THE NATIVE AND AGRICULTURE. 



425 



source, probably through the Batwana of Lake Ngami. The 

 indigenous Mashona breed on the other hand resembles the Angoni 

 or G alia ; it is a small and hardy animal more suitable for the 

 granite soils of Mashonaland than the larger breeds. 1 



The Bathonga coast race dwell generally in forest count ry— 

 ill adapted for stock-raising. The Bilene and Khosine, indeed, in 

 davs gone by, were grazed by many herds before the advent of 

 Glossina mdrsitans, and the introduction of numerous stock 

 diseases (redwater, rinderpest, East Coast fever), which have 

 swept over the land and contributed to the abandonment of pas- 

 toral pursuits, save the keeping of a few goats. 2 Wives were 

 formerly exchanged for oxen, but nowadays the lobola is paid in 

 hoes as' a medium of exchange; and it is presumed that the legal 

 problems arising from "natural increase" no longer perplex the 

 Thonga mind. But most of all the ravages of Swazi, Vatwah, 

 Gaza, Shangaan, Matabele, and Zulu, who allowed none but them- 

 selves to possess any cattle, have caused the poverty in horned 

 stock of the Kalanga and Thonga tribes. 



The BaThonga grow sorghum, millet, maize, sweet potato, 

 melons, peas, beans, ground nuts, and tobacco in little garden 

 patches on the borders of the forest ; and their aptitudes are clearly 

 towards horticulture and market -gardening. 



"The bulk of the two races, the European and the Native, 

 "should live in the main in separate areas. . . . Social contact 

 "should be reduced to a minimum." — Hon. J. W. Sauer, Hansard, 

 1913, cols. 2270, 2288. 



Senator H. G. Stuart, in giving evidence before the Native 

 Land Commission" recommends that in carrying out segregation 

 "a careful note be taken of tribal conditions (misprinted connec- 

 tions)." Similarly Sir William H. Beaumont in his Minute to 

 Government says, "due allowance has to be made for the great 

 differences which exist not only in the nature of the land in dif- 

 ferent parts of the Union, but also in the language, the national 

 spirit, the traditions and customs, the social status and the environ- 

 ment of the various native races."' 1 



We cannot recognise too fully the importance of this injunc- 

 tion. It is not too much to say that it has in the past been prac- 

 tically ignored by the higher governing authorities, although 

 obvious to local officials" 1 : and a desire for uniformity has led to 

 bureaucratic methods being applied to native administration, 

 without consideration for the character, milieu, or tribe of the 

 social unit. The same measure has been dealt out indiscriminately 



1 Owen Thomas op. cit. pp. 260, 275, 229. 



2 "The .Natives knew of no stock disease until foreign cattle came." 

 O. Thomas, Ibid. p. 33. 



3 Union Government, 19-16, Vol. I., p. 78. 



4 I'nion Government, 25-16, par. 127: for "races'' read "tribes." 



5 let "how little the officials in one district know about the natives 

 of the adjoining tribes; they seem to think that their very local 

 experience of one set of natives entitled them to argue from the 

 particular to the universal," Dudlev Kidd, "Kaffir Socialism," p. 136. 



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