itself, is made
the occasion for lascivious practices; the unmarried girls
choose companions with whom they cohabit as long as the
festival lasts ... usually three or four days."

After giving other details, Fritsch thus sums up the situation:

"These diverse facts make it clear that with these tribes
(Ama-Xosa) woman stands, if not morally, at least
judicially, little above cattle, and consequently it is
impossible to speak of family life in one sense of the
word."

In his _Nursery Tales of the Zulus_ (255) Callaway gives an account,
in the native language as well as in the English, of the license
indulged in at Kaffir puberty festivals. Young men assemble from all
quarters. The maidens have a "girl-king" to whom the men are obliged
to give a present before they are allowed to enter the hut chosen for
the meeting. "The young people remain alone and sport after their own
fancies in every way." "It is a day of filthiness in which everything
may be done according to the heart's desire of those who gather around
the _umgongo_." The Rev. J. MacDonald, a man of scientific
attainments, gives a detailed account of the incredibly obscene
ceremonies to which the girls of the Zulu-Kaffirs are subjected, and
the licentious yet Malthusian conduct of the young folks in general
who "separate into pairs and sleep _in puris naturalibus_, for that is
strictly ordained by custom." The father of a girl thus treated feels
honored on receiving a present from her partner.[140]

INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCE FOR--COWS

The utter indifference of the Kaffirs to chastity and their
licentiousness, approved and even prescribed by national custom, were
not the only obstacle to the growth of sentiments rising above mere
sensuality. Commercialism was another fatal obstacle. I have already
quoted Hahn's testimony that a Kaffir "would rather have big herds of
cattle than a good-looking wife." Dohne asserts (Shooter, 88) that "a
Kaffir loves his cattle more than his daughter," and Kay (111) tells
us that

"he is scarcely ever seen shedding tears, excepting
when the chief lays violent hands upon some part of his
horned family; this pierces him to the heart and
produces more real grief than would be evinced over the
loss of wife and child."

On another page (85) he says that in time of war the poor women fall
into the enemy's hands, because

"their husbands afford them no assistan