September 7, 1905] 



NATURE 



475 



herders : there being at most a seasonal change of 

 pasturage, this prevents the possession of large herds and 

 necessitates a certain amount of tillage; further, it would 

 seem that this mode of life tends to develop military 

 organisation and a tribal system. 



No materials at present exist for any attempt at a 

 history of this stage of the Bantu expansion, but from 

 what we know of the great folk-wanderings in South Africa 

 during the first half of the nineteenth century, we can 

 form some estimate of what may have happened earlier 

 in Equatorial Africa. 



Lichtenstein lived among the Bechuanas in 1805, and 

 from that date begins our knowledge of the Bantu peoples. 

 Dr. G. M. Theal, the learned historian of South Africa, 

 Dr. K. Barthel and Mr. G. W. Stow, whose valuable book 

 has just appeared, have made most careful studies of folk- 

 wanderings in South Africa, based upon the records of the 

 explorers of the past hundred years ; we scarcely have 

 trustworthy accounts of the movements of the various 

 tribes for a longer period, and oral traditions of the 

 natives, though in the main correct, require careful 

 handling. The nature of the country is such that it affords 

 more than ordinary facilities for migrations, and the 

 absence of great geographical barriers prevents ethnical 

 difTerentiation. 



The Bantu peoples of Southern Africa may conveniently 

 be classified in three main groups : — 



(i) The eastern tribes, composed of the Zulu-Xosa. 



(2) The interior tribes, consisting of the Bechuana, 

 Basuto, Mashona, S;c. 



(3) The western tribes, such as the Ovampo and 

 Ovaherero. 



(i) The Zulu-Xosa are respectively the northern and 

 southern branches of a migration down the east coast, 

 that, according to some authorities, took place about the 

 fifteenth century. The Amaxosa (Kosa, or Kafirs) never 

 overstepped the Drakensberg range, but there have been 

 northerly and, more especially, southerly movements : the 

 Amaxosa, for example, extended, about iSoo, as far as 

 Kaaimans River, Mossel Bay, but in iS-^:; they were 

 pressed back by the colonists to the Great Fish River. 



The Amazulu have occupied the east coast, north of the 

 Tugela, for a long period, and allied tribes extend as far 

 as the Zambesi : indeed, it may be_ said that a complete 

 chain of Zulu peoples stretches up to the neighbourhood 

 of the equator, the more open country in which they live 

 giving greater opportunities for expansion. The wonderful 

 rise to power of Chaka (1783-1828) caused great move- 

 ments of peoples to take place. The Amangwane (who 

 drove the Amahlubi before them) and other groups fled 

 southward to escape from the tyranny of this great warrior. 

 The conquerors applied to these scattered remnants of 

 tribes the contemptuous term " Fingu," or homeless 

 fugitives, and turned them into slaves and cattle tenders. 

 The Matabele, to the number of some 60,000 individuals, 

 separated from the parent stock about 18x7, under the 

 leadership of the terrible Moselekatze (Umsilikatzi), whose 

 fame as an exterminator of men ranks second only to 

 that of Chaka ; they crossed the Drakensberg and went 

 north-west through the Transvaal, scattering the settled 

 Bechuana peoples. They were attacked by the Boers, 

 who defeated them with terrible slaughter, from which 

 only forty warriors escaped. They withdrew to the 

 Zambesi, but were driven south by the tsetse fly. They 

 encountered the Makalaka and destroyed their villages, 

 drove out the Mashona to the north-east, and settled in 

 Mashonaland. 



(2) The great central region of the South African plateau, 

 roughlv known as Bechuanaland, was verv earlv occupied 

 by Bantu peoples coming from the north, who displaced 

 or reduced to servitude the indigenous Bushmen. As Prof. 

 Keane points out, the Bechuana must have crossed the 

 Zambesi from the north at a very early date, because of 

 all the south Bantu groups they alone have preserved the 

 totemic system. Among the first to arrive, according to 

 him, appear to have been the industrious Mashona and 

 Makalak.i. For three hundred years, according to native 

 tradition, the Makalaka owned the land between the 

 Limpopo and the Zambesi, and then came the Barotse, 

 who are allied to the Congo Bantu, and conquered them. 



