LIFE IN A KAFIR KRAAL.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10060, 30 January 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

LIFE IN A KAFIR KRAAL.

(By Frank . Carpenter.)

The White people are becoming excited over the negro question. During the past six months I have visited ' every colony south of the Zambesi, and the better class of, Europeans everywhere have fears of a race war/ 1 1 . lii'the. United' States we have one negro t6'every nine or ten whites. Here the proportion is almost- reversed. There are more than five black men to every white man, arid the black men Are beginning to appreciate their possibilities'. 'Within - the past-' year oc fed they have beta stirred tip »by soih'e missionaries of their bwii'race,. wilio' are said to come from the .United Stages. 'The sect is known as the Ethi,, piaii Episcopalians and they are at work in Jfatal, Cape Colony and the Transvaal. Their pastors p'reath' the equality of the races, and.urge them to,.stand-' up for their rights. 1' I! Rave seen negroes in all the cities of South Africa. " They wear European clothes and the crowds oiie sees about the'stations are as fully clad as are the negroes of- our small southern towns.; In many localities they are beginning to resent their'-treatment by the' whites. In Johannesburg, for instance, they object to'the-laws which keep them.off the sidewalks" and allow them: to go only in. thp middle of the road Wheii walking 'along--the streets.' -They do not like the'-Jim Ci'ow trailers to the' electric, cars, and they are asking for more schools. 'So far most of the education of the Kafir has been by the missionaries. There are now something like five millions of them south of the Zambesi, and their school children. are .numbered by the., tens of thousands. lii Gape "Colony'there, are iio' government -'schools".for''tKe, natives. Their education is carried oil by the. niiss'i&ir; schools', which are ; aided somewhat by government grants and are iindSr government inspection. ' The natives haVe to pay' fees,.'!which cover- a large part 'oi'. the . cost, -'and'' hi some. districts . they have given money'for : the -'buil'diiig. of- slihbol houses. The government 'grants are about one T third as much ..per pupil / for . the natives for the'wh'itfe,' sn"d the education. given. is .but 'little more 1 than the- three Rs. Tt "is the same iii ivatal antl- -'also in' Basutbland and . Rhodesia. There are .now abo,ut ' eighty thousand pupils'iii Cape Colony'j eighiVthousand, in Katai and. ten thousand in "Bas'utolan'd.' "The Kafirs of the'"'cities''are fast' coaling .to"tlie realisation -that/schooling 1 pays,''and they' are how anxious .that' their children' should, learn.' 1 jfcoldS, me v of ; h -K^fir-tenant- of.'■ 'his who was educating- his ; 'sixteeii-year-oH •' daughter. , He was asked >vhy 'he 'did- 60'> nd. replied thatrJie-' hiad. 'not-iced Tihat 'thfe'Avhite' man was 1 of Tittle ' value : SvithQut an education, .and, .'if' so, why, pot. the iriack man? ,' He saYd- that'/he-. diS- not 'know l that "his girl - ■vvould- r teacX ! 'W\ffi?l; ' l b'u't "that Jie avatf ; -bound'she'shduldjlearh.'' ■ ; - : '-';Ar£ thel negro here-has' no- op- < pbrtunity'.'.tb- gfet ;a. college education. He ,1 is not ,allowea fo go into the . universities 1 of'Soutlf--Afi'Yca, andl'frs ' a, rule the people -i woulH',rather They i Ipok their. woodland,"'.drawers, : of wiiter, and'they want ftie'm r to coiitihue so. ( Tv'ould, rather: thatv'they should.:.'not -'own t real'- 7 estato "nor r go Tnto'-fiuSiness. .The Vi

