first see what manner of mortals these Bushmen are, before subjecting
Mr. Chapman's special testimony to a cross-examination. The following
facts are compiled from the most approved authorities.


BUSHMAN QUALIFICATIONS FOR LOVE

The eminent anatomist Fritsch, in his valuable work on the natives of
South Africa (386-407), describes the Bushmen as being even in
physical development far below the normal standard. Their limbs are
"horribly thin" in both sexes; both women and men are "frightfully
ugly," and so much alike that, although they go about almost naked, it
is difficult to tell them apart. He thinks they are probably the
aboriginal inhabitants of Africa, scattered from the Cape to the
Zambesi, and perhaps beyond. They are filthy in their habits, and
"washing the body is a proceeding unknown to them." When the French
anatomist Cuvier examined a Bushman woman, he was reminded of an ape
by her head, her ears, her movements, and her way of pouting the lips.
The language of the Bushmen has often been likened to the chattering
of monkeys. According to Bleek, who has collected their tales, their
language is of the lowest known type. Lichtenstein (II., 42) found the
Bushman women like the men, "ugly in the extreme," adding that "they
understand each other more by their gestures than by their speaking."
"No one has a name peculiar to himself." Others have described them as
having protuberant stomachs, prominent posteriors, hollowed-out backs,
and "few ideas but those of vengeance and eating." They have only two
numerals, everything beyond two being "much," and except in those
directions where the struggle for life has sharpened their wits, their
intellectual faculties in general are on a level with their
mathematics. Their childish ignorance is illustrated by a question
which some of them seriously asked Chapman (I., 83) one day--whether
his big wagons were not the mothers of the little ones with slender
tires.

How well their minds are otherwise adapted for such an
intellectualized, refined, and esthetic feeling as love, may also be
inferred from the following observations. Lichtenstein points out that
while necessity has given them acute sight and hearing,

"they might almost be supposed to have neither taste, smell,
nor feeling; no disgust is ever evinced by them at even the
most nauseous kind of food, nor do they appear to have any
feeling of even the most striking changes in the temperature
of the atmosphere."

"No meat," says Chapman (I., 57), "in whatever state of decomposition,
is ever discarded by Bushmen." They dispute carrion with wolves and
vultures. Rabbits they eat skins and all, and their menu is varied by
all sorts of loathsome reptiles and insects.

No other savages, says Lichtenstein, betray "so high a degree of
brutal ferocity" as the Bushmen. They "kill their own children without
remorse." The missionary Moffat says (57) that "when a mother dies
whose infant is not able to shift for itself, it is, without any
ceremony, buried alive with the corpse of its mother." Kicherer,
another missionary, says

"there are instances of parents throwing their tender
offspring to the hungry lion, who stands roaring before
their cavern, refusing to depart till some peace-offering be
made to him."

He adds that after a quarrel between husband and wife the one beaten
is apt to take revenge by killing their child; and that, on various
occasions, parents smother their children, cast them away in the
desert, or bury them alive without remorse. Murder is an amusement,
and is considered a praiseworthy act. Livingstone (_M.T._, 159) tells
of a Bushman who thought his god would consider him a "clever fellow"
because he had murdered a man, two women, and two children. When
fathers and mothers become too old to be of any use, or to take care
of themselves, they are abandoned in the desert to be devoured alive
by wild beasts. "I have often reasoned with the natives on this cruel
practice," says the missionary Moffat (99); "in reply to which, they
would only laugh." "It appears an awful exhibition of human
depravity," he adds, "when children compel their parents to perish for
want, or to be devoured by beasts of prey in a desert, _from no other
motive but sheer laziness._" Kicherer says there are a few cases of
"natural affection" sufficient to raise these creatures to "a level
with the brute creation," Moffat, too, refers to exceptional cases of
kindness, but the only instance he gives (112) describes their terror
on finding he had drunk some water poisoned by them, and their
gladness when he escaped--which terror and gladness were, however,
very probably inspired not by sympathy but by the idea of punishment
at causing the death of a white man. Chapman himself, the chosen
champion of the Bushmen, relates (I., 67) how, having heard of Bushmen
rescuing and carrying home some Makalolos whom they had found dying of
thirst in the desert, he believed it at first; but he adds:

"Had I at that time possessed a sufficient knowledge of
native character, I should not have been so credulous
as to have listened to this report, for the idea of
Bushmen carrying human beings whom they had found half
dead out of a desert implies an act of charity quite
inconsistent with their natural disposition and
habits."

