ig2 ORICIN AND MEANINC OF NAMF. " HOTTENTOT. 



these Haften-fotcs were in our company their hands held, their 

 feet having thereby the greater liberty to steal." This seems 

 to be decisive for the early use of the consonantal ending. Btit 

 is it? My copy of Herbert is "the Third Edition, further en- 

 larged — London, printed in the yeare 1677." I have not had 

 access to a First Edition, but I should not be at all surprised to 

 find that the " Halfcntotcs " only appeared upon the scene in 

 later editions, when the word itself in the newer etymology had 

 already found a footing.* 



Now with reference to the origin of the name, I shall quote 

 a sentence or two from travellers during' the late seventeenth 

 and early eighteenth centuries. Pere Tachard, in " A Voyage to 

 Siam," undertaken in 1685, says: "The first nation in the lan- 

 guage of the country is called Songuas (i.e., Son-quas). The 

 Europeans call those people Hottentots, perhaps because they 

 have always that word in their mouth when they meet strangers " 

 {op. cit., p. 68). The Re\-. J. Ovington, who was here in 1689. 

 says: "They retain the vulgar name of Hotaiitofs, because 

 of their constant repetition of that word in their hobling dances." 

 (" A \\>yage to Suratt," p. 489.) William Dampier called at the 

 Cape in 1691, and gives the following account of the name 

 Hottentot: — 



The natural inhahitants i)f the Cape are the Hodinadods, as they 

 are commonly called, which is a corruption of the word Holtentot: for 

 this is the name hy which they call to one another, either in their dances 

 or on any occasion, as if every one of them had this for his name. The 

 word prohahly hath some signification or other in their language, what- 

 ever it is.t 



To the same effect, Francis Leguat ( 1698) : ". . . the 

 natives of that Province, whom the Hollanders called Hotten- 

 tots, because they often hear them ])r()ni)unce that word " ( " Vov- 

 age to the East Indies," p. 22(->) ; and Captain Beeckman ( 1704) : 

 they are called by that name from their fre(|tient repe- 

 titions of the word in their dancings" (quoted in Mendelssohn, 

 1. p. 108). 



To the evidence already adduced may be added that of 

 Kolbe, who, in his accotint of the Hottentots, leans upon and is 

 backed by the far more powerftil authority of the learned Secre- 

 tary Grevenbroek. Kolbe, then, after quoting Tachard, refers 

 to the opinion of Mercklin in his " Oost-indische Reisbeschrij- 

 ving," who says of the Hottentots " dat zij. vrolijk zijnde, ge- 

 stadig op en neer springen, en het woord Hottentot daarbij 

 zingen . . . weshalve zij ook van de Hollanders in "t ge- 

 meen Hottentotten genaamd worden " ( Kolbe, " Naauwkeurige 

 P>eschrijving," 1, 415) 



We see then that the earliest evidence strongly favours the 

 supposition that the name Hottentot was not a term imposed upon 

 the Cape natives, but a term derived from them ; and that the 

 word had some connection with their ceremonial dances, and 



* This I have since found to be the case. In the first edition ni ] lerhert 

 the natives are not called by any ])roper name at all. 

 t" Voyage round the World." 7th ed., 1, 539. 