mechanics and foremen, among the whiles, would. rather not have the blacks learn trades, and they ties ire to keep the laboi of the two races distinct. As to the qo-oducation of the races thenis only one place in South Africa- where that its carried on to any extent, 'this is at Lovedale, about 651) miles northeast, of Capo Town. There is a missionary 1 training institution oi - Hie (.nited 1' r«*e Church ol Scotland at that 'place and in it the whites and blacks arc educated together. It is. a soH of boarding school with 'something like eight hundred pupils ; and it might be called an academy, v although it has nil the branches] from the kindergarten to the normal training school. > This • school is doing much in making teachers and native preachers.' Many ot the teachers of the mission svhouls throughout South Africa have boon educated there, and it has done much in bringing its Kuropcan pupils to an understanding of the native vlmracter. 'rive 1 institution consists of a largi ' -i----tral building, a score of dormitories. ...my workshops and a hospital. < •.nuccted with it is a farm on whv'i l'ic i.oy.s work and all sorts of manual naming is 'taught The morning hours aiv de\oted to study and recitations, and a part of each afternoon to work upon the farm and in the gardens and shop*. The school lias its military drills and physical training. It has a* brass band and the white and hlacU boys play crU'kot- together. Kvery Friday evening there is a literary society ami there are occasional lectures, papers and debates. ' The girls have their own industrial work, and learn dressmaking, rooking :md laundering; It is not difficult for a Lovedale'graduate to get a job. Many ol the former students are now interpreters, some are clerks in the government oHiees. while, others are employed ill the stores. , In South Africa the natives are charged a hut tax. and they also have to pay dog taxes" and wife tax«es. ' Kvery 'time a man is married he pays ten tsiiill : ng6 to the Government, of 'which' a portion goes back to-liis chief. In Cat>e Colony he pays a license fee of' from 62 ceilts to 1.25d01. on every dog over three months old, and the dbg tax in Natal is about the same. In one tear the natives ol Natal paid 1 £2200 in marriage' fees, and I am told that a black man' has to pay £s' to the Government there when he gets a divorce; The hut tuxes of Cape Colony are aboutlCs per year nor family. Fourteeeu shillings is the amount of that tax in N*atal and 10s f that of Rhodesia. They recently raised 1 the tax in Basutoland to £l. and in Natal a higher rate is paid • upon all houses of European construction. These taxes'may seem low to Americans, but they are laVge in comparison with the wages of the people, and so large that they lead to the crowding of the natives, several families or unmarried adults often living in one hut. » So far only a small proportion of the South African negroes has been greatly ! influenced by the whites. There are alto- ; gather between five and six million aborigines holow the Congo Free' State, and I venture that those employed in the « mines, on the farms, and 'in the cities 5 will not number, all told, more \lian three hundred thousand. There are • something like one hundred' thousand in the gold miiWs. Kimberley bad tw.vnty i thousand before our panic had caused the Do Beers Company to cut- down its labor force,' and ' there are something like ten l thousand employed in thti great diamond , mine at Cullinan. In all these places the natives are kept in compounds or walled » enclosures; and as far as those conne«ted' ) with the diamond mines arc concerned, they are not allowed to go outside 'during > the terms of their contracts. They must buy their food at the company shops • and, although the rates there are-low. the L . companies probably make a profit. Not [ long ago, at a meeting of the ])e Beers Company one of the ollicials ijtated what had become of the profits made from the ; compounds that year-, saying that. £II,OOO [ had gone to the sanatorium, £2OOO to th* / library, £3OOO to the town hall,- £2OOO to the school of mines, and £2OOO to the Ivimberley schools. None of this money helped thcu natives from whom if was taken. As far as 1 can see, the natives are fairly well treated by their employers. The several Governments try to protect, them, and each lias its native labor iu- . spectors, who go through the mines and below ground and report as to the treatment of the negroes. The Iv-afiirs own land all over South Africa. In many places the land still bo- \ longs to the chiefs, subject, to the rights of their tribosmei), and the? chief has no • riuht to sell or trade it away. In southern ; Rhodesia the native commissioners assign w the land for huts and gra/.ing, giving each 1 kraal so much. When Cecil Rhodes died r he ordered that the natives on hii-; farms ~ be undisturbed, and large blocks of Go- ' vernment land have been set- aside i'oragri- ? culture in different parts of Rhodesia. Tn Natal something like- 8000 acres weVo transferred to a trust more than fifty'years

ago,'and this trust was to give all the rents ami profits from it to one tribe. A few years later another native trust was given two million acres, ami tliis is still administered'lor the. Kailirs of Natal. Within the last few years the native la mis have been fenced oil' from those of the Europeans and the boundaries between the ti'ibes defined. In that colony about onehalf of the negroes live in kraals, on private lands, paying from £1 to £5 per hut to the owners of tlieir farms, which consist of from 1500 to 5000 acres each. One of these farms will have a group of natives npon it, and the group will be governed by its hereditary chief or headman. Every kraal will cultivate from five to ten acres of land and tho remainder is used for grazing in common. I had a good chance to see something of the wilder Kafirs during my stay in Matabeleland and Bechuanaland, and I also met strango tribes: who are allied to them in North-western Rhodesia. Nearly all the natives live 1 in what are known • as kraals.. These are little Villages surrounded by mud walls or fences .of brush. Among the Zulus these kraals are eirciu lar in shape, .with the cattle pen. in the centre, and, the huts running around it. In Matabeleland they are somewhat irregular, and in other regions they arc built like a horseshoo with a cattle kraal near the opening. The cattle are herded' during the d'aytinie and are always kept in the kraals at night. The kraals usually contain all the houses of . the villjage. ; These are of different shapes in different localities. In Matnbeleland they consist of a framework of twigs woven, together and plastered with mud, and in Zululand they arc thatched down to, the ground. In many pnrtSs of Rhodesia the houses are made of a framework of "sticks, smeared with the clay from the white ant hills. This is a natural cement, and is used for all sorts of buildings. In that country the negroes have granaries of.mud, and they also make pigeon houses of, it and' put them on. high poles to protect the. birds ■from, the wild animals-and' dogs. The . ordinary granary is tho size of a hogshead or larger. It iias a hole in one side, which is stopped up with clay after the grain is put in. In Zululand the,£rain is kept in huge baskets inside the huts. " In a.kraal like this one man owns several houses', corresponding to the nuniber of his wives. ' In' the principal hut ho will live with, the "great wife," and on the ,right of- that - will 1)0 the hut for the spouse known as "(he wife of the. right hand,' while on the left Will be that devoted to the "wife of . the ancestors," whose: children, a're supposed to carry the honors of the family. If there are otliet; wives their ' huts are built . farther Each wife is 1 supposed to own,'her own, hut, and the husband is ' expected. to 6pend ! a week in each'before he goes to another. In. the t>ame way each wife lias her own garden or field, which 'she . cultivates, and ! for'which she'alone is responsible. The | women; do all tlie, planting," hoeing, and \ reaping,, and the more,'\vives a man has ' "to work for him 'the Hdhqr ho is. As. far as the stock is concerned, this is usually cared for.by the men. ..Milking time' is at 11 o'clock in ,tlio morning, and then the men do the milking.; They take , the', milk in Watertight baskets' to their j huts and'pout'it iiitb'.Bkin"l>ags ; wjiero , it'is allowed to'siay until it' ferments. .The Kafirs ; never drink fresh milk, but they eat* their kbhmiVand'ierfnentcd milk with « their ; boiled ftriin, or mu6h. They .always i have Hhetf :, blg; Jtieal. a{' noon, 'when the 1 men eat firsthand the ypomen and' children # ta%, wKat.js l6ft':";!.'_ " ,' \ c