The Hottentots
Introduction, Origin of Hottentot Name, Tribal Life and Customs, Contact with Europeans, British Views,
A group referred to as "the Hottentots" at times appeared in the writings of Eighteenth Century Europeans, often used as a standard of the lowest, most "savage" types of human beings. The African tribe which calls themselves the Khoikhoi was first encountered by Europeans in the 17th century when Dutch travelers to East Asia stopped near The Cape of Good Hope, where this tribe resided. The Dutch found them to be what they considered uncivilized, treacherous, stinking, and not to be trusted. Travel narratives written by Dutch and others who stopped by the Cape circulated through Europe, also influencing Britain. In the British mind, the "Hottentots" had the reputation of being people considered at the lowest rung of The Great Chain of Being, indicating that they were not much less than animals. This image of the Khoikhoi contributes to the ideas supported by the ongoing slave trade in other areas of Africa, that the inhabitants of the nation of as a whole are considered as savage through most Eighteenth Century British' eyes. This site aims to convey the British views of Africans in the Eighteenth Century, specifically focusing on group Europeans tagged Hottentots, by explaining information collected on their tribal customs, contact with Europeans, how the British at this time viewed these people and how they are mentioned in Eighteenth Century writings.
Tribes and Clans
The Khoikhoi as a group were relatively homogenous, although they broke down into tribes, which were also divided into clans. Tribes had distinctive names and included about a few hundred to one thousand people. Each tribe had it's own territory. Clan groups existed within the tribes, and marriage was forbidden within them. Loyalty to clans was often stronger than loyalty to the tribe. Due to disputes between one clan to another, often over theft of livestock, feuds would begin between clans.
Food Sources
The Khoikhoi depended on raising long horned cattle and fat tailed sheep for food sources. Their needs for grazing areas for livestock caused them to be a nomadic group, although they usually remained within the distinct area as assigned by their tribe. The Khoikhoi drank the milk of the cattle, but rarely used them for meat, unless it was a special occasion or the animal was sick or diseased. Other food sources included wild fruits, berries, tubers, insects, and other small animals if food was scarce. Women often gathered the fruits and berries, while men hunted animals for meat, which was considered a luxury item.
Housing
The Khoikhoi lived in huts, made of lightweight sticks and brush. These huts were easy to fold and transport in order to facilitate the Khoikhoi's nomadic relocations. The camp of a tribe was arranged in a vast circle, and enclosed by a thorn fence. Huts were arranged in Kraals, or small groups of clans. In the center of the huts of each clan group there was open space left for the livestock. Tribal rank could be seen at a distance, because the huts were situated according to the line of descent, the eldest or wealthiest clans being closest to the area in which the chief and elders resided. The elders and chief made their dwelling in the most fertile and grassiest area, in order to supplement theirs as the highest positions in Khoikhoi societies.
Clothing and Appearance
The Khoikhoi wore animal skins, often of wild oxen, that usually only covered their private areas and being tied around the waist. In order to show wealth, and the possession of many cattle, Khoikhoi men and women would grease their clothing with animal fat. The same animal fat was often applied to their bodies, giving them a distinct odor. Other ornamentations were worn in their hair, such as coral bead, small horns, and copper plates. Their hair was often shaved in some places, leaving spots. Women often wore a quiatol, or sunshade of ostrich feathers in order to keep the sun out of their faces. Beads that they made themselves were sometimes worn around the neck, and copper bracelets were also adorned by the wealthy. Dried sheep's guts were also worn as anklets.
In appearance the Khoikhoi are described as medium in stature, slender, with brownish red to yellowish complexions. Their hair was curly, short, and black. They had clear, black eyes. Many also had broad foreheads, flat noses, thick lips, and clean, white teeth. Their bodies were slender except their buttocks, which protruded disproportionately. Women often had large bosoms, especially those who had borne children.
Marriage
When a man falls in love with a woman of the tribe, he asks permission of his father to marry her, and then goes to ask permission of her parents. If the parents accept, they will be married. The girl puts the fatty intestines of a cow around the man's neck to signify their union. They also have a sort of gathering, where the two fattest sheep are slaughtered. The sheep are then partly boiled and partly roasted, but the meat itself is not eaten. The skins are cut off , laid on hot coals, pounded with a stone, and are then enjoyed by the attendants. Polygamy is accepted, and most wealthy men in a tribe have two to three wives. The first wife is regarded as the Chief Wife, and is to be respected by the other wives. Each wife has her own hut, or kraal, that she shares with her unmarried children.
