56 



NATURE 



[May 19, 1904 



private research so little of value has been published 

 in the English language on the native human races 

 of Africa .south of the Zambezi. The present reviewer 

 does not overlook the excellent but incomplete work 

 of the late Dr. Bleek, of Sir George Grey and of 

 McCall Theall, nor should the short work by Theo- 

 philus Hahn on the Supreme Being of the Hottentots 

 be left unmentioned. The author of the work under 

 review is also right in calling attention to the value 

 of the Rev. Canon Callaway's work, published in the 

 'si.xties of the last century on the religious system of 

 the Zulus ; and the writings of the French Protestant 

 missionary Casalis on the Basuto and Bechuana lan- 

 guages should not be left unrecorded. 



The author gives at the end of his book, " The 

 Essential Kafir," a bibliography of the works written 

 in English and French on the Hottentot, Bushmen and 

 Bantu races of .Southern .\frica. He has omitted to 



lighten themselves or others on the characteristics of 

 the native races whose doings or misdoings were pro- 

 vocative of so much bloodshed and expenditure of 

 money. 



Even those who have left on record their studies 

 of the Negro races in South Africa — with the excep- 

 tion of Dr. Bleek — seem to have carried on those 

 studies with little or no reference to the lands beyond 

 the Zambezi. Many South Africans fancy that the 

 linguistic term Bantu, which was first coined by Dr. 

 Bleek, applies wholly to the Zulu-Kafir-Bcchuana 

 peoples of the South African Colonies, and do not 

 realise that it was intended by Dr. Bleek, and has 

 since been used, to cover nearly all that section of the 

 Negro race which inhabits the southern half of Africa 

 between the northern limits of the Congo basin and 

 the Equatorial Lake regions and the eastern districts 

 of Cape Colon V.' 



Fig. I. -a Swazie making Fire bv Fr 



From "The Essential Kafir," by Dudley Kidd 



include a variety of books in the German language on 

 the Damara (Ova-herero) people and language. But 

 these (which are by no means final, comprehensive, or 

 even particularly valuable) have owed nothing in their 

 inception to the British rule over South Africa. Con- 

 sequently the slur still remains, especially when we 

 compare such a list as is given in the Appendix to 

 " The Essential Kafir," with a list which might be 

 compiled of works on the native races and languages 

 of India, or even of British Central .Africa. It is 

 difficult to understand why scientific Anthropology has 

 played so poor a part in British South Africa ; but no 

 doubt it is due to the fact that the great personages, 

 appointed or self-made, who have ruled over or have 

 influenced South Africa during the last hundred years, 

 never, with the exception of Sir George Grey, took the 

 slightest interest in these questions, or cared to en- 



NO. 1803, VOL. 70] 



Consciously or unconsciously, Mr. Kidd in the book 

 under review brings out emphatically the " Central 

 .African " characteristics of the Zulu-Kafir people. (It 

 would be a good thing for consistency of speech if 

 we induced the world at large to drop the term 

 " Kafir," and to apply some such name as Zulu to 

 all those Bantu tribes in South Africa — as apart from 

 the Bechuana, the Herero, and the Zambezi people — 

 which speak dialects of the Zulu language. Kafir 

 — originally spelt Caffre — was the Portuguese ren- 

 dering of the Arabic " Kafir," plural " Kufar," which 

 means " infidel " or a race not believing in Islam. 

 When the Portuguese vessels first rounded the Cape 



1 Dr. Bleek's use of " Bantu " was more connected with linguistic classi- 

 fications. Whether there is a negro physical type which is connected with 

 the making of this distinct eroup of languages is still undetermined ; Dr. F. 

 Shrubsall, the anthropologist, thinks there is. 



