THE WIT AND WISDOM Oi" THE liANTU. 33I 



Grey Collection in the South African Library, preferably in 

 Capetown. 



In dealing with the very extensive subject that 1 have named, 

 I shall confine myself to proverbs selected from the four Bantu 

 languages chiefly spoken in the Union, namely, the Sechuana and 

 Sesuto of the centre, and the Zulu and Kafifir of the East. I 

 prefer the name Kaffir to Xosa, because the word Xosa is 

 invariably mispronounced in every single letter by people who do 

 not speak the language, because the Xosa tribe forms only one- 

 fourth of the peo])le who speak the language, and because Kallir 

 corresponds to Kaffraria, the well-known designation of the 

 district in which the Kaffirs mainly reside. 



A few Kaffir proverbs were long ago collected by Dr. Theal 

 and embodied in his " Kaffir Folk-lore." The first edition of Dr. 

 Kropf's " Kaffir Dictionary " contained nearly 200. These were 

 brought together l)y Mr. Bud'Mbelle in his " Kaffir Scholar's 

 Companion." Dr. Rubu.sana, in his valuable compendium of 

 Kaffir literature, " Zemk' Tnkom) Alagwalandini," gives a hun- 

 dred, mostly new, with detailed explanation of a few of them. 

 Bryant's " Zulu-English Dictionary '' contains 200 or 300 i)ro- 

 verbs with translations and English parallels. The Rev. E. 

 Jacottet, in his " Contes des Bassoutos." gives about 60 Sesuto 

 proverbs with their equivalents in French, and several more are 

 to be found in Aiabille's " Sesuto Vocabulary," and in Miss Mar- 

 tin's " Basuto Folk-lcre." Jacottet refers to a collection of a 

 thousand Sesuto proverbs which had been made by a native 

 teacher. Azarias Sekese. and published at Morija, but without 

 translation. A translation wil'. no d jubt appear when the 

 " Treasury of Basuto L(^re " is continued, as continued it must 

 be, in the interests of many branches of science. I^'inally, Mr. 

 .Solomon Plaatje, editor of a Sechuana ])aper. has brought out 

 a large and most valuable collection of " Sechuana Proverbs," 

 with iranslation into English, and parallels in half-a-dozen Euro- 

 pear languages. 



" A proverb," says Chambers, " is a short familiar saying 

 expressing a familiar truth." " A proverb," says Murray, " is a 

 short pithy saying in general use." According to Cervantes, 

 " proverbs are short sentences 'founded on long experience." 



The proverb should be short ; it should be pithy, like the 

 egg in the Scotch conundrum : " A wee, wee hoose, and it's a' 

 fu' o' meat." It should be striking in form, so as to be easily 

 remembered. It usually consists of two balanced members ; and 

 alliteration or rhyme or some other similarity in sound is a very 

 common feature. It should strike the intelligence by its truth 

 as much as the ear l)y its sound. It is a bit of concentrated 

 thought on some aspect of life, a crystallized opinion, a gem 

 from the mine of human experience. 



It is only quite recently that the importance of a considera- 

 tion of popular i)roverbs and maxims in their bearing on the 

 study of the sciences of psychcjlogy and ethics has been pointed 

 out. In Dr. Alexander F. Shand's recent book. " The Founda- 



