472 



NA TURE 



[September 7, 1905 



to the mass of data accumulated in books of travel, in 

 records of expeditions, or the assorted material in the 

 memoirs of students, he will doubtless be surprised to find 

 how much there is that will be of service to him. 



Sociologists have not neglected this field, but they need 

 more information and more exhaustive and precise analyses 

 of existing conditions. The available material is of such 

 importance and interest, that the pleasure of the reader 

 is apt to dull his critical faculty ; as a matter of fact, the 

 social conditions of extremely few peoples are accurately 

 known, and sooner or later — generally sooner — the student 

 finds his authorities failing him from lack of thoroughness. 



I have alluded to the subjects of psychology, theology, 

 history, and sociology, because they all overlap that area 

 over which the anthropologist prowls. Indeed it is our 

 work to collect, sift, and arrange the facts which may be 

 utilised by our colleagues in these other branches of inquiry, 

 and to tills extent the ethnologist is also a psychologist, 

 a theologian, a historian, and a sociologist. 



Similarly the anthropographer provides material for the 

 biologist on the one hand, and for the geographer on the 

 other. 



As a general rule those who have investigated any given 

 people in the field have alluded to the general features of 

 the country they inhabit, so that usually it is possible to 

 gain some conception of them in their natural surround- 

 ings. Thus, to a certain extent, materials are available 

 for tracing that interaction between life and environment 

 and between organisms themselves, to which the term 

 CEcology is now frequently applied, but we still need to 

 have this interdependence more recognised in such branches 

 of inquiry as descriptive sociology or religion. 



Just as the arts and crafts of a people are influenced 

 by their environment, so is their social life similarly 

 affected, and their religion reflects the stage of social 

 culture to which they have attained ; for it must never be 

 overlooked that the religious conceptions of a people cannot 

 be thoroughly understood apart from their social, cultural, 

 and physical conditions. 



This may appear a trite remark, but I would like to 

 emphasise the fact that very careful and detailed studies 

 of definite or limited areas are urgently needed, rather 

 than a general description of a number of peoples which 

 does not e.xhaust any one of them — in a word, what we 

 now need is thoroughness. 



Three main groups of indigenous peoples inhabit South 

 .Africa — the Bushmen, the Hottentots, and various Bantu 

 tribes ; in more northerly parts of the continent there are 

 the Negrilloes, commonly spoken of as Pvgmies, the 

 Negroes proper, and Hamitic peoples, not to speak of 

 .Arab and Semitic elements. 



KaHea. 

 Before proceeding further I must here make allusion to 

 an obscure race who may possibly be the true aborigines 

 of .Africa south of the Zambesi. These are the Kattea — 

 or Vaalpens, as they are nicknamed by the Boers, on 

 account of the dusty colour their abdomen acquires from 

 the habit of creeping into their holes in the ground — who 

 live in the steppe region of the North Transvaal, as far 

 as the Limpopo. As their complexion is almost a pitch- 

 black, and their stature only about 1-220 m. (4 ft.), they 

 are quite distinct from their tall Bantu neighbours and 

 from the yellowish Bushmen. The " Dogs," or " Vul- 

 tures," as the Zulus call them, are the " lowest of the 

 low," being undoubtedly cannibals and often making a 

 meal of their own aged and infirm, which the Bushmen 

 never do. Their habitations are holes in the ground, rock 

 shelters, and lately a few hovels. They have no arts or 

 industries, nor even any weapons except those obtained in 

 exchange for ostrich feathers, skins, or ivory. Whether 

 they have any religious ideas it Is Impossible to say, all 

 intercourse being restricted to barter carried on in a 

 gesture language, for nobody has ever yet mastered their 

 tongue, all that Is known of their language being that it 

 is absolutely distinct from that of both the Bushman and 

 the Bantu. There are no tribes, merelv little family 

 groups of from thirty to fifty Individuals, 'each of which 

 is presided over by a headman, whose functions are 

 acquired, not by heredity, but by personal qualities. I 

 NO. 187 1, VOL. 72] 



have compiled this account of this most interesting people 

 from Prof. A. H. Keane's book, "The Boer States," in 

 the hope that a serious effort will be made to investigate 

 what appears to be the most primitive race of all man- 

 kind. So little information is available concerning the 

 Kattea that It is impossible to say anything about their 

 racial affinities. 



