Volume II Part 3 (2/2)

His wife is the ”Da.s.se Hyrax”. Their adopted daughter is the porcupine, daughter of _Khwdi hemm_, the All-devourer. Like Cronus, and many other mythological persons, the All-devourer has the knack of swallowing all and sundry, and disgorging them alive. Dr. Bleek offers us but a wandering and disjointed account of the mantis or Cagn, who is frequently defeated by other animals, such as the suricat. Cagn has one point at least in common with Zeus. As Zeus was swallowed and disgorged by Cronus, so was Cagn by _Khwai hemm_. As Indra once entered into the body of a cow, so did Cagn enter into the body of an elephant. Dr. Bleek did not find that the mantis was prayed to, as Cagn was by Qing. The moon (like sun and stars) is, however, prayed to, and ”the moon belongs to the mantis,” who, indeed, made it out of his old shoe! The chameleon is prayed to for rain on occasion, and successfully.

The peculiarity of Bushman mythology is the almost absolute predominance of animals. Except ”an old woman,” who appears now and then in these incoherent legends, their myths have scarcely one human figure to show.

Now, whether the Bushmen be deeply degenerate from a past civilisation or not, it is certain that their myths are based on their actual condition of thought, unless we prefer to say that their intellectual condition is derived from their myths. We have already derived the constant presence and personal action of animals in myth from that savage condition of the mind in which ”all things, animate or inanimate, human, animal, vegetable or inorganic, seem on the same level of life, pa.s.sion and reason” (chap. iii.). Now, there can be no doubt that, whether the Bushman mind has descended to this stage or not, in this stage it actually dwells at present. As examples we may select the following from Dr. Bleek's _Bushman Folk-lore_. _Dialkwain_ told how the death of his own wife was ”foretold by the springbok and the gems-bok”.

Again, for examples of living belief in community of nature with animals, Dialkwain mentioned an old woman, a relation, and friend of his own, who had the power ”of turning herself into a lioness”. Another Bushman, Kabbo, retaining, doubtless, his wide-awake mental condition in his sleep, ”dreamed of lions which talked”. Another informant explained that lions talk like men ”by putting their tails in their mouth”.

This would have pleased Sydney Smith, who thought that ”if lions would meet and growl out their observations to each other,” they might sensibly improve in culture. Again, ”all things that belong to the mantis can talk,” and most things do belong to that famous being.

In ”News from Zululand,”* in a myth of the battle of Isandlwana, a blue-buck turns into a young man and attacks the British.

* Folk-lore Journal of South Africa, i. iv. 83.

These and other examples demonstrate that the belief in the personal and human character and attributes of animals still prevails in South Africa. From that living belief we derive the personal and human character and attributes of animals, which, remarkable in all mythologies, is perhaps specially prominent in the myths of the Bushmen.

Though Bushman myth is only known to us in its outlines, and is apparently gifted with even more than the due quant.i.ty of incoherence, it is perhaps plain that animals are the chief figures in this African lore, and that these Bushmen G.o.ds, if ever further developed, will retain many traces of their animal ancestry.

From the Bushmen we may turn to their near neighbours, the Hottentots or Khoi-Khoi. Their religious myths have been closely examined in Dr.

Hahn's _Tsuni Goam, the Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi_. Though Dr.

Hahn's conclusions as to the origin of Hottentot myth differ entirely from our own, his collection and critical study of materials, of oral traditions, and of the records left by old travellers are invaluable.

The early European settlers at the Cape found the Khoi-Khoi, that is, ”The Men,” a yellowish race of people, who possessed large herds of cattle, sheep and goats.* The Khoi-Khoi, as nomad cattle and sheep farmers, are on a much higher level of culture than the Bushmen, who are hunters.**

* Op. cit. i. pp. 1, 32.

** Ibid., p. 5.

The languages of the two peoples leave ”no more doubt as to their primitive relations.h.i.+p” (p. 7). The wealth of the Khoi-Khoi was considerable and unequally distributed, a respectable proof of nascent civilisation. The rich man was called _gou, aob_, that is ”fat”. In the same way the early Greeks called the wealthy ”(------------)”.* As the rich man could afford many wives (which gives him a kind of ”commendation” over men to whom he allots his daughters), he ”gradually rose to the station of a chief”.** In domestic relations, Khoi-Khoi society is ”matriarchal” (pp. 19-21 ).***

* Herodotus, v. 30.

** Op. cit., p. 16.

*** But speaking of the wife, Kolb calls ”the poor wretch” a ”drudge, exposed to the insults of her children”,--English transl., p. 162.

All the sons are called after the mother, the daughters after the father. Among the arts, pottery and mat-making, metallurgy and tool-making are of ancient date. A past stone age is indicated by the use of quartz knives in sacrifice and circ.u.mcision. In Khoi-Khoi society seers and prophets were ”the greatest and most respected old men of the clan” (p. 24). The Khoi-Khoi of to-day have adopted a number of Indo-European beliefs and customs, and ”the Christian ideas introduced by missionaries have amalgamated... with the national religious ideas and mythologies,” for which reasons Dr, Hahn omits many legends which, though possibly genuine, might seem imported (pp. 30, 31).

A brief historical abstract of what was known to old travellers of Khoi-Khoi religion must now be compiled from the work of Dr. Hahn.

In 1655 Corporal Muller found adoration paid to great stones on the side of the paths. The wors.h.i.+ppers pointed upwards and said _Hette hie_, probably ”Heitsi Eibib,” the name of a Khoi-Khoi extra-natural being. It appears (p. 37) that Heitsi Eibib ”has changed names” in parts of South Africa, and what was his wors.h.i.+p is now offered ”to |Garubeb, or Tsui |Goab”. In 1671 Dapper found that the Khoi-Khoi ”believe there is one who sends rain on earth;... they also believe that they themselves can make rain and prevent the wind from blowing”. Wors.h.i.+p of the moon and of ”erected stones” is also noticed. In 1691 Nicolas Witsen heard that the Khoi-Khoi adored a G.o.d which Dr. Hahn (p. 91) supposes to have been ”a peculiar-shaped stone-fetish,” such as the Basutos wors.h.i.+p and spit at.

Witsen found that the ”G.o.d” was daubed with red earth, like the Dionysi in Greece. About 1705 Valentyn gathered that the people believed in ”a great chief who dwells on high,” and a devil; ”but in carefully examining this, it is nothing else but their _somsomas_ and _spectres_”

(p. 38). We need not accept that opinion. The wors.h.i.+p of a ”great chief”

is mentioned again in 1868. In 1719 Peter Kolb, the German Magister, published his account of the Hottentots, which has been done into English.* Kolb gives Gounja Gounja, or Gounja Ticqvoa, as the divine name; ”they say he is a good man, who does n.o.body any hurt,... and that he dwells far above the moon ”.** This corresponds to the Australian Pirnmeheal. Kolb also noted propitiation of an evil power. He observed that the Khoi-Khoi wors.h.i.+p the mantis insect, which, as we have seen, is the chief mythical character among the Bushmen.***

* Second edition, London, 1788.

** Engl. transl., 95.

*** Engl, transl., i. 97, gives a picture of Khoi-Khoi adoring the mantis.

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