OKIGIN -WND MEANING UF iNAME " HOTTENTOT." 193 



perhaps also with the greetings they employed towards each 

 other and towards strangers. 



1 must now return to van Riebeeck's Dagverliaal — that still 

 unexplored mine of information on the first ten years of the 

 Settlement. On the /th September, 1655. Corporal Willem Mul- 

 ler proceeded on an exploratory tour inland, accompanied by the 

 Hottentot interpreter Harry. .\t a spot which cannot have been 

 very far from Capetown, in the direction of the Cape Flats, they 

 observed something which drew their attention, viz., " a strange 

 proceeding of the Hottentot women, on the side of the path, 

 where a great stone lay. These women went together each with 

 a green branch in her hand, laid down upon their faces on the 

 stone, speaking some words which we did not understand. We 

 asked them what it meant, on which they said Heffc hie, and 

 pointed above, as if they would say, ' It is an offering to Ciod ' "' 

 (translation iby Moodie, Record, p. /2). 



Dr. Theophilus Hahn at once seized upon the importance of 

 this little bit of information, and made the following comment 

 on it : " As will be seen from the sequel of this chapter, the 

 word Heffe hie is only a distortion of Heitsi-eibib, and the form 

 *>f worship described here at the cairn is nothing else but the 

 Heitsi-eibib worship as it is ])ractised to-day all over Great Nama- 

 (jualand, etc." (" 'rsuni-( loam." ]). 36). I wish, however, to take 

 the ste]) which Dr. ?Tahn stoi)ped short of. and to suggest that 

 Hcttc hie was the expression which the early settlers heard so 

 constantly from the natives, and from which they nicknamed 

 them Hottentoos. I grant that the resemblance of Hoticntot to 

 Hetfc-hie is not philolo^ically perfect, but if we remember that 

 the last " t " is an addition of later date, and that the early sailors 

 <lid not profess to give an exact reproduction of the native word, 

 but only to coin a word tjiat resembled it. the similarity must 

 be admitted to be sufficiently close. At an}' rate, the proposed 

 identifica.tion meets three conditions of the problem which, if 

 we are to believe the words of the old travellers, must necessarily 

 be observed: (a) the name Hottentot must be showai to be de- 

 rived from, and not imposed upon, the natives of the Cape; (b) 

 it must be a word that was uttered in connection with their cere- 

 monial religitnts dances ; and ( c ) it must be a word which could 

 be employed in friendly greetings. These conditions are all ful- 

 filled in the proposed derivation from Heffe hie. 



(Read. July 4, 1917.) 



Rubber from Carbide. — The Journal of industrial 

 and linyinecring Chonisfry"^- draws attention to the present im- 

 portance to Germany of the manufacture of acetone with a view 

 to the production of synthetic rubber. vSome of the largest Ger- 

 man firms have been occupied with this problem, and there are 

 now firms in Germany ])r<)ducing 10 to 50 tons of calcium car- 

 bide per day in order to c<mvert the acetylene into acetic acid 

 and acetone] the latter being intended chiefly for the production 

 of synthetic rubber. 



* ( 1017) 9 [toI. 084- 



