we find the River Zambere; on the map attached to Dapper's work the Zambere is also marked. Valentyn, in his admirable work on the Dutch East Indian Colonies, gives a map, on which also a part of South Africa is sketched, and where the said river is pretty fairly laid down with the two names Zambesi and Empondo. The Kunene's name is also to be found with the quite correct translation "Groote Rivier." 7 Goreb.-That the Khoikhoi transferred other names of certain parts of the body, or utensils and furniture, to plants, is quite evident from the following examples :Пloãb, arm and branch of a tree; ‡geigu, the ears, and the leaves of the trees and plants; ||haran, the flowers, or little pockets from has or hōs pocket, bag. We, for instance, call a certain flower in Germany Pantoffelblume-i.e., the slipper-flower. • All the daughters are called after the father.—Mr. G. Theal, our excellent South African historian and custodian of the colonial archives, who spent many years among the frontier Kafirs, Ngika and Galeka, informs me that they have adopted the same way of name-giving from the Khoikhoi, and that this custom is still in vogue at the present day. Here we have also, as in so many other instances, an evidence that the Khoikhoi exercised. an influence on the Kafir. 9 Hu-lgais.-This is the name by which Cape Town is known wherever the Khoikhoi tongue is spoken. This name consists of two words, hū the root of a verb, meaning "to condense," hence ||hu-s, an old word for cloud, the word is still used; hus is also a game, and especially the game where Gurikhoisib, who is also called Eixalkha||nabiseb, or lightning, loses all his copper beads. This is metaphor; and hūs or the hus game is the game, battle, or fight in the clouds-the thunderstorm. In the thunderstorm ‡Eixa|kha||nabiseb loses the lightning, which falls down to the earth; !gai is to bind, to surround, to tie, to envelop. Hu-lgais consequently means "veiled in clouds." And, indeed, every inhabitant of Cape Town will admit that this is a very significant name for "Table-mountain." We still say, if the clouds envelop the top of "Table-mountain,” he has his " tablecloth " on. CHAPTER II. The religious instinct should be honoured even in dark and con fused mysteries.-SCHELLING. SACRED FRAGMENTS AND RELICS. IN this chapter I propose to give extracts from the accounts of former travellers as much as my own observations, reserving for my next chapter the inferences I have drawn from them. Worship of Heitsi-cibib. Corporal Müller, travelling with the Hottentot interpreter Harry along the False Bay, east of the Cape, in October, 1655, says: 'We were marching generally in a S.E. direction; after marching half an hour one morning we saw a strange proceeding of the Hottentot women on the side of our path, where a great stone lay. Each woman had a green branch in her hand, laid down upon her face on the stone, and spoke words, which we did not understand d; on asking what it meant, they said, 'Hette hie,' and pointed above, as if they would say, 'It is an offering to God.'" ("Sutherland Memoir respecting the Kaffers, Hottentots, and Bosjesmans," vol. ii. p. 88.) As will be seen from the sequel of this chapter, the word "Hette hie" is only a distortion of "Heitsi-eibib," and the form of worship, described here at the cairn, is nothing else but the Heitsi-eibib worship, as it is practised still up to this day all over Great Namaqualand and in !Koranaland, where Heitsi-eibib has changed names, and the worship is offered to Garubeb or Tsui-llgoab. Worship of Tsui-||goab (Dawn), ||Khab (Moon) and Dapper, as early as 1671, speaking of the Khoikhoi at the Cape of Good Hope, says: They know and believe that there is One, whom they call humma or summa (i.e., in Nama or Kora Jhomi, heaven), who sends rain on earth, who makes the winds blow, and who makes the heat and the cold. . . . "They also believe that they themselves can make rain, and can prevent the wind from blowing. . . . "It appears also that there is a certain superstition about the new moon. For if the moon is seen again (the new moon) they crowd together, making merry the whole night, dancing, jumping, and singing; clasping their hands together, and also murmuring some words (singing hymns). . . . 66 Nay, their women and children are seen to kneel before erected stones and bow before them."-(O. Dapper, "Umbständliche und Eigentliche Beschreibung von Africa." Amsterdam, 1671, pp. 626, 627.) Heitsi-eibib, or Tsui-goab, Worship. Nicolas Witsen, burgomaster of Amsterdam, communicates to his learned friend Jobst Ludolf, in Germany, the following interesting letter, dated Cape of Good Hope, February 19, 1691, forty years after the landing of Governor Jan van Riebeeke at the Cape: 66 16 Nobilissimus vir miscebat sermonem cum aliquot Hottentottis, qui pro sua erga ipsum familiaritate docebant nihil dissimulando se adorare Deum certum aliquem' cuius caput manus seu pugni magnitudinem haberet ; grandi eundem esse et deducto in latitudinem corpore; auxilium vero eius implorari tempore famis et anonae. carioris aut alterius cuiuscunque necessitatis. Uxores suas solere caput Dei conspergere terra rubra, (torob) Buchu et aliis suave olentibus herbis, oblato quoque eidem sacrificio non uno. Ex quo demum intelligi coeptum est, Hottentottos coiere etiam aliquem 2 Deum! Tsui-lgoab, Guru-b, and ||Gaunab. Valentyn, a very trustworthy authority, who was a man of high education and of a classical training, and who had an eye to observe what many others overlooked, tells us in the fifth volume of his great work "Keurlyke Beschryving van Choromandel, &c. &c., vol. v. p. 109: “I heard from the chieftains and various others that they call God' in their language not only the 'Great Chief,' in saying, if it thunders, the Great Chief is angry with us; but they generally call God' in their language Thukwa or Thik-qua (Tsui-llgoab); but the Supreme Ruler they call Khourrou; the Devil, Dangoh and Damoh; a Spectre whom they fear very much, somsoma.” And p. 158 our author continues: "I must say, that I really observed many things amongst them which looked like religious worship. "It is certain, when the new moon reappears, they have that whole night a great merry-making and clasping of hands. They also, ten or twelve of them, sit on the banks of a river together, and throw some balls or dumplings, made of clay, into the water. It also is certain that I often heard them speaking of a Great Chief who dwells on high, whom they call in their own language Thikwa or Thukwa, and to whom they showed respect, especially during great storms of thunder and lightning. They also know of a Devil, whom they call Damoh, a black chief, who does much harm to them; they avoided speaking of him, as he often persecuted them; but in carefully examining this, it is nothing else but their somsomas and spectres. Some of them also call the Supreme, Lord (Nama Khub) from which it is evident that they believe in more than one 3 Khourrou." |