Religion
The Khoikhoi believed in a supreme being or God that they called Gounja, meaning Great Chief. Their concept of God is connected to the powers of nature. They had dances and ceremonies to offer worship to the sun and the moon. They believed in an afterlife with the Great Chief, in which they would be rewarded with white oxen, which were considered a symbol of wealth. The Khoikhoi believed that they originated from one man and one woman that was created, who learned to herd animals and gather roots and berries for subsistence.
The Khoikhoi first encountered Europeans when Dutch traders traveling to the East Indies stopped by The Cape of Good Hope. Dutch eventually took over land and began farming efforts, much to the resistence of the Khoikhoi, who wanted to continue to use land for grazing areas for their herds of cattle, oxen, and sheep. The Dutch also brought with them diseases unknown to the Khoikhoi, causing an epidemic of smallpox that almost wiped out the entire group. The Dutch also carried information and accounts of their travels to Africa to Europe, sending with them views of the Khoikhoi as very uncivilized, repulsive, but yet pleased with their way of life. The Khoikhoi viewed the Dutch at times in hostile terms, when they attempted to move on to their land, but there is also records of a group of Dutch who were stranded and taken in with the utmost hospitality by this group. Contact with Europeans integrated a few luxurys into the lives of the Khoikhoi as a result of minimal trade. The Khoikhoi would trade animal skins for bronze beads and especially tobacco, which they had a great affinity for. Although this event occurred in the nineteenth century, it is important to include that a "Hottentot" woman who was called Sartje was taken to Britian as well as France and shown as a sort of sideshow act, being told to act like an animal to draw crowds. For the shows, she was put in a cage, and then "released", acting like a wild creature according to the instructions of her employer. She was often called the "Hottentot Venus". After her death in 1816, her corpse was dissected by George Cuvier, with special attention made to her genitals because of their unusually elongated shape.
Important Dates:
1649-Dutch are shipwrecked at the Cape of Good Hope for six months, and are recieved by the Khoikhoi in a friendly and kind manner/
1652-A refreshment station for travelers on the way to the East Indies is created at the Cape, at which time there is already a negative view of the Khoikhoi tribe due to their customs.
1713- Smallpox epidemic caused the death of many Khoikhoi
1699-1702-Ban on cattle trade between Dutch settlers and Khoikhoi is lifted
1731, 1739-Khoikhoi make counter-raids against Dutch who have taken their cattle by force. 400 cattle and 2,400 sheep were captured. At least a hundred Khoikhoi were involved.
1770's-Settlers reached the southern ridge of the central plateau of southern Africa, increasing Khoikhoi raids.
1810-The "Hottentot Venus" Sartje arrives in London
1815- Sartje dies of an inflammatory ailment
Here I am enclosing some quotes of 17th and 18th century European travelers to the Cape of Good Hope and their comments on the various customs of the Khoikhoi, or "Hottentots"
Regarding their Character:
" Their native barbarism and idle desert life, together with a wretched ignorance of all virtues, imposes upon their minds every form of vicious pleasure. In faithlessness, inconstancy, lying, cheating, treachery, and infamous concern with every kind of lust they exercise their villany."
"bold, thievish, and not to be trusted."
"a very heathenish and brutish people not given to any goodness: they do apply all their wits into filching and stealing."
"a dull, stupid, lazy, and stinking nation
"These lawless barbarians and immoral pagans practice only those habits to which a blind impulse of nature irresistibly impels them."
"Nature has taught them gluttony, their slothful indigence teaches them temperance."
"Nothing could be more unfriendly than this region, where the savage storms and stony mountains are matched by the character of the inhabitants. Their rough and cunning disposition sorts ill with the easy temper of our countrymen, and they resort to war upon the slightest cause"
"They have the temper of wild animals."
"Though this nation is barbarous and brutish, yet since it is numbered among those peoples who though they have not the law to do the things of the law of nature, it cannot be regarded as utterly lawless."