NO. 187I, VOL. 72] 



A section of the latter founded a powerful so-called Barotse 

 (Marotse) empire on the Middle Zambesi above the Victoria 

 Falls. At the beginning of the nineteenth century a 

 Bahurutse dynasty ruled over the Bechuana ; as these 

 people expanded they broke off into clans, and extended 

 between the Orange River and the Zambesi, and from the 

 Kathlamba, or Drakensberg chain, to the Kalahari Desert. 

 The densely populated country west of the Drakensberg 

 now known as Basutoland was subjected to great devast- 

 ation as a result of Chaka's tyranny. In 1822 a tribe 

 fleeing from the Zulus set up the first of these disturb- 

 ances, and the attacked became the attackers in their 

 turn. One horde, the Mantati, achieved great notoriety, 

 and are credited with having wiped out twenty-eight tribes ; 

 they were eventually defeated by the Bangwaketsi and 

 scattered by the Griqua. The Makololo, a small group 

 of the Mantati (who lived on the upper waters of the 

 Orange River), led by Sebituane, in 1S23 aimed at reach- 

 ing the district of the Chobe and Zambesi, where he had 

 heard that it was always spring. After conquering the 

 Bakwena, Bahurutse, and other kindred tribes and in- 

 creasing their forces from the conquered peoples, they 

 crossed the Zambesi and the uplands stretching to the 

 Kafukwe, and settled in those fertile pasture lands about 

 1835. Disturbed by the Matabele, Sebituane passed 

 through the Barotse Valley, followed by the Matabele and 

 the Batoka, a tribe of the Barotse. He put the former 

 to flight and subjugated the latter. Thus Sebituane led 

 his people a journey of more than 2000 miles to reach 

 their Promised Land. Under Sekeletu, Sebituane's suc- 

 cessor, the State began to fall to pieces, and after his 

 death the Barotse revolted, and practically exterminated 

 the Makololo. The rehabilitated Barotse empire com- 

 prises an area of some 250,000 square miles between the 

 Chobe and Kafukwe affluents of the Zambesi. Prof. 

 Keane directs attention to the instructive fact that though 

 the Makololo have perished from among the number of 

 South African tribes, their short rule (1835-1870) was long 

 enough to impose their language upon the Barotse, and 

 to this day, about the Middle Zambesi, where the Makololo 

 have disappeared, their speech remains the common medium 

 of intercourse throughout the Barotse empire. The con- 

 solidation of the Basuto under the astute Moshesh is an 

 instructive episode in the history of the South African 

 races. The Bamangwato are the most important branch 

 of the independent Bechuana peoples, who have made con- 

 siderable progress under the wise guidance of the 

 enlightened Khama : they are an industrious people, and 

 have exceptional skill in working iron. 



According to Mr. G. W. Stow there were three main 

 migrations of the interior, or middle, Bantu, or Bachoana 

 as he terms them : (i.) The pioneer tribes of the southward 

 migration into the ancient Bushman hunting grounds were 

 the Leghoya, Bakalahari, and those who intermarried 

 with the Bushmen to form the Balala and Bachoana Bush- 

 men ; (ii.) the tribes of the second period of the Bachoana 

 migration were the Batlapin and Barolong ; (iii.) the great 

 Bakuena or Bakone tribes were the most civilised of the 

 Bantu peoples : they consisted of the Bahurutse, Batlaru, 

 Bamangwato, Batauana, Bangwaketse, and the Bakuena, 

 who were the wealthiest and most advanced of all until 

 thev were reduced by the Mantati and destroyed by the 

 Matabele. 



(3) Turning for a moment to German South-West Africa 

 we find the Bastards to the south, and north of them the 

 Haukoin or Mountain Damara, who are now practically 

 a pariah people, subject to the Hottentots, Bastards, 

 Ovaherero, and the white man. It is possible that these 

 are of Negro rather than of Bantu origin ; in mode of life, 

 save for their talent for agriculture, they are Bushmen ; 

 in their speech they are Hottentots, but their colour is 

 darker than that of their neighbours. Somewhere from 

 Eastern South .Africa, about a hundred years ago, came 

 the Ovaherero, or the Merry People, who, like the rest 

 of the Bantu, are warlike cattle-breeders, with wandering 

 proclivities, but they are not agriculturists. When they 

 arrived in the Kaoko district they drove the Haukoin to 

 the south, together with the Toppnaers (Aunin) and Bush- 

 men. To the north of the Ovaherero are the agricultural 

 Ovampo. 