Barrow declares (269) that if Bushmen come across a Hottentot guarding
his master's cattle,

"not contented with putting him to immediate death,
they torture him by every means of cruelty that their
invention can frame, as drawing out his bowels, tearing
off his nails, scalping, and other acts equally
savage."

They sometimes bury a victim up to the neck in the ground and thus
leave him to be pecked to death by crows.


"LOVE IN ALL THEIR MARRIAGES"

And yet--I say it once more--we are asked to believe there is "love in
all the marriages" of these fiendish creatures--beings who, as
Kicherer says, live in holes or caves, where they "lie close together
like pigs in a sty" and of whom Moffat declares that with the
exception of Pliny's Troglodites "no tribe or people are surely more
brutish, ignorant, and miserable." Our amazement at Chapman's
assertion increases when we examine his argument more closely. Here it
is (I., 258-59):

"Although they have a plurality of wives, which they
also obtain by purchase, there is still love in all
their marriages, and courtship among them is a very
formal and, in some respects, a rather punctilious
affair. When a young Bushman falls in love, he sends
his sister to ask permission to pay his addresses; with
becoming modesty the girl holds off in a playful, yet
not scornful or repulsive manner if she likes him. The
young man next sends his sister with a spear, or some
other trifling article, which she leaves at the door of
the girl's home. If this be not returned within the
three or four days allowed for consideration, the
Bushman takes it for granted that he is accepted, and
gathering a number of his friends, he makes a grand
hunt, generally killing an elephant or some other large
animal and bringing the whole of the flesh to his
intended father-in-law. The family now riot in an
abundant supply.... After this the couple are
proclaimed husband and wife, and the man goes to live
with his father-in-law for a couple of winters, killing
game, and always laying the produce of the chase at his
feet as a mark of respect, duty, and gratitude."

It would take considerable ingenuity to condense into an equal number
of lines a greater amount of ignorance and naïveté than this passage
includes. And yet a number of anthropologists have accepted this
passage serenely as expert evidence that there is love in all the
marriages of the lowest of African races. Peschel was misled by it;
Westermarck triumphantly puts it at the head of his cases intended to
prove that "even very rude savages may have conjugal affection;" Moll
meekly accepts it as a fact (_Lib. Sex._, Bd. I., Pt. 2, 403); and it
seems to have made an impression on Katzel, and even on Fritsch. If
these writers had taken the trouble to examine Chapman's
qualifications for serving as a witness in anthropological questions,
they would have saved themselves the humiliation of being thus duped.
His very assertion that there is love in _all_ Bushman marriages ought
to have shown them what an untrustworthy witness he is; for a more
reckless and absurd statement surely was never penned by any
globe-trotter. There is not now, and there never has been, a people
among whom love could be found in all marriages, or half the
marriages. In another place (I., 43) Chapman gives still more striking
evidence of his unfitness to serve as a witness. Speaking of the
family of a Bamanwato chief, he says:

"I was not aware of this practice of early marriages
until the wife of an old man I had engaged here to
accompany us, a child of about eight years of age, was
pointed out to me, and in my ignorance I laughed
outright, until my interpreter explained the
matrimonial usages of their people."

Chapman's own editor was tempted by this exhibition of ignorance to
write the following footnote: "The author seems not to have been aware
that such early marriages are common among the Hindoos." He might have
added "and among most of the lower races."

The ignorance which made Chapman "laugh outright" when he was
confronted by one of the most elementary facts of anthropology, is
responsible for his reckless assertions in the paragraph above quoted.
It is an ignorant assumption on his part that it is the feelings of
"respect, duty, and gratitude" that make a Bushman provide his bride's
father with game for a couple of winters. Such feelings are unknown to
the Bushman's soul. Working for the bride's father is simply his way
(if he has no property to give) of paying for his wife--an
illustration of the widespread custom of service. If polygamy and the
custom of purchasing wives do not, as Chapman intimates, prevent love
from entering into all Bushman marriages, then these aborigines must
be constructed on an entirely different plan from other human beings,
among whom we know that polygamy crushes monopoly of affection, while
a marriage by purchase is a purse-affair, not a heart-affair--the girl
going nearly always to the highest bidder.

