BANTU FOLK LORE
(Medical and General).
BY
MATTHEW L. HEWAT, M.D.
T. MASKEW MILLER,
PUBLISHER AND BOOKSELLER,
CAPE TOWN.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE.
I. Bantu Tribes 1
II. Some observations of interest in the
Folk Lore of the Kaffir 9
III. Doctors 25
IV. Native Practices 52
V. Surgery 85
VI. Midwifery and Children 97
BANTU FOLK LORE.
Medical and General.
INTRODUCTION.
Having been for some time located in the border districts of the Cape
Colony, and there coming into frequent contact with the natives; I was
struck with the fact that there was a large field for investigation,
and record of the “Medical Folk Lore” of the Bantu tribes, which was
becoming more and more difficult of attainment as time went on, owing
to the fact that the true unsophisticated native was rapidly becoming a
thing of the past; or if one may put it so, becoming contaminated by
the advance of civilization. Under the pressure of Colonial rule,
Magistrates and Missionaries, the native character and ways are
changing. Breeks and petticoats are endowed with positive virtues. They
are made steps in the ladder that tends upwards, and the old fashioned
Kaffir is fast disappearing.
Red clay and blankets or skins give way to veneer and varnish; outward
conformity to a kind of civilization knocks off some objectionable, and
some quite unobjectionable ways, and leaves the inside man as
superstitious and as ignorant as ever.
The following pages are the result of an extensive study of the records
available on the subject, combined with much valuable information
supplied to me chiefly by educated Natives, Missionaries, and a large
number of others, such as some of the Cape Civil Servants, who had to
deal with the aborigine in the early days of European occupation of the
country. To all of whom I wish to record my best thanks, more
especially to Mr. W. Hammond Tooke for the Chapter on the Bantu Nation;
Mr. Andrew Smith, of St. Cyrus, for assisting in gathering information,
and for his valuable assistance in the preparing of the Chapter on the
Herb treatment of Disease; Mr. W. C. Scully, of the Cape Civil Service;
and to Mr. J. M’tombeni, Native Teacher, for gathering and editing much
valuable information from amongst the Kaffirs.
I trust that the result here set forth, which they have assisted in
producing, may be of some value, and not wholly disappointing to them.
CHAPTER I.
BANTU TRIBES
The Bantu race comprises one great family extending over all Central
and South Africa, South of a line drawn roughly from the Kamerun to the
Pokomo River, but excluding the South West corner—Great Namaqualand and
Western Cape Colony—which from time immemorial has been occupied by
Hottentots.
Although strictly speaking the term “Bantu” is philological, and this
classification based on linguistic grounds, and although the different
tribes it embraces show largely but in varying degrees that they result
from a mixture with oriental or negro blood, yet the similarity of
speech, custom and religion, warrant our treating them collectively as
one homogenous ethnological group.
It is now a generally received opinion that the Bantu originally
emanated from a region in the Congo basin, probably north of that river
where it receives the tributary Mubangi, and that the Europeans first
met the Kaffirs as the vanguard of this invading army when their long
march southward to the furthest extremity of the Continent was nearly
completed.
The Ova Herero when burying their dead place the corpse with the face
turned towards the north “to remind them whence they originally came,”
and the bodies of the Bechuana are made to face in the same direction.
No such custom is recorded among the Zulu or Kaffir but we have other
evidence that the exodus southward of the tribes who fled before the
devastation of Tshaka was but the continuance of a migration from a
more northerly region.
The testimony of the Arabian geographer of the tenth century El Masudi
shows that what we now call the Kaffir tribes had not at that time
advanced south of Zanzibar, the country of Zenj as it was then called.
In the sixteenth century shipwrecked mariners from Portuguese vessels
thrown on the inhospitable coasts stretching from Cape Agulhas to
Delagoa Bay found Kaffirs as far south and west as the Umtata River,
but no further. At the end of the seventeenth century however they were
found by the Dutch beyond the Great Fish River intermarrying with the
Hottentots.
The Ova Herero and Ovampo probably represent other branches of Bantu
who took a more westerly direction, and the Bechuana formed, it is
likely, a more recent wave of invasion, in its turn moving southward
but by a more central route.
Whatever the cradle of their race, the Kaffirs are now located in the
region situated between the Great Fish River, the Kathlamba or
Drakensberg mountains and their outlying spurs and subsiding ranges;
the northern boundaries of the Portuguese settlements around Delagoa
Bay, and the Indian Ocean. Those tribes most intimately connected with
the history of the Cape still occupy territory partly within the bounds
of the Colony proper—the divisions of Queenstown, Woodhouse Glen Grey,
Cathcart, Stutterheim, Komgha, King Williams Town, East London, Peddie,
Victoria East and Fort Beaufort—and partly in the region lying between
the North Eastern Frontier, Basutoland, Natal and the Ocean and known
as the Transkeian territories of Tembuland, Pondoland and East
Griqualand. They are named as follows: Aba-Tembus ama-Mpondo,
ama-Mpondumise, ama-Ntinde, ama-Ngqika, (Gaika), ama-Ndhlambe and
ama-Gcaleka. The three last spring from one large tribe, the
ama-Rarabe, and comprise with the ama-Ntinde the “fighting ama-Xosa” of
the Kaffir Wars. These are the tribes to which Dr. Hewat’s researches
more particularly refer. Their chiefs trace back their origin to the
common ancestor Zwide who lived about Cromwell’s time, perhaps earlier.
