1698.] MYRTEHIOITS CET^EMONIES. 289 



hang Shells and such like Toys as they wear in their Hair, 

 which, as you may imagine, occasions a pretty Jingling, such 

 as their Horses likewise make with the . same Materials. 

 Strange that these sordid Creatures that live like Hogs 

 should have any notion of Ornaments ! In truth they have 

 no Religion, yet I have been told they have certain mys- 

 terious Ceremonies, which seem to denote their having some 

 Idea of a sovereign Being. I have many times seen them 

 dance and clap their Hands, looking towards the Moon,^ 

 which I know they salute at certain Seasons, from her Nciv 

 to her Wane. It seem'd to be a kind of Worship they 

 pay'd that Planet. However, it might be only a simple 

 demonstration of Joy, on account of the Light that it 

 brought them. 



Some take for a sort of Circumcision what the Mothers 

 do to their Xew-born Males, whose right Testicle they 

 always tear away with their Teeth and eat it, but I rather 

 think they do so to render those Children more nimble and 

 proper for Hunting. However it be, this is the general 

 practice of the Hoticntots^ at the CaiJe. After these bar- 

 bai^ous Mothers have thus maim'd their poor Children, they 



1 "When the New Moon begins first to be discerned, they commonly 

 in great Companies, turn themselves towards it, and spend the whole 

 night in great joy, with Dancing, Singing, and Clapping of Hands." 

 (Ogilby, I.e., p. 595.) 



2 Leguat's account of the Hottentots seems to follow very closely that 

 published by Dr. O. Dapper in Dutch, in 1668, and followed by Ogilby 

 in his English Atlas, vol. i, p. 591 : — "Their food consists generally 

 of onely a sort of round roots of the bigness of Turnips, digg'd out of 

 the Rivers aud other places, and then boyl'd or roasted to eat. They 

 kill no great Cattel, but such as either by sickness, lameness or age 

 are unfit to follow the Herd; nor any Sheep except at a Wedding. 

 They are utterly ignorant in all sorts of Cookery, and therefore fall 

 upon dead Cattel like Dogs, eating it with Guts and Intrails, the Dung- 

 only thrust out ; and when they can find no defunct Beast, they look 

 out dead Fish on the Shore ; as also Snails, Caterpillar.s, and Muscles." 

 (Cf. Dapper, French edition, p. 387.) 



An illustration is given in the original of a Hottentot man, in his 



U 