But Chapman's most serious error--the one on which he founded his
theory that there is love in all Bushman marriages--lies in his
assumption that the ceremony of sham capture indicates modesty and
love, whereas, as we saw in the chapter on Coyness, it is a mere
survival of capture, the most ruffianly way of securing a bride, in
which her choice or feelings are absolutely disregarded, and which
tells us nothing except that a man covets a woman and that she feigns
resistance because custom, as taught by her parents, compels her to do
so. Inasmuch as she _must_ resist whether she likes the man or not,
how could such sham "coyness" be a symptom of love? Moreover, it
appears that even this sham coyness is exceptional, since, as Burchell
informs us (II., 59), it is only when a girl grows up to womanhood
without having been betrothed--"which, however, seldom happens"--that
the female receives the man's attentions with such an "affectation of
great alarm and disinclination on her part."

Burchell also informs us that a Bushman will take a second wife when
the first one has become old, "not in years but in constitution;" and
Barrow discovered the same thing (I., 276): "It appeared that it was
customary for the elderly men to have two wives, one old and past
child-bearing, the other young." Chapman, too, relates that a Bushman
will often cast off his early wife and take a younger one, and as that
does not prevent him from finding affection in their conjugal unions,
we are enabled from this to infer that "love" means to him not
enduring sympathy or altruistic capacity and eagerness for
self-sacrifice, but a selfish, transient fondness continuing only as
long as a woman is young and can gratify a man's sexual appetite. That
kind of love doubtless does exist in all Bushman marriages.

Chapman further declares (II., 75) that these people lead
"comparatively" chaste lives. I had supposed that, as an egg is either
good or bad, so a man or woman is either chaste or unchaste. Other
writers, who had no desire to whitewash savages, tell us not only
"comparatively" but positively what Bushman morals are. A Bushman told
Theophilus Halm (_Globus_, XVIII., 122) that quarrels for the
possession of women often lead to murder; "nevertheless, the
lascivious fellow assured me it was a fine thing to appropriate the
wives of others." Wake (I., 205) says they lend their wives to
strangers, and Lichtenstein tells us (II., 48) that "the wife is not
indissolubly united to the husband; but when he gives her permission,
she may go whither she will and associate with any other man." And
again (42):

"Infidelity to the marriage compact is not considered a
crime, it is scarcely regarded by the offended
person.... They seem to have no idea of the distinction
of girl, maiden, and wife; they are all expressed by
one word alone. I leave every reader to draw from this
single circumstance his own inference with regard to
the nature of love and every kind of moral feeling
among them."[137]

That this is not too severe a criticism is obvious from the fact that
Lichtenstein, in judging savages, was rather apt to err on the side of
leniency. The equally generous and amiable missionary Moffat (174-75)
censures him, for instance, for his favorable view of the Bechuanas,
saying that he was not with them long enough to know their real
character. Had he dwelt among them, accompanied them on journeys, and
known them as he (Moffat) did, "he would not have attempted to revive
the fabled delights and bliss of ignorance reported to exist in the
abodes of heathenism."

It is in comparison with these Bechuanas that Chapman calls the
Bushmen moral, obviously confounding morality with licentiousness.
Without having any moral principles at all, it is quite likely that
the Bushmen are less licentious than their neighbors for the simple
reason that they are less well-fed; for as old Burton remarks, for the
most part those are "aptest to love that are young and lusty, live at
ease, stall-fed, free from cares, like cattle in a rank
pasture"--whereas the Bushmen are nearly always thin, half-starved
denizens of the African deserts, enervated by constant fears, and so
unmanly that "a single musket shot," says Lichtenstein, "will put a
hundred to flight, and whoever rushes upon them with only a good stick
in his hand has no reason to fear any resistance from ever so large a
number."

