“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.