Where men are so deficient in sentiment and manly instincts that one young woman seems to them about as good as another, it is hardly strange that the women too should lack those qualities of delicacy, gentleness, and modesty which make the weaker sex adorable.  The description of the bloody duels often fought by Kaffir women given by the British missionary Beste (Ploss, II., 421) indicates a decidedly Amazonian disposition.  But the most suggestive trait of Kaffir women is the lack of feminine coyness in their matrimonial preliminaries.  According to Gardiner (97),

“it is not regarded as a matter either of etiquette or of delicacy from which side the proposal of marriage may proceed—­the overture is as often made by the women as the men.”

“Courtship,” says Shooter (50), “does not always begin with the men.”  Sometimes the girl’s father proposes for her; and when a young woman does not receive an early proposal, her father or brother go from kraal to kraal and offer her till a bidder is found.  Callaway (60) relates that when a young Zulu woman is ready to be married she goes to the kraal of the bridegroom, to stand there.  She remains without speaking, but they understand her.  If they “acknowledge” her, a goat is killed and she is entertained.  If they do not like her, they give her a burning piece of firewood, to intimate that there is no fire in that kraal to warm herself by; she must go and kindle a fire for herself.[143]

CHARMS AHD POEMS

Though in all this there is considerable romance, there is no evidence of romantic love.  But how about love-charms, poems, and stories?  According to Grout (171), love-charms are not unknown in Zulu land.  They are made of certain herbs or barks, reduced to a powder, and sent by the hand of some unsuspected friend to be given in a pinch of snuff, deposited in the dress, or sprinkled upon the person of the party whose favor is to be won.  But love-powders argue a very materialistic way of regarding love and tell us nothing about sentiments.  A hint at something more poetic is given by the Rev. J. Tyler (61), who relates that flowers are often seen on Zulu heads, and that one of them, the “love-making posy,” is said to foster “love.”  Unfortunately that is all the information he gives us on this particular point, and the further details supplied by him (120-22) dash all hopes of finding traces of sentiment.  The husband “eats alone,” and when the wife brings him a drink of home-made beer “she must first sip to show there is no ‘death in the pot.’” While he guzzles beer, loafs, smokes, and gossips, she has to do all the work at home as well as in the field, carrying her child on her back and returning in the evening with a bundle of firewood on her head.  “In the winter the natives assemble almost daily for drinking and dancing, and these orgies are accompanied by the vilest obscenities and evil practices.”