There are a few isolated and comparatively insignificant classes who
have separated through feuds and quarrels from the main tribes, or have
mingled with the Hottentots by inter-marriage, such as the ama-Qate (or
ama-Xesibe), ama-Baca, and ama-Gqunukwebe; and we must not omit to
mention the ama-Bele, ama-Zizi, and aba-Mbo classes who were formerly
large tribes occupying at one time Natal and perhaps Zululand and from
whom are derived the Fingoes of the Cape Colony—also referred to by Dr.
Hewat—the Natal Kaffirs, the Zulus, and the Matabele of Rhodesia.
The aba-Xosa and aba-Tembu tribes with whom we first came into contact,
the pioneers of the Kaffir advance southward are supposed to show least
modified and developed the distinguishing characteristics of their
race. Their lighter colour argues a slight admixture of Hottentot blood
and their intercourse with this race was doubtless considerable. From
it they have borrowed the clicks which distinguish their speech from
other Bantu dialects. In other respects their language is archaic and
free from phonetic decay compared with that of other tribes such as the
Swahili. Their pursuits were exclusively those of the hunter and
herdsman, war and hunting were their pastimes, cattle tending and
cattle rearing the serious business of their lives. Indeed cattle
mainly constituted their wealth and everything connected therewith was
deemed of the highest importance. Herding and milking were privileged
labours jealously confined to the men, who also took much pride in
training oxen for racing purposes.
It is not surprising to find therefore that their skill as veterinary
surgeons was considerable and quite equal to that which Dr. Hewat has
shown they possess as medical practitioners and surgeons.
Maize or Indian corn [Zea mais, Kaffir “Umbilo”] which the Kaffir
somewhat recently used for food in addition to their milk and flesh
diet and millet a Kaffir corn [Hotcus sorghum “Mabele”] from which they
still make “beer” were grown and consumed to a much greater extent by
the Fingoes.
These refugees (ama-mfengu i.e. wanderers) remnants of the ama-Bele,
ama-Zizi and aba-Mbo who formerly occupied the territory now comprising
Natal, from which they were driven some seventy or eighty years ago by
Tshaka show a much greater capacity for agricultural pursuits. Besides
growing extensive patches of mealies and millet they cultivated
pumpkins, and some of them the imphie, or wild sugar cane [H.
Saccharatum.] Moreover in addition to cattle and poultry they reared
sheep and a small kind of goat. A softer climate and soil more fruitful
than are characteristic of Kaffraria south of the Kei River most likely
induced these classes to resort to avocations more agricultural than
those of the savage Xosa and Tembu tribes.
There is one tribe mentioned by Dr. Hewat to which I have not yet
referred, and that is the Basuto.
The Basuto speak a dialect so distinct from that of the Kaffir that
individuals of these tribes have as much difficulty in understanding
each other as a Dutchman would have in understanding a German. They are
a branch of the Bechuana group of Bantu which comprises the Barotse,
Bamangwato, Batlapin, Barolong and other tribes. Unlike most of these
which are tribes of pure descent ruled by a succession of hereditary
chiefs the Basuto is composed of fragments of many fugitive peoples who
escaped from the armies of Tshaka and Unsilikazi (Moselekatze) and had
taken refuge in the mountainous regions of the Drakensberg and Maluti,
and were welded together into a nation by Moshesh. This chief like
Romulus of old created a sanctuary for all outcasts and broken men and
by the judicious use of war and diplomacy not only preserved an
independence against the threats and attacks of neighbouring tribes but
dexterously held his own against both Boer and British. By his astute
rule for which since his death British control has gradually been
substituted, a country which was once a mere colluvies gentium is now
as compared with other native territories a well ordered state, the
home of a homogeneous population forward in the arts of peace and
formidable in war.
The slopes of the Maluti and the basin of the Caledon are depastured by
cattle or covered with wheat or other grain owned by a peasantry each
member of which is a good customer to the Colonial trader and possesses
his pony, his saddle and his rifle.
One must not however jump to the conclusion that the average Mosuto has
raised himself in intellectual capacity or freedom from sensualism and
superstition far above the other Bantu tribes. Good government has
however so improved his material condition and raised his standard of
comfort that it may at least be said that the seeds of civilization are
sown on favourable soil.
I am indebted to Mr W. Hammond Tooke, of the Cape Civil Service, for
the foregoing facts relating to the ethnology of the “Bantu Tribes.”