Perhaps these are the people referred to by Stow (p. 40), 

 and possibly allied to these are the dwarfs on the Nosop 

 River mentioned by .Anderson; these were 1125 m. 

 (4 ft. 4 in.) or less In height, of a reddish-brown colour, 

 with no forehead and a projecting mouth; Anderson's 

 Masara Bushmen repudiated any suggestion of relationship 

 with them, saying they were " monkeys, not men." 



Bushmen. 



The San, or Bushmen (Bosjesman of colonial annals), 

 may, with the possible exception of the Kattea, be re- 

 garded as the most primitive of the present inhabitants 

 of South Africa ; according to most authors, there is no 

 decisive evidence that there was an earlier aboriginal 

 population, although M. G. Bertin informs us that Bush- 

 man tales always speak of previous inhabitants. 



The main physical characteristics of the Bushmen are 

 a yellow skin, and very short, black, woolly hair, which 

 becomes rolled up into little knots; although of quite 

 short stature, with an average height of 1529 m. 

 (5 ft. o\ in.), or, according to Schinz, 1-570 ni. 

 (5 ft. if in.), they are above the pygmy limit of 1-450 m. 

 (4 ft. in.). The very small skull is not particularly 

 narrow, being what is termed sub-dolichocephalic, with 

 an index of about 75, and it is markedly low in the 

 crown ; the face is straight, with prominent cheekbones 

 and a bulging forehead ; the nose is extremely broad — 

 indeed, the Bushmen are the most platyrrhine of all man- 

 kind ; the ear has an unusual form, and is without the 

 lobe. Their hands and feet are remarkably small. 



Being nomadic hunters the Bushmen could only attain 

 to the rudiments of material culture. The dwellings were 

 portable, mat-covered, dome-shaped huts, but they often 

 lived in caves ; the Zulus say " their village Is where they 

 kill game; they consume the whole of it and go away." 

 Clothing consisted solely of a small skin ; for weapons they 

 had small bows and poisoned arrows. Their only imple- 

 ment was a perforated rounded stone into which a stick 

 was inserted ; this was used for digging up roots. A very 

 little coarse pottery was occasionally made. Although with 

 a great dearth of personal ornaments, they had a fair 

 amount of pictorial skill, and were fond of decorating 

 their rock shelters with spirited coloured representations 

 of men and animals. They frequently cut off the terminal 

 joint of a little finger. They never were cannibals. Cairns 

 of stones were erected over graves. Although they are 

 generally credited with being vindictive, passionate, and 

 cruel, they were as a matter of fact always friendly and 

 hospitable to strangers until dispossessed of their hunt- 

 ing grounds. They did not fight one another, but were 

 an unselfish, merry, cheerful race with an intense love of 

 freedom. 



A great mass of unworked material exists for the elucid- 

 ation of the religious ideas, legends, customs, and so 

 forth, of the Bushmen, In the voluminous native texts, 

 filling eighty-four volumes, to the collection of which the 

 late Dr. Bleek devoted his laborious life. This wonderful 

 collection of the folklore of one of the most Interesting 

 of peoples still remains inaccessible to students In the 

 Grey Library in Cape Town. ,A more enlightened policy 

 In the past would have enabled Dr. Bleek to publish his 

 own material ; now the task is complicated bv the great 

 difficulty of finding competent translators and of securing 

 the services of trustworthy natives who know their own 

 folklore. The time during which this labour can be ade- 

 quately accomplished is fleeting rapidly, and once more 

 the Government must be urged to coniplete and publish 

 the life-work of this devoted scholar. 



The Mananja natives, who live south of Lake Shirwa, 

 assert that formerly there lived on the upper plateau of 

 the mount.-iin mass of Mlanje a people they call Arungu, 

 or "gods," who from their description must have been 

 Bushmen. Relics of Bushman occupation have been found 

 In the neighbourhood of Lakes Nyassa and Tanganyika. 