Such men are not apt to be heroes among women in any sense. Indeed,
Galton says (_T.S.A._, 178), "I am sure that Bushmen are, generally
speaking, henpecked. They always consult their wives. The Damaras do
not." Chapman himself, with unconscious humor, gives us (I., 391) a
sample of the "love" which he found in "all Bushman marriages;" his
remarks confirming at the same time the truth I dwelt on in the
chapter on Individual Preference, that among savages the sexes are
less individualized than with us, the men being more effeminate, the
women viragoes:

"The passive and _effeminate_ disposition of the men,
of which we have had frequent reason to complain in the
course of this narrative, was illustrated in the revel
which accompanied the parting feast, when the men
allowed themselves to be beaten by the women, who, I am
told, are in the constant habit of belaboring their
devoted husbands, in order to keep them in proper
subjection. On this occasion the men got broken heads
at the hands of their gentle partners; one had his
nose, another his ear, nearly bitten off."

Notwithstanding this affectionate "constant habit" of breaking their
husbands' heads, the Bushman women have not succeeded in teaching them
even the rudiments of gallantry. "The woman is a beast of burden,"
says Hahn; "at the same time she is subjected to ill-treatment which
not seldom leads to death." When camp is moved, the gallant husband
carries his spear and quiver, the wife "does the rest," carrying the
baby, the mat, the earthen cooking-pot, the ostrich shells, and a
bundle of skins. If it happens, as it often does, that there is not
enough to eat, the wife has to go hungry. In revenge she usually
prepares her own food only, leaving him to do his own cooking. If a
wife falls ill on the way to a new camping-place, she is left behind
to perish. (Ratzel, I., 7.)

In conclusion, and as a climax to my argument, I will quote the
testimony of three missionaries who did not simply make a flying visit
or two to the country of the Bushmen, as Chapman did, but lived among
them. The Rev. R. Moffat (49) cites the missionary Kicherer, "whose
circumstances while living among them afforded abundant opportunities
of becoming intimately acquainted with their real condition," and who
wrote that the Bushmen "are total strangers to domestic happiness. The
men have several wives, but conjugal affection is little known." This
opinion is thus endorsed by Moffat, and a third missionary, the Rev.
F. Fleming, wrote (167) that among Bushmen "conjugal affection seems
totally unknown," and pre-matrimonial love is of course out of
question in a region where girls are married as infants. The wife
always has to work harder than the husband. If she becomes weak or ill
she is unceremoniously left behind to starve. (Ratzel, I., 72.)


FALSE FACTS REGARDING HOTTENTOTS

Darwin has well observed that a false argument is comparatively
harmless because subsequent discussion is sure to demolish it, whereas
a false fact may perplex speculation for ages. Chapman's assertion
that there is love in all Bushman marriages is one of these false
facts, as our cross-examination has shown. In passing now to the
neighbors of the Bushmen, the Hottentots, let us bear in mind the
lesson taught. They called themselves Khoi-Khoin, "men of men," while
Van Riebeck's followers referred to them as "black stinking hounds."
There is a prevalent impression that nearly all Africans are negroes.
But the Hottentots are not negroes any more than are the Bushmen, or
the Kaffirs, whom we shall consider next. Ethnologists are not agreed
as to the relationship that exists between Bushmen and Hottentots, but
it is certain that the latter represent a somewhat higher level of
civilization. Yet, here again we must guard carefully against "false
facts," especially in reference to the topic that interests us--the
relations of the sexes. As late as 1896 the eminent American
anthropologist, Dr. Brinton, had an article in _Science_ (October
16th), in which he remarked that "one trait which we admire in
Hottentots is their regard for women," He was led into making this
assertion by an article entitled "Woman in Hottentot Poetry," which
appeared in the German periodical _Globus_ (Vol. 70, pp. 173-77). It
was written by Dr. L. Jakobowski, and is quite as misleading as
Chapman's book. Its logic is most peculiar. The writer first shows (to
his own satisfaction) that the Hottentots treat their women somewhat
better than other South Africans do, and from this "fact" he goes on
to infer that they must have love-songs! He admits, indeed, that (with
a few exceptions, to be presently considered) we know nothing of these
songs, but it "seems certain" that they must be sung at the erotic
dances of the natives; these, however, carefully conceal them from the
missionaries, and as Jakobowski naïvely adds, to heed the missionaries
"would be tantamount to giving up their old sensual dances."

