Part 37 (2/2)
My lioness!
Are you afraid that I may bewitch you?
You milk the cow with fleshy hand.
Bite me!
Pour out (the milk) for me!
My lioness!
Daughter of a great man!
It is needless to say that in the first three of these aboriginal ”lyrics” there is not the slightest indication that the ”love”
expressed rises above mere covetous desire of the senses; and as for the fourth, what is there in it besides reference to the girl's fatness (fleshy hand), her utility in milking and serving the milk and her carnal bites? Yet in this frank avowal of masculine selfishness and sensuality Hahn finds ”a certain refinement of sentiment”!
A HOTTENTOT FLIRT
Though a Hottentot belle's value in the marriage market is determined chiefly by the degree of her corpulence, girls of the higher families are not, it seems, devoid of other means of attracting the attention of men. At least I infer so from the following pa.s.sage in Dalton's book (_T.S.A._, 104) relating to a certain chief:
”He had a charming daughter, the greatest belle among the blacks that I had ever seen, and the most thorough-paced coquette. Her main piece of finery, and one that she flirted about in a most captivating manner, was a sh.e.l.l of the size of a penny-piece. She had fastened it to the end of a lock of front hair, which was of such length as to permit the sh.e.l.l to dangle to the precise level of her eyes. She had learned to move her head with so great precision as to throw the sh.e.l.l exactly over whichever eye she pleased, and the lady's winning grace consisted in this feat of bo-peep, first eclipsing an eye and languis.h.i.+ng out of the other, and then with an elegant toss of the head reversing the proceedings.”
KAFFIR MORALS
Our search for true love in Africa has thus far resulted in failure, the alleged discoveries of a few sanguine sentimentalists having proved to be illusory. If we now turn to the Kaffirs, who share with the Hottentots the southern extremity of Africa, we find that here again we must above all things guard against ”false facts.”
Westermarck (61), after citing Barrow (I., 206) to the effect that ”a Kaffir woman is chaste and extremely modest,” adds:
”and Mr. Cousins informs me that between their various feasts the Kaffirs, both men and women, have to live in strict continence, the penalty being banishment from the tribe if this law is broken.”
It would be interesting to know what Barrow means by ”extremely modest” since he admits that that attribute
”might be questioned. If, for instance, a young woman be asked whether she be married, not content with giving the simple negative, she throws open her cloak and displays her bosom; and as most frequently she has no other covering beneath, she perhaps may discover at the same time, though unintentionally, more of her charms.”
But it is his a.s.sertion that ”a Kaffir woman is chaste” that clashes most outrageously with all recorded facts and the testimony of the leading authorities, including many missionaries. Dr. Fritsch says in the preface to his standard book on the natives of South Africa that the a.s.sertions of Barrow are to be accepted ”with caution, or rather with suspicion.” It is the absence of this caution and suspicion that has led Westermarck into so many erroneous conclusions. In the present instance, however, it is absolutely incomprehensible why he should have cited the one author who calls the Kaffirs chaste, ignoring the crus.h.i.+ng weight of countless facts showing them to be extremely dissolute.
It is worthy of note that testimony as to the chast.i.ty of wild races generally comes from mere travellers among them, ignorant of their language and intimate habits, whereas the writings of those who have dwelt among them give one a very different idea. As the Rev. Mr.
Holden remarks (187), those who have ”boasted of the chast.i.ty, purity, and innocence of heathen life” have not been ”behind the scenes.”
Here, for instance, is Geo. McCall Theal, who lived among the Kaffir people twenty years, filling various positions among them, varying from a mission teacher to a border magistrate, and so well acquainted with their language that he was able to collect and print a volume on _Kaffir Folk Lore_. Like all writers who have made a specialty of a subject, he is naturally somewhat biased in favor of it, and this gives still more weight to his words on negative points. Regarding the question of chast.i.ty he says:
”Kaffir ideas of some kinds of morality are very low.
The custom is general for a married woman to have a lover who is not her husband, and little or no disgrace attaches to her on this account. The lover is generally subject to a fine of no great amount, and the husband may give the woman a beating, but that finishes the penalty.”
The German missionary Neuhaus bears witness to the fact that (like the Bushmen and most other Africans) the Kaffirs are in one respect lower than the lowest beasts, inasmuch as for the sake of filthy lucre parents often marry off their daughters before they have attained maturity. Girls of eight to ten are often given into the clutches of wealthy old men who are already supplied with a harem. Concerning girls in general, and widows, we are told that they can do whatever they please, and that they only ask their lovers not to be imprudent, as they do not wish to lose their liberty and a.s.sume maternal duties too soon if they can help it. Lichtenstein says (I., 264) that
”a traveller remaining some time with a horde easily finds an unmarried young woman with whom he contracts the closest intimacy; nay, it is not uncommon, as a mark of hospitality, to offer him one as a companion,”
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