S0M1-; i>L.\(i:-N.\^ri:s of tsoul 619 



(.rijaqala. — 'Hiis name is philologicall}' iiucrcstinj^. It is 

 ^tb^•i()usly of llnshinan (jri^in. and the ])lace thus named is where 

 tlie hist linoerinq- old I Uisliman (hed some three years ago. There 

 used to 1)6 (|uite a lUishmau colony there at one time, and the 

 jilacc is closely associated with them, being as it were, the 

 ancestral home in this district. In my earliest enquiries I was 

 told that this name was given to the place at the time of the 

 Mfecane invasion, wlien the i)eo})le were split up at Oelana into 

 small bands, and destro\ ed in the bush at Gqogqora by their con- 

 querors, and that then some escaped only by creeping away on 

 hands and knees, and so the place was called Gqaqala. The verb 

 iikaijaqa means to creep on hands and knees. 



Another explanation was that at that time the men were 

 scattered, one here, one there, by their defeat, and so since there 

 is a verb ukttfi-gqagqa, meaning to be scattered, one here and 

 there, that that was wh\ th.e j^lace was named Gqaqala. 



The third explanation was that the place came to be asso- 

 ciated with the obscene word uku-gqa in an intensive form by 

 duplication, namely, iikitgqagqa, meaning to copulate. 



Now the first explanation would be quite interesting and 

 acce])table in itself, only the ])lacc name is spelt Gqaqala, and the 

 verb is iikugaqa. 



In the second case, the verb becomes iikuti-gqagqa, and in 

 the place name there is no second g. This same difficulty is met 

 with in the third explanation also. It would thus seem that either 

 there is a word quite unknown to us, or else the spelling is wrong 

 — that is, the spelling of the place-name. 



One more name must suffice for the purposes of the present 

 paper, and this one we select from the list of native names. 



Malcpelepe. — For long every effort ended in failure. At 

 last in conversation with a native I got the suggestion, and a new- 

 word. It seems that amalcpclcpc is used to denote a thick viscid 

 fluid as castor oil. It is a noun of the second class, having no 

 plural. 



W'lien an ox is very tired the saliva running out of its mouth 

 would be called auialepelepe. Thus we would say. " fjikonia 

 ipiima auialepelepe," the cow^ lets out saliva; or, again, " Umlambo 

 uzele ganmlepelepe," the river is full of froth. 



Since the plateau named Malepelepe is doleritic in origin, 

 one wonders if there has been any suggestion of this viscid vol- 

 canic fluid iti the naming of the place? Is it possible that that 

 amount of knowledge was theirs? Probably the slimy spirogyra 

 in the stream had sornething to do with the name chosen. 



May I conclude, for the present, by inviting correspondence 

 on the subject-matter of this tentative effort. If the effort has 

 been tentative, at least enough has been done to demonstrate 

 what a wealth of material of historical interest and philological 

 \alue must lie hidden in the place-names of Kaft'raria. 