What facts does Jakobowski adduce in support of his assertion that
Hottentots have a high regard for their women? He says:

"Without his wife's permission a Hottentot does not
drink a drop of milk, and should he dare to do so, the
women of his family will take away the cows and sheep
and add them to their flocks. A girl has the right to
punish her brother if he violates the laws of courtesy.
The oldest sister may have him chained and punished,
and if a slave who is being castigated implores his
master by the name of his (the master's) sister to
desist, the blows must cease or else the master is
bound to pay a fine to the sister who has been
invoked."


EFFEMINATE MEN AND MASCULINE WOMEN

If all these statements were real facts--and we shall presently see
that they are not--they would prove no more than that the modern
Hottentots, like their neighbors, the Bushmen, are hen-pecked. Barrow
(I., 286) speaks of the "timid and pusillanimous mind which
characterizes the Hottentots," and elsewhere (144) he says that their

"impolitic custom of hording together in families, and of
not marrying out of their own kraals, has, no doubt, tended
to enervate this race of men, and reduced them to their
present degenerated condition, which is that of a languid,
listless, phlegmatic people, in whom the prolific powers of
nature seem to be almost exhausted."

It does not, therefore, surprise us to be told (by Thunberg) that "it
frequently happens that a woman marries two husbands." And these women
are anything but feminine and lovable. One of the champions of the
Hottentots, Theophilus Hahn, says (_Globus_, XII., 304) of the Namaqua
women that they love to torture their slaves: "When they cudgel a
slave one can easily read in their faces the infernal joy it gives
them to witness the tortures of their victims." He often saw women
belaboring the naked back of a slave with branches of the cruel
_acacia delinens_, and finally rub salt or saltpetre into the wounds.
Napier (I., 59) says of the Hottentots, that

"if the parents of a newly born child found him or her _de
trop_, the poor little wretch was either mercilessly buried
alive, or exposed in a thicket, there to be devoured by
beasts of prey."

While he had to take it for granted that there must be love-songs
among these cruel Hottentots, Jakobowski had no trouble in finding
songs of hate, of defiance, and revenge. Even these cannot be cited
without omitting objectionable words. Here is one, properly
expurgated:

"Take this man away from me that he may be beaten and
his mother weep over him and the worms eat him.... Let
this man be brought before your counsel and cudgelled
until not a shred of flesh remains on his ... that the
worms would care to eat; for the reason that he has
done me such a painful injury," etc.


HOW THE HOTTENTOT WOMAN "RULES AT HOME"

Jakobowski's assertion that a man's oldest sister may have him chained
and punished is obviously a cock-and-bull story. It is diametrically
opposed to what Peter Kolben says: "The eldest son has in a manner an
absolute authority over all his brothers and sisters." "Among the
Hottentots an eldest son may after his father's death retain his
brothers and sisters in a sort of slavery." Kolben is now accepted as
the leading authority on the aboriginal Hottentots, as he found them
two centuries ago, before the missionaries had had time to influence
their customs. What makes him the more unimpeachable as a witness in
our case is that he is decidedly prejudiced in favor of the
Hottentots.[138] What was the treatment of women by Hottentots as
witnessed by Kolben? Is it true that, as Jakobowski asserts, the
Hottentot woman rules at home? Quite true; most emphatically so. The
husband, says Kolben (I., 252-55), after the hut is built,

"has absolutely nothing more to do with the house and
domestic affairs; he turns the care for them over to
his wife, who is obliged to procure provisions as well
as she can and cook them. The husband devotes himself
to drinking, eating, smoking, loafing, and sleeping,
and takes no more concern about the affairs of his
family than if he had none at all. _If he goes out to
fish or hunt, it is rather to amuse himself than to
help his wife and children...._ Even the care of his
cattle the poor wife, despite all her other work,
shares with him. The only thing she is not allowed to
meddle with is the sale. This is a prerogative which
constitutes the man's honor and which he would not
allow anyone to take away from him with impunity."

The wife, he goes on to say, has to cut the fire-wood and carry it to
the house, gather roots and other food and prepare it for the whole
family, milk the cows, and take care of the children. The older
daughters help her, but need so much watching that they are only an
additional care; and all this time the husband "lies lazily on his
back." "Such is the wretched life of the Hottentot woman," he sums up;
"she lives in a perpetual slavery." Nor is there any family life or
companionship, they eat separately, and

"the wife never sets foot in the husband's room, which is
separated from the rest of the house; she seldom enjoys his
company. He commands as master, she obeys as slave, without
ever complaining."


