Native Life in South Africa [57]
was a desire to oppress. "They may have been unjust, as you say, but understand that this law is not the last thing said by Parliament. A final settlement must depend on the recommendations of the Commission, and such action will be taken as will be to the lasting interests of white and black. The Lands Commission has already held its first sitting, and you will be serving your best interests by bringing all your information to the Magistrate, so that it be laid before the Commission. Show by your wise action that you are inspired by the justice of your case. The course of agitation will not help you. Remove suspicions and mistrust from your minds, and bring cases of real hardships to the Magistrate, who will see that this Act is administered as smoothly as possible. But THE ACT DOES NOT PROVIDE FOR ANY SPECIAL CASES IN THE FREE STATE being submitted to the Governor-General under the first section of the Act." ==
The concluding statement settled the minds of those who had expected from the Government any protection against the law, and the disappointment under which the meeting broke up was indescribable. This law is full of rude shocks, and this day this spokesman of the Government told the Natives that in the other three Provinces the Governor-General will only exercise his right in exceptional cases, while in the "Free" State the law did not permit him to exercise it even in such cases, so that the Government alone knows why that provision was inserted.
Chapter IX The Fateful 13
He hath disgraced me and laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what is his reason? I am a Kafir. Hath not a Kafir eyes? hath not a Kafir hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Is he not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a white Afrikander? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. Merchant of Venice.
The Natives of South Africa, generally speaking, are intensely superstitious. The fact that they are more impressionable than tractable causes them, it seems, to take naturally to religion, and seems a flat contradiction of Junius's assertion that "there are proselytes from atheism, but none from superstition." With some South African tribes it is unlucky to include goats amongst the animals paid by a young man's parents as the dowry for his bride; it was equally bad to pay dowry in odd numbers of cattle. The payment must be made in an even number of oxen, sheep, or other animals or articles, such as two, four, six, eight, ten, and so on. The man who could not afford more than one sheep to seal the marriage contract would have to exchange his goat for a sheep to make up a presentable pair. If he were too poor to do that, a needle or any other article was admissible to make up the dowry to an even number, and so avoid giving one or three, or more odd numbers of articles. Conscious as they were of the existence of some Supreme Being, but worshipping no God, true or false, the white man's religion which makes such a worship obligatory through a mediator found easy access among so susceptible a people; and with equal ease they likewise adopted the civilization of the white man. But the Natives received not only the white man's civilization and his religion, but have even gullibly imbibed his superstitions. Thus is their dread of the figure 13 accounted for. The Native witch-doctors in the early days took advantage of their credulity, whilst civilized people traded on their susceptibilities, and the semi-civilized Natives also traded upon the fears of their more impressionable brethren.
To give a concrete case or two, we might say that when
The concluding statement settled the minds of those who had expected from the Government any protection against the law, and the disappointment under which the meeting broke up was indescribable. This law is full of rude shocks, and this day this spokesman of the Government told the Natives that in the other three Provinces the Governor-General will only exercise his right in exceptional cases, while in the "Free" State the law did not permit him to exercise it even in such cases, so that the Government alone knows why that provision was inserted.
Chapter IX The Fateful 13
He hath disgraced me and laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and what is his reason? I am a Kafir. Hath not a Kafir eyes? hath not a Kafir hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Is he not fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as a white Afrikander? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. Merchant of Venice.
The Natives of South Africa, generally speaking, are intensely superstitious. The fact that they are more impressionable than tractable causes them, it seems, to take naturally to religion, and seems a flat contradiction of Junius's assertion that "there are proselytes from atheism, but none from superstition." With some South African tribes it is unlucky to include goats amongst the animals paid by a young man's parents as the dowry for his bride; it was equally bad to pay dowry in odd numbers of cattle. The payment must be made in an even number of oxen, sheep, or other animals or articles, such as two, four, six, eight, ten, and so on. The man who could not afford more than one sheep to seal the marriage contract would have to exchange his goat for a sheep to make up a presentable pair. If he were too poor to do that, a needle or any other article was admissible to make up the dowry to an even number, and so avoid giving one or three, or more odd numbers of articles. Conscious as they were of the existence of some Supreme Being, but worshipping no God, true or false, the white man's religion which makes such a worship obligatory through a mediator found easy access among so susceptible a people; and with equal ease they likewise adopted the civilization of the white man. But the Natives received not only the white man's civilization and his religion, but have even gullibly imbibed his superstitions. Thus is their dread of the figure 13 accounted for. The Native witch-doctors in the early days took advantage of their credulity, whilst civilized people traded on their susceptibilities, and the semi-civilized Natives also traded upon the fears of their more impressionable brethren.
To give a concrete case or two, we might say that when