48o 



NA TURE 



\ April 23, 1874 



unmanageable except by those who can give half a life- 

 time to it. It is highly desirable to have the whole 

 available knowledge as to each race condensed into a 

 monograph like the present, by a competent ethnographer 

 who knows that race by personal study in its home. 

 It would be a real service to the ethnographers now at 

 work drawing up accounts of native tribes in India and 

 elsewhere, to put into their hands Dr. Fritsch's book as a 

 model. As with all its excellencies of plan and execution, 

 it is in many respects open to improvement, it would 

 serve as a stepping-stone to yet more perfect works. 



In popular language, the two indigenous races of South 

 Africa are known as Kafirs and Hottentots, one the well- 

 known Moslem term for " infidels " picked up by the 

 Portuguese from the Arab traders of the sixteenth century, 

 the other an imitative epithet, " hot-en-tot," given by the 

 Dutch colonists to the tribes using " clicks " in their 

 speech. Neither term is now satisfactory, and Dr. 

 Fritsch is justified in adopting the native names by which 

 the two races denote themselves. For the A't/zV tribes he 



uses the term Abantu, Bantu (plural of ntu, a man), and 

 for the Hottentot tribes their designation of Koi-koin {i.e. 

 " men of men," from koi, a man). 



Dr. Fritsch, as a professed anatomist, examines with 

 almost exhaustive minuteness the bodily characters of 

 these two races. The closer appreciation of race-types, 

 which is now supplanting the vaguer generalities of 

 twenty years ago, is in no small measure due to the 

 introduction of photographic portraits, instead of the 

 old misleading sketches by artists unable to clear their 

 minds of the artistic types of Europe. Without photo- 

 graphy it would be impossible to obtain a collection 

 of portr.iits such, for instance, as those lately published 

 in Colonel Dalton's " Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal." 

 The portrait engravings from South African photographs 

 in Dr. Fritsch's album (unfortunately arranged on some- 

 what different dimensions from the volume it accom- 

 panies) are at the same high level of truth and art. When 



race-types are so well-marked as among these South 

 African tribes, even'small figures will show their principal 

 physical peculiarities. A selection from the small-scale 

 woodcuts in the main volume, likewise taken from photo- 

 graphs, are here produced from copies of the blocks lent 

 by the publishers. 



Figs. I and 3, representing a middle-aged and a young 

 Kafir, show the characteristic slimness of the figure, due 

 to the wall-sided chest and narrow hips. The lean fore- 

 arm, a peculiar conformation of the deltoid and biceps, a 

 somewhat finely-formed hand, and an ungraceful setting 

 back of the lower extremities and inclination of the pelvis, 

 are other points of speciality. The narrow skull is well 

 seen in the figures, with the broad-winged flattened nose 

 showing the nostrils in full face, the tleshy pouting lips, 

 and the hair naturally felted. Add to this the deep- 

 brown colour of the skin, which is shown in No. i of the 

 specimen tints given in a table at the end of the volume, 

 with the deep-brown eyes and black frizzy hair, and the 

 total as nearly represents the ideal Kafir of the Ama- 

 Xosa type as ethnologists can conceive it. Fig. 3, 

 representing a group of wives of a chief,* shows with 

 coarse distinctness the typical Bantu features. 



In strong contrast with this Kafir type is that of the 

 Koi-koin or Hottentots, including as one of its divisions 

 the Bushmen. Whereas the dark-brown or almost black 

 Zulu stands little short of 5 ft. S in., the Hottentot, whose 

 brownish-yellow complexion has been compared to a dry 

 leaf, averages only 5 ft. 3 in., and the tiny dirty-yellow 

 Bushman under 4 ft. 8 in. Bearing in mind their yellow 

 complexion and diminutive size, some idea of the Bush- 

 man type may be gained from Fig. 4, The high cheek- 

 bones and pointed chin give the face its peculiar trian- 

 gular shape, while the characteristic snub-nose is shown 

 in the old Bushman, Fig. 5. 



Dr. Fritsch justly observes that the Bantu and Koi- 

 koin races have hardly any essential race-character 

 in common, unless it be the crisped hair ; and even this 

 is generally (though not through all varieties) distinct, the 

 Bantu hair being irregularly felted into a mass, whereas 

 the Koi-koin hair grows in little tufts, which have been 

 compared to the bristles of a blacking-brush. The 

 steatopygy of the flottentot-Bushman women is shown 

 by an extraordinary collection of portraits in Dr. Fritsch's 

 volume ; few physical race-characters are more striking 

 than this, and it is unfortunate that illustrations of it 

 cannot be inserted here. As in other parts of their struc- 

 ture, so in cranial proportions the two races in question 

 are markedly distinct, as is fully proved by the set of 

 lithographed skulls with tabulated measurements. The 

 Kafir skull is narrow and high, the proportion of length 

 to breadth being about too : yrg, while the height may 

 be taken at 73'8, being thus slightly greater than the 

 breadth. The Hottentot skull, on the other hand, is 

 narrow and low, the proportion of length to breadth 

 being about 100 : 727, while the height of such a skull 

 might be only 71, which is less than the breadth. The 

 Bushman skull shows this character in still more extreme 

 proportions in a cranium whose length is 100, the breadth 



* This group illustrates in a curious way tlic convention.-iI but not irra- 

 tional development of the ideal of beauty from the ordinary forms of normal 

 life. This ideal once fixed among any nation, there ensues a desire to 

 exaggerate it. In the present instance, in grown-up Katir women, the 

 tendency of the breasts to become long and pendulous is considered not 

 contrary to beauty, and is accordingly artificially increased by binding down, 

 as shown in the figure. 



