“thereupon, while they are in the transition stage between boyhood and manhood, they are almost entirely independent of all laws, especially in their sexual relations, so that they are allowed to take possession with impunity of any unmarried women they choose.”

The Kaffirs also indulge in obscene dances and feasts.  Warner says (97) that at the ceremony of circumcision virtue is polluted while yet in its embryo.  “A really pure girl is unknown among the raw Kaffirs,” writes Hol.  “All demoraln sense of purity and shame is lost.”  While superstition forbids the marrying of first cousins as incestuous, real “incest in its worst forms”—­between mother and sons—­prevails.  At the ceremony called Ntonjane the young girls “are degraded and polluted at the very threshold of womanhood, and every spark of virtuous feeling annihilated” (197, 207, 185).

“Immorality,” says Fritsch (112),

“is too deeply rooted in African blood to make it difficult to find an occasion for indulging in it; wherefore the custom of celebrating puberty, harmless in itself, is made the occasion for lascivious practices; the unmarried girls choose companions with whom they cohabit as long as the festival lasts ... usually three or four days.”

After giving other details, Fritsch thus sums up the situation: 

“These diverse facts make it clear that with these tribes (Ama-Xosa) woman stands, if not morally, at least judicially, little above cattle, and consequently it is impossible to speak of family life in one sense of the word.”

In his Nursery Tales of the Zulus (255) Callaway gives an account, in the native language as well as in the English, of the license indulged in at Kaffir puberty festivals.  Young men assemble from all quarters.  The maidens have a “girl-king” to whom the men are obliged to give a present before they are allowed to enter the hut chosen for the meeting.  “The young people remain alone and sport after their own fancies in every way.”  “It is a day of filthiness in which everything may be done according to the heart’s desire of those who gather around the umgongo.”  The Rev. J. MacDonald, a man of scientific attainments, gives a detailed account of the incredibly obscene ceremonies to which the girls of the Zulu-Kaffirs are subjected, and the licentious yet Malthusian conduct of the young folks in general who “separate into pairs and sleep in puris naturalibus, for that is strictly ordained by custom.”  The father of a girl thus treated feels honored on receiving a present from her partner.[140]

INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE FOR—­COWS

The utter indifference of the Kaffirs to chastity and their licentiousness, approved and even prescribed by national custom, were not the only obstacle to the growth of sentiments rising above mere sensuality.  Commercialism was another fatal obstacle.  I have already quoted Hahn’s testimony that a Kaffir “would rather have big herds of cattle than a good-looking wife.”  Dohne asserts (Shooter, 88) that “a Kaffir loves his cattle more than his daughter,” and Kay (111) tells us that