"REGARD FOR WOMEN"

"What we admire in Hottentots is their regard for women." Here are
some more illustrations of this loving "regard for women." The Rev. J.
Philip (II., 207) says that the Namaqua women begged Moffat to remain
with them, telling him that before he came "we were treated by the men
as brutes, and worse than they treated brutes." While the men loafed
they had to go and collect food, and if they returned unsuccessful, as
was often the case, they were generally beaten. They had to cook for
the men and were not allowed a bite till they had finished their meal.
"When they had eaten, we were obliged to retire from their presence to
consume the offals given to us." When twins are born, says Kolben
(304), there is great rejoicing if they are boys; two fat buffaloes
are killed, and all the neighbors invited to the feast; but if the
twins are girls, two sheep only are killed and there is no feast or
rejoicing. If one of the twins is a girl she is invariably killed,
buried alive, or exposed on a tree or in the bushes. When a boy has
reached a certain age he is subjected to a peculiarly disgusting
ceremony, and after that he may insult his mother with impunity
whenever he chooses: "he may cudgel her, if he pleases, to suit his
whim, without any danger of being called to an account for it." Kolben
says he often witnessed such insolence, which was even applauded as a
sign of manliness and courage. "What barbarity!" he exclaims. "It is a
result of the contempt which these peoples feel for women." He used to
remonstrate with them, but they could hardly restrain their
impatience, and the only answer he could get was "_it is the custom of
the Hottentots, they have never done otherwise_."

Andersson (_Ngami_, 332) says of the Namaqua Hottentots:

"If a man becomes tired of his wife, he unceremoniously
returns her to the parental roof, and however much she (or
the parents) may object to so summary a proceeding, there is
no remedy."

In Kolben's time wives convicted of adultery were killed, while the
men could do as they chose. In later times a lashing with a strap of
rhinoceros hide was substituted for burning. Kolben thought that the
serious punishment for adultery prevalent in his time argued that
there must be love among the Hottentots, though he confessed he could
see no signs of it. He was of course mistaken in his assumption, for,
as was made clear in our chapter on Jealousy, murderous rage at an
infringement on a man's conjugal property does not constitute or prove
love, but exists entirely apart from it.


CAPACITY FOR REFINED LOVE

The injuriousness of "false facts" to science is illustrated by a
remark which occurs in the great work on the natives of South Africa
by Dr. Fritsch, who is justly regarded as one of the leading
authorities on that subject. Speaking of the Hottentots (Namaqua) he
says (351) that "whereas Tindall indicates sensuality and selfishness
as two of their most prominent characteristics, Th. Hahn lauds their
conjugal attachment independent of fleshly love." Here surely is
unimpeachable evidence, for Theophilus Hahn, the son of a missionary,
was born and bred among these peoples. But if we refer to the passage
which Fritsch alluded to (_Globus_, XII., 306), we find that the
reasons Hahn gives for believing that Hottentots are capable of
something higher than carnal desires are that many of them, though
rich enough to have a harem, content themselves with one wife, and
that if a wife dies before her husband, he very seldom marries again.
Yet in the very next sentence Hahn mentions a native trait which
sufficiently explains both these customs. "Brides," he says, "cost
many oxen and sheep, and the men, as among other South African
peoples, the Kaffirs, for instance, would rather have big herds of
cattle than a good-looking wife." Apart from this explanation, I fail
to see what necessary connection there is between a man's being
content with one wife and his capacity for sentimental love, since his
greed for cattle and his lack of physical stamina and appetite fully
account for his monogamy. This matter must be judged from the
Hottentot point of view, not from ours. It is well known that in
regions where polygamy prevails a man who wishes to be kind to his
wife does not content himself with her, but marries another, or
several others, to share the hard work with her. These Hottentots have
not enough consideration for their hard-worked wives to do even that.