"I found this people with one accord in their general daily life living in harmony with nature's law, hospitable to every race of men, open, dependable, lovers of truth and justice, not utterly unaccquainted with with the worship of some god, endowed, within their limits, with a rare nimbleness f mother wit, and having minds receptive of instruction."
On Their Language:
"Their words are for the most part inarticulate, and in speaking, they cluck with the tongue like a broody hen, which clucking and the words are pronounced together, verrie strangely."
"If one listens to them talking, one supposes the age of Pythagoras to have returned, in which birds were fabled to enjoy mutual converse in speech. In sober truth it is noise, not speech,...for every single word is finished by a noisy click of the tongue against the echoing palate."
"I am of the opinion that the language of the natives has something in common with Hebrew, for it seems to consist of gutturals, labials, dentals, linguals, and other sounds that fall with difficulty from the lips and are hard for us to pronounce."
On Their Appearance and Dress:
"They are offensive to look at , savage in their dress, wild in their mode of life, but warlike and unaccustomed to slavery."
"It is a notable fact that nature has adorned the heads of the Hottentots with the thick wool she has denied to their sheep."
"Just as their clothing is sordid and mean, so too their bodily adornment ad decoration is slovenly in style rather than tidy."
"Most barbarous in the world, wearing the Gutts of sheepe about their neckes and rubbing thier heads with ...the dung of beasts and durt."
About Women:
"The women live more sparingly; they are not allowed beef, nor fresh milk, mutton occasionally. So much do they despise the women."
"The women may be distinguished from the men by their ugliness."
About their shelter:
"Apart from their huts they have no houses, nor shelter, nor dwelling-place, for they are always engaged in pasturing their herds and flocks, and are accustomed to wander through uncultivated wildernesses."
The Arts:
"You might as well look for jewels in a sty as for arts in this degraded people."
Marriage Customs:
"But those who are richer practice polygamy in the manner of the Turks; and if the marriage does not turn out satisfactorily, they put the woman away and make a divorce."
Quotes from these sections are found in:
Marks, Shula. "Bold, Thievish, and not to be Trusted." History Today. (1981):15-21.
Schapera, Issac. The Early Cape Hottentots. Westport: Negro Universities Press, 1970.
The Khoikhoi, or Hottentots are mentioned in the literature of 18th Century writers such as Tobias Smollet and Samuel Johnson as a basis of comparison. Because of the mainly negative views of Hottentots, they became symbolic as a group of people who are uncivilized according to European terms, and are often claimed to be close to or at the lowest rung of The Great Chain of Being. The concept of the "Hottentot" soon became a sort of literary reference to a "savage" people, rather than referring to the Khoikhoi tribes themselves, or based on firsthand knowledge.
In Smollet's, Travels through France and Italy, the Hottentots are mentioned when Smollet describes the French fashions in hairdressing.
Smollet writes: "Powder or meal was first used by the Poles, to conceal their scald heads; but the present fashion of using it, as well as the modish of dressing the hair, must have been borrowed from the Hottentots, who grease their wooly heads with mutton suet, and then paste it over with the powder called buchu."
In this instance, Smollet uses a comparison to the Hottentots as a way to insult the French, not so much as to give an account of their culture or people.
In Johnson's A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, Hottentots are again used as a basis of comparison, that is again negative.
Johnson explains: "Till the Union made them acquainted with English manners, the culture of their lands was unskillful, and their domestic life unformed; their tables were coarse as the feasts of the Eskimeaux, and their houses filthy as the cottages of the Hottentots."
Other uses of the "Hottentot" are found in other 18th century writings, often depicting them in the same way as the above quotes.
A poem by Matthew Prior entitled "Alma, or Progress of the Mind" includes the following section
In our Fantastic Climes the Fair
With cleanly Powder dry their Hair:
And round their lovely Breast and Head
Fresh Flow'rs their mingled odors shed.
Your nicer HOTTENTOTES think meet
With Guts and Tripe to deck their feet:
With down-cast looks on TOTTA's legs,
The ogling Youth most humbly begs,
She would not from his Hopes remove
At once his Breakfast, and his Love:
And if the skittish Nymph should fly;
He in a double Sense must die.
As you can see, the poem depicts the Hottentots in a negative way, drawing on their custom of wrapping sheep's innards around their ankles to protect them, as well as a means of food and their unusual odor.