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seeing his father go out with two other Boers to shoot an old Bush- 
man, Piet Jachtpan. The Bushman had entrenched himself in a hole he 
had dug. The middle Boer advanced, holding a large shield of double 
oxhide. Under cover of this the other two, one at each side, advanced 
with their rifles. The Bushman, lying on his back, shot his arrows, using 
both feet and hands to stretch his bow. Some of his arrows travelled 
nearly a hundred yards. When they shot him they found he had cut 
through the skin of his finger-tips with the constant pulling of his bow- 
string. This Bushman had hit Mr. 's uncle with one of his poisoned 
arrows, but it had struck his head through the hair (or hat) and he 
recovered. 
(5) Heated Stones for straightening Arroio Shafts. 
Small, oftener flat, but sometimes also partly rounded stones with a 
longitudinal, but always shallow, and very seldom even, groove are con- 
sidered to have been used for straightening the curve of the reeds used by 
the Bush people as shafts for their arrows, in the manner mentioned by 
Miss Currle. I have already expressed elsewhere great doubts about this 
alleged process, because of the great unevenness of width, depth, or 
straightness of the groove, and I gave my reasons for considering them 
as whetting-stones for bone bodkins, or the reduction into cylindrical 
shape of the bone shafts tipping the reed-shaft of the arrow. I tested, 
however, my Bush people in the following manner : A small stone with a 
very uneven groove was first shown them. Yes, it was intended for 
straightening the reed ; and the simulacre of daintily pressing half an inch 
of the reed at a time followed. When, however, I pointed out that the 
groove was neither straight nor deep enough, the old woman interposed 
by saying contemptuously that the stone I showed them was only a 
child's toy. Then another implement with a larger, regular, and deeper 
groove was produced, and evolved great satisfaction. The same explana- 
tion followed, but when it was pointed out to them that the texture of the 
stone, a piece of schist, could not stand the heat of any fire, the only 
explanation one of the two men could give was that it had first to be 
scrubbed carefully and then rubbed with springbuk blood, after which 
process it would stand any fire. 
They admitted afterwards that warming before a fire would also 
permit of the straightening of the reed, just as it had of the lyrate shape 
of the springbuk horn, and also that they had not straightened arrows 
themselves, nor had they made any bone. On the other hand, this belief 
or simulacre of straightening arrow reeds in this manner may be a 
survival of the custom, with perhaps a symbolic meaning, of times when 
wooden shafts were straightened in the manner alleged. 