HOTTENTOT COARSENESS

The coarseness and obscenity of the Hottentots constitute further
reasons for believing them incapable of refined love. Their eulogist,
Kolben, himself was obliged to admit that they "find a peculiar
pleasure in filth and stench" and "are in the matter of diet the
filthiest people in the world." The women eat their own vermin, which
swarm in their scant attire. Nor is decency the object for which they
wear this scant dress---quite the reverse. Speaking of the male
Hottentot's very simple dress, Barrow says (I., 154) that

"if the real intent of it was the promotion of decency,
it should seem that he has widely missed his aim, as it
is certainly one of the most immodest objects, in such
a situation as he places it, that could have been
contrived."

And concerning the little apron worn by the women he says:

"Great pains seem to be taken by the women to attract notice
toward this part of their persons. Large metal buttons ...
or anything that makes a great show, are fastened to the
borders of this apron."

Kolben relates that when a Hottentot desires to marry a girl he goes
with his father to the girl's father, who gives the answer after
consulting with his wife. If the verdict is unfavorable "the gallant's
love for the beauty is readily cured and he casts his eyes on another
one." But a refusal is rarely given unless the girl is already
promised to another. The girl, too, is consulted, but only nominally,
for if she refuses she can retain her liberty only by an all-night
struggle with her suitor in which she usually succumbs, after which
she has to marry him whether she wishes to or not. Kolben gives other
details of the marriage ceremony which are too filthy to be even
hinted at here.


FAT VERSUS SENTIMENT

By persons who had lived many years among the Colonial Hottentots,
Fritsch (328) was assured that these people, far from being the models
of chastity Kolben tried to prove them, indulged in licentious
festivals lasting several days, at which all restraints were cast
aside. And this brings us back to our starting-point--Dr. Jakobowski's
peculiar argument concerning the "love poems" which he feels sure must
be sung at the erotic dances of the natives, though they are carefully
concealed from the missionaries. If they were poems of sentiment, the
missionaries would not disapprove, and there would be no reason for
concealing them; but the foregoing remarks show clearly enough what
kind of "love" they would be likely to sing about. If any doubt
remained on the subject the following delightful confession, which the
eugolist Hahn makes in a moment of confidence, would settle the
matter. To appreciate the passage, bear in mind that the Hottentots
are the people among whom excessive posterior corpulence (steatopyga)
is especially admired as the acme of physical attractions. Now Hahn
says (335):

"The young girls drink whole cups of liquid fat, and
for a good reason, the object being to attain a very
rotund body by a fattening process, in order that Hymen
may claim them as soon as possible. They do not grow
sentimental and sick from love and jealousy, nor do
they die from the anguish and woes of love, as our
women do, nor engage in love-intrigues, but they look
at the whole matter in a very materialistic and sober
way. _Their sole love-affair is the fattening process,
on the result of which, as with a pig, depends the
girl's value and the demand for her._"

In this last sentence, which I have taken the liberty to italicize,
lies the philosophy of African "love" in general, and I am glad to be
able to declare it on such unquestionable authority. What a Hottentot
"regards" in a woman is _Fat_; _Sentiment_ is out of the question.
When Hottentots are together, says Kolben,

"you never see them give tender kisses or cast loving
glances at each other. Day and night, on every
occasion, they are so cold and so indifferent to each
other that you would not believe that they love each
other or are married. If in a hut there were twenty
Hottentots with their wives, it would be impossible to
tell, either from their words or actions, which of them
belonged together."


SOUTH AFRICAN LOVE-POEMS

As intimated on a preceding page, there are, among Dr. Jakobowski's
examples of Hottentot lyrics[139] a few which may be vaguely included
in the category of love-poems. "Where did you hear that I love you
while you are unloving toward me?" complained one Hottentot; while
another warned his friend: "That is the misfortune pursuing you that
you love where you ought not to!" A third declared. "I shall not cease
to love however much they (_i.e._, the parents or guardians) may
oppose me," A fourth addresses this song to a young girl:

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 passage 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 shell 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 shell to
dangle to the precise level of her eyes. She had
learned to move her head with so great precision as to
throw the shell exactly over whichever eye she pleased,
and the lady's winning grace consisted in this feat of
bo-peep, first eclipsing an eye and languishing 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 assertion 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 assertions 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
crushing weight of countless facts showing them to be extremely
dissolute.