RACIAL HYBRIDIZATION 



Studies of the Ofifspring of Boers and Hottentots — Mendel's Law Seen in the 



Inheritance of Many Characters — Racial "Prepotency" Not 



Found to Exist — Mankind a Single Species. 



EuGEN Fischer^ 



THE author has taken in hand a 

 problem that leads him into 

 wholly new fields, which hitherto 

 have hardly been worked — the 

 investigation of a hybrid race. The 

 material is the most valuable he could 

 have selected, the mongrels of Reho- 

 both, the product of miscegenation 

 between Boers and Hottentots. The 

 physical anthropology of these hybrids, 

 especially all phases of it that concern 

 race mixtures, naturally makes up the 

 most valuable part of the book. 



The racial mixture here is not such 

 as we usually find, the result of irregular 

 unions which produce a racial prole- 

 tariat that defies all anthropological 

 analysis. We have, instead, a well- 

 defined race of mixed ancestry, with 

 definite, fixed characteristics; we can 

 measure the proportions of each stock 

 which it contains. It is a mixture that 

 has risen to the rank of a new race. 



When, in the eighteenth century, 

 Dutch and Low German peasants pene- 

 trated the country, defence against their 

 common enemy, the Bushmen, brought 

 them into close contact with the Hotten- 

 tots. Of course, there were few European 

 women in that raw land, given over to 

 nomads and hunters. Consequently, we 

 find many half-blood children, of Hot- 

 tentot mothers and Boer fathers. The 

 primitive life of a Boer "on trek" was 

 not very different from that of the 

 aborigines; consequently, it is not sur- 

 prising that a great many of the Boers 

 took Hottentot maidens in life-long 

 marriage. The racial pride of the pure 

 Boer families thrust out these results of 



mesalliance; but the mulatto sons also 

 partook of the racial pride of their 

 fathers, and married girls of the same 

 origin as themselves — not caring to 

 marry pure Hottentots and not being 

 able to obtain white wives. We thus 

 find at the present day hybrids of two 

 degrees. 



HOLLANDERS PREDOMINATE. 



Family traditions, particularly among 

 the older generations, have extraordi- 

 nary vitality, so that the genealogies 

 claimed by various branches of a family 

 are in entire agreement. Of the 27^ men 

 w"ho are recognized as founders of mixed 

 families, 17 are Hollanders, 11 Germans, 

 and nine of unknown origin. Other 

 European men came later, taking Hot- 

 tentot girls in marriage; occasionally 

 there is a birth outside of wedlock. On 

 the whole, these European founders of 

 families are preponderatingly Low Ger- 

 man; it may be added that the nordic 

 race preponderates. 



The female ancestry is somewhat 

 easier to analyze, for no other women 

 than Hottentots are mentioned. Occa- 

 sionally, however, there is no doubt 

 that a Boer married a Damara or 

 Herero girl. 



The material which Fischer used, 

 with great skill, consists of 310 men, 

 women and children, studied anthro- 

 pologically, and 300 additional cases 

 studied through photographs. The 

 author divides his material into three 

 groups. One group of hybrids continue 

 to marry inter se — these he calls "middle" 

 hybrids. Opposed to them are two 



^Fischer, Eugen. Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsi)roblem beim Menschen: 

 Anthropologische und ethnographische Studien am Rehobother Bastardvolk in Deutsch-Sud- 

 west-Africa. Jena (G. Fischer) 1913. Translation and abridgment of a review by MolHson of 

 Heidelberg in the Zeitschrift fiir ^slorphologie und Anthropologic, Stattgart, 1913; Bd. XVI, 

 Heft 2, page 397. 



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