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CHAPTER VII

THE BANTUS: ZULU-KAFIRS, BASUTOS,

BECHUANAS

Migrations-The terms "Bantu " and "Kafir”: Types; Mental

Qualities; Main Divisions-The Zulus: Military System;
Relations with the Boers-The Basutos: Relations with
the Boers-Settlement of the Free State-Moshesh-The
Bloemfontein Convention-Constitution of the Free State
-The Bechuanas: Tribes and Totems-Table of the
Bechuana Nations - Domain - The "English Road".
Relations with the Boers; and the Missionaries-Goshen
and Stellaland-Settlement of Bechuanaland-Areas and

Populations.

THE
Ted Buchman precursors, may now be

HE Hottentots, who, like their Vaalpens
and

regarded as a quantité négligeable everywhere except in German territory (Namaqualand), were already replaced in the central and eastern parts of South Africa by the negroid Bantu peoples-Zulus, Xosas, Bechuanas, Mashonas, and others—several thousand years ago.

As far as can be inferred from the scanty indications afforded by the archæological remains and terminology associated with the Zimbabye ruins (see above), the inhabitants of the country were not Bushmen or Hottentots, but Bantus, when those monuments were built by the civilised peoples-Sabæans and others -who came there in quest of gold. The Bushmen were a feeble folk, the Hottentots for the most part peaceful herdsmen; but the Bantus, and especially the eastern tribes, were amongst the most warlike peoples in the whole of Africa. Hence it must have been against them that the great watch-tower at Zimbabye and those stout ramparts were raised by the strangers to protect the stations while carrying on their extensive mining operations. The very word zimbabye is pure Bantu, meaning a royal residence, from nzimba, a dwelling, and mbuie, a lord or great chief. The great chief here referred to was the Monomotapa or Benomotapa, a word which till lately was supposed to mean a kingdom or empire, but is now shown to be a personal title, with the appropriate meaning of "lord of the mines" (literally "diggings"), from Mono and Bena

(Mwana, Bwana), lord, master, and tapa, to dig or excavate all common Bantu words.1

That the streams of Bantu migration had their source in the East Equatorial lands, and set along the eastern seaboard continuously southwards to the extremity of the continent, is shown, amongst other grounds, by the term Munkulunkulu, one of the Bantu names of the deity, which may be followed in its numerous variant forms along the whole route from the Tana basin near the Equator to the Great Fish River, the southern limit of their domain in Cape Colony. Thus

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1 See A. H. Keane's monograph on "The Portuguese in South Africa" in R. W. Murray's South Africa from Arab Dominion to British Rule, 1891.

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The term "Bantu" is a native word meaning "people" (from Aba or Ba, plural form of um, umu, the personal prefix, and ntu, a man, a person). It was first applied by Dr. Bleek to all the peoples south of the Zambesi who are neither Bushmen nor Hottentots, but speak various forms of a now extinct stock language, and are therefore assumed to belong to one racial group. As they never had a common ethnical name, they were all conventionlly comprised under this general designation of Bantu, by which is therefore to be understood "peoples of Bantu stock and speech."

Later, the discovery was made that the Bantu linguistic family had an immense range, extending, in fact, almost exclusively over the whole of the continent, from Kaffraria to about four or five degrees of latitude north of the Equator.

In this vast domain of some six million square miles, no other languages are known to exist except the Hottentot, Bushman (with Sandawi), a few Negro tongues penetrating south from Sudan, and the non- Bantu idioms of the Negritoes dispersed over the Congo forest zone. Thus it is that we now hear of Bantu peoples and of Bantu languages pretty well everywhere. But the term is still somewhat restricted to scientific writings, and has not yet obtained currency in the Boer States, the British Colonies, and south of the Zambesi, where the popular collective name of these natives is Kafir or Kaffre.

Kafir is an Arabic word which means "infidel"; and when the Portuguese reached the East Coast it was found to be in general use, as applied by the Mohammedans to all the surrounding pagan populations who rejected the precepts of the Koran. In this sense it was adopted by the Portuguese, and introduced amongst the early Dutch settlers by the crews of their vessels calling at the Cape for fresh provisions.

From the Cape it has spread all over South Africa, with the result that Kafir and Bantu

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