Africa is the most ancient and mysterious continent of our planet, and the most ancient peoples of this continent, according to scientists, are the Bushmen and Hottentots. Currently, their descendants live in the Kalahari Desert and the surrounding areas of Angola and South West Africa, where they retreated under the onslaught of the Bantu peoples and Dutch settlers.
The Hottentots today are an extremely small nation, there are no more than fifty thousand people. But until now they have kept their own customs and traditions.
The language of nature
The name of the Hottentot tribe comes from the Dutch word hottentot, which means "stutterer", and was given for the special clicking kind of pronunciation of sounds. To European people, this reminded the speech of monkeys, and therefore they concluded that this people is almost a transitional link between the primate world and humans. According to this theory, the attitude of Europeans to this people was akin to the attitude to domestic or wild animals.
However, modern genetic research has established that among this people the type of Y chromosome characteristic of the first people has been preserved. This indicates that perhaps all representatives of the genus Homo sapiens descended from this anthropological type. It is the Hottentots and related groups that belong to the main race of humanity.
We find the first information about the Hottentots from the traveler Kolben, who described them shortly after the establishment of the Dutch colonies in their country. The Hottentots at that time were still a large people, divided into many tribes under the leadership of chiefs or elders; they led a nomadic pastoral life, in groups of 300 or 400, and lived in mobile huts made of stakes covered with mats. Sheep skins sewn together were their clothes; bows with poisoned arrows and javelins or Assegai served as weapons.
The legends of this people and some etymological indications give the right to conclude that the distribution of the Hottentots was once incomparably more extensive. Memories of this are still retained in the Hottentot names of rivers and mountains. Once they belonged to all of South-West Africa.
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Not black, not white
The Hottentots are characterized by a combination of signs of the black and yellow races with peculiar features. Representatives of this tribe are not tall - no more than one and a half meters tall. Their skin is coppery yellow.
At the same time, the skin of the Hottentots ages very quickly. A short moment of blossoming - and after twenty years, their face, neck and body are covered with deep wrinkles, which gives them the appearance of deep elders.
Interestingly, Hottentots' body fat changes with the seasons. Women of this ethnicity have anatomical features that the Europeans called the "Hottentot apron" (enlarged labia minora).
Until now, no one can explain the origin of this natural anatomy. But the sight of this "apron" aroused disgust not only among Europeans - even the Hottentots themselves considered it unaesthetic, and therefore, since ancient times, the tribes had a custom to remove it before marriage.
"Venus of the Hottentots" - women of this nation had unusual forms
And only with the arrival of the missionaries was a ban on this surgical intervention introduced. But the natives resisted such restrictions, refused to accept Christianity because of them, and even raised uprisings. The fact is that girls with such body features could no longer find suitors for themselves. Then the Pope himself issued a decree according to which the natives were allowed to return to the original custom.
However, this physiological oddity did not prevent the Hottentots from practicing polygamy, which grew into monogamy only by the beginning of the 20th century. But to this day, the custom of paying "lobol" is preserved - the ransom for the bride in cattle or in money in an amount equivalent to its value.
But the men of this tribe have a tradition of amputating one of the testicles for themselves, which does not lend itself to scientific logic - this is done so that twins are not born in the family, the appearance of which is considered a curse for the tribe.
Nomads and artisans
In ancient times, the Hottentots were nomads. They moved with huge herds of livestock throughout the southern and eastern parts of the continent. But gradually they were ousted from traditional territories by Negroid tribes. The Hottentots then settled mainly in the southern regions of the modern territory of South Africa.
Livestock was the main measure of the wealth of this tribe, which they protected and practically did not use for food. The wealthy Hottentots had up to several thousand cows. Caring for livestock was the responsibility of men. The women prepared food and churned butter in leather sacks. Dairy food has always been the basis of the tribe's diet. If the Hottentots wanted to eat meat, they hunted it.
Representatives of this race built houses from twigs of African trees and animal skins. The construction technology was simple. They first fixed supporting poles in special pits, which were then tied horizontally, and covered the walls with either reed mats or animal skins.
The huts were small - 3 or 4 meters in diameter. The only light source is a low door covered with a mat. The main furniture is a bed on a wooden base with leather straps weaving. Dishes - pots, calabash, turtle shells, ostrich eggs. Each family occupied a separate hut.
The hygiene of the Hottentots from the standpoint of modern man seems monstrous. Instead of daily ablution, they rubbed the body with moist cow dung, which was removed after drying.
Despite the hot climate, the Hottentots mastered the production of clothing and jewelry. They wore capes made of leather or hide, and sandals on their feet. Hands, neck and legs were decorated with all kinds of bracelets and rings made of ivory, copper, iron and nut shells.
The traveler Kolben described their way of working the metal: “They dig a rectangular or circular hole in the ground about 2 feet deep and make a strong fire there to heat the earth. When, after that, they throw ore there, they make a fire there again so that from the intense heat the ore melts and becomes fluid. To collect this molten iron, make another one or 1.5 feet deeper next to the first pit; and since a chute leads from the first smelting furnace to the other pit, liquid iron flows through it and cools there. The next day they take out the molten iron, break it with stones into pieces and again, with the help of fire, make of it whatever they want and need."
Under the white yoke
In the middle of the 17th century, the expansion of Europeans to the south of Africa (to the Cape of Good Hope) began: the Dutch East India Company began the construction of Fort Kapstad, which later became the largest port and base on the way from Europe to India.
The first, whom the Dutch encountered in the area of the Cape, were the Hottentots of the Coraqua tribe. The leader of this tribe, Kora, concluded the first treaty with the commandant of Kapstad, Jan van Riebeck. These were "years of cordial cooperation" when a mutually beneficial exchange was established between the tribe and the white aliens.
Dutch settlers in May 1659 violated the treaty, proceeding to seize land (the administration allowed them to engage in agriculture). Such actions led to the first Hottentot-Boer War, during which the leader of the Hottentot tribe Cora was killed.
In 1673, the Boers killed 12 Hottentots of the Kochokwa tribe. The second war began. In it, the Europeans played on the differences between the Hottentot tribes, using some tribes against others. As a result of these armed clashes, the number of Hottentots declined sharply.
And the smallpox epidemic, which was brought to the Black Continent by Europeans, almost completely wiped out the indigenous people. During the 17th-19th centuries, the Hottentot tribes inhabiting the southern tip of Africa were almost completely destroyed.
Currently, only a few small tribes remain. They live on reservations and livestock. Despite the fact that some have lost all the features of life and culture and adopted Christianity, a significant part of them retain the cult of their ancestors, worship the moon and the sky. They believe in the Demiurge (the heavenly creator god) and worship the deities of the cloudless sky - Hum - and the rainy Sum. They have preserved a rich folklore, they have many fairy tales, legends, in which memories of the former greatness still live.
Irina STEPKINA