 



* Cf. Cape Times, July i, 1917, on Mandume, in the North of S.W. 

 Africa : Natives recognise no artificial boundary lines ruled on the map 

 by the white men, dividing a tribe. Here was another instance of an 

 arbitrary boundary created between the Portuguese and Germans without 

 reference to ethnological considerations — one of the most fruitful sources 

 of trouble in Africa since the advent of civilised governments. Mandume 

 could never fully appreciate the restrictions preventing him from going 

 across the border to punish some wrongdoer, or some refractory headman 

 intriguing against him. 



