294 Wild Kaffir Life and Wild Kaffir Intelligence. 



Kaffir village, or kraal, tlie principal man makes a present to 

 the visitor of a goat, or of an ox, as the case may be. , The 

 animal is graciously received, and turned over to the attend- 

 ants of the guest for slaughter : some choice part is retained 

 by the guest, and the rest is handed over to the inhabitants of 

 the kraal, to be eaten in honour of the visit. Animals are also 

 killed and eaten upon certain other ceremonial occasions, 

 when set invitations are given, and set feasts made. Upon 

 such, occasions, if it is an ox that is to be eaten, it is taken near 

 to the entrance of the kraal, and stabbed behind the shoulder 

 with an assegai, wielded by some expert hand. A fire is kindled 

 near, and almost before the animal is dead it is hewn to pieces, 

 and the selected portions being removed, the rest is divided in 

 what seems to the uninitiated observer to be a sort of 

 scramble ; but it is in a scramble that has in itself some under- 

 lying order of accepted etiquette and custom. The fragments 

 of meat are just laid for a brief interval upon the embers of a 

 wood fire that has been prepared close at hand, and are then 

 rapidly transferred to the throats and stomachs of the feasters. 

 The eagerness for the unusual, and rare, gorge is far too keen 

 to allow any refinement of culinary art to be either learned or 

 exercised. A couple of hours is pretty well enough, in Kaffir 

 handling, for the conversion of a living ox into a remnant of 

 stripped skin and bare bones. 



Well-to-do Kaffirs rejoice in a multiplicity of households. 

 In the kraal of a chief, or of a wealthy patriarch, each hut near 

 to his own, contains a wife, and that wife's offspring, and the 

 more distant huts are appropriated to the other members of the 

 family or clan. Polygamy is an institution among the Kaffirs, 

 that is intimately and inseparably interwoven with the privi- 

 leges of wealth and the rights of property, and that will there- 

 fore be very difficult to eradicate. The Kaffir has strong 

 natural instincts of affection for his wives and his children, as a 

 rule ; but the peculiar position which he holds as a polygamist, 

 of necessity introduces some relations and characteristics into 

 his domestic life and social history that are not calculated to 

 awaken interest or respect. In all probability some of the inci- 

 dents and occurrences that arise out of these relations are but 

 imperfectly understood by European censors and critics. Kaffir 

 men do not acquire wives until they are able to pay a stipu- 

 lated number of cows to the father of the bride for the 

 privilege. These cows are differently viewed by the different 

 authorities who speak of Kaffir practices and customs. By 

 some they are held to bo an actual purchase price paid for the 

 girl. By others they are considered to be a sort of deposit 

 made in her interest to her family. In case of a wife leaving 

 her husband within a limited period, he is allowed to have some 



