The Hodmadods Or Hottentots, the Natural Inhabitants Of The Cape Of Good Hope

The natural inhabitants of the Cape are the Hodmadods, as they are commonly called, which is a corruption of the word Hottentot; for this is the name by which they call to one another, either in their dances or on any occasion; as if every one of them had this for his name. The word probably has some signification or other in their language, whatever it is.

Their Personage, Garb, Besmearing Themselves; Their Clothing, Houses, Food, Way Of Living, And Dancing At The Full Of The Moon: Compared In Those Respects With Other Negroes And Wild Indians.

These Hottentots are people of a middle stature with small limbs and thin bodies, full of activity. Their faces are of a flat oval figure, of the Negro make, with great eyebrows, black eyes, but neither are their noses so flat, nor their lips so thick, as the Negroes of Guinea. Their complexion is darker than the common Indians; though not so black as the Negroes or New Hollanders; neither is their hair so much frizzled.

They besmear themselves all over with grease as well to keep their joints supple as to fence their half-naked bodies from the air by stopping up their pores. To do this the more effectually they rub soot over the greased parts, especially their faces, which adds to their natural beauty, as painting does in Europe; but withal sends from them a strong smell which though sufficiently pleasing to themselves is very unpleasant to others. They are glad of the worst of kitchen-stuff for this purpose and use it as often as they can get it.

This custom of anointing the body is very common in other parts of Africa, especially on the coast of Guinea, where they generally use palm-oil, anointing themselves from head to foot; but when they want oil they make use of kitchen-stuff, which they buy of the Europeans that trade with them. In the East Indies also, especially on the coast of Cudda and Malacca, and in general on almost all the easterly islands, as well on Sumatra, Java, etc., as on the Philippine and Spice Islands, the Indian inhabitants anoint themselves with coconut oil two or three times a day, especially mornings and evenings. They spend sometimes half an hour in chafing the oil and rubbing it into their hair and skin, leaving no place unsmeared with oil but their face, which they daub not like these Hottentots. The Americans also in some places do use this custom, but not so frequently, perhaps for want of oil and grease to do it. Yet some American Indians in the North Seas frequently daub themselves with a pigment made with leaves, roots, or herbs, or with a sort of red earth, giving their skins a yellow, red, or green colour, according as the pigment is. And these smell unsavourly enough to people not accustomed to them; though not so rank as those who use oil or grease.

The Hottentots do wear no covering on their heads but deck their hair with small shells. Their garments are sheep-skins wrapped about their shoulders like a mantle, with the woolly sides next their bodies. The men have besides this mantle a piece of skin like a small apron hanging before them. The women have another skin tucked about their waists, which comes down to their knees like a petticoat; and their legs are wrapped round with sheep’s guts two or three inches thick, some up as high as to their calves, others even from their feet to their knees, which at a small distance seems to be a sort of boots. These are put on when they are green; and so they grow hard and stiff on their legs, for they never pull them off again till they have occasion to eat them; which is when they journey from home and have no other food; then these guts which have been worn, it may be six, eight, ten or twelve months, make them a good banquet: this I was informed of by the Dutch. They never pull off their sheep-skin garments but to louse themselves, for by continual wearing them they are full of vermin, which obliges them often to strip and sit in the sun two or three hours together in the heat of the day to destroy them. Indeed most Indians that live remote from the equator are molested with lice, though their garments afford less shelter for lice than these Hottentots’ sheep-skins do. For all those Indians who live in cold countries as in the north and south parts of America, have some sort of skin or other to cover their bodies; as deer, otter, beaver, or seal-skins, all which they as constantly wear without shifting themselves as these Hottentots do their sheep-skins. And hence they are lousy too and strong scented, though they do not daub themselves at all or but very little; or even by reason of their skins they smell strong.

The Hottentots’ houses are the meanest that I did ever see. They are about nine or ten foot high and ten or twelve from side to side. They are in a manner round, made with small poles stuck into the ground and brought together at the top where they are fastened. The sides and top of the house are filled up with boughs coarsely wattled between the poles, and all is covered over with long grass, rushes, and pieces of hides; and the house at a distance appears just like a haycock. They leave only a small hole on one side about three or four foot high for a door to creep in and out at; but when the wind comes in at this door they stop it up and make another hole in the opposite side. They make the fire in the middle of the house and the smoke ascends out of the crannies from all parts of the house. They have no beds to lie on but tumble down at night round the fire.

Their household furniture is commonly an earthen pot or two to boil victuals, and they live very miserably and hard; it is reported that they will fast two or three days together when they travel about the country.

Their common food is either herbs, flesh, or shellfish, which they get among the rocks or other places at low water: for they have no boats, bark-logs, nor canoes to go a-fishing in; so that their chief subsistence is on land-animals, or on such herbs as the land naturally produces. I was told by my Dutch landlord that they kept sheep and bullocks here before the Dutch settled among them; and that the inland Hottentots have still great stocks of cattle and sell them to the Dutch for rolls of tobacco: and that the price for which they sell a cow or sheep was as much twisted tobacco as would reach from the horns or head to the tail; for they are great lovers of tobacco and will do anything for it. This their way of trucking was confirmed to me by many others who yet said that they could not buy their beef this cheap way, for they had not the liberty to deal with the Hottentots, that being a privilege which the Dutch East India Company reserved to themselves. My landlord having a great many lodgers fed us most with mutton, some of which he bought of the butcher, and there is but one in the town; but most of it he killed in the night, the sheep being brought privately by the Hottentots who assisted in skinning and dressing, and had the skin and guts for their pains. I judge these sheep were fetched out of the country a good way off, for he himself would be absent a day or two to procure them, and two or three Hottentots with him. These of the Hottentots that live by the Dutch town have their greatest subsistence from the Dutch, for there is one or more of them belonging to every house. These do all sorts of servile work and there take their food and grease. Three or four more of the nearest relations sit at the doors or near the Dutch house, waiting for the scraps and fragments that come from the table; and if between meals the Dutch people have any occasion for them to go on errands or the like they are ready at command; expecting little for their pains; but for a stranger they will not budge under a stiver.

Their religion, if they have any, is wholly unknown to me; for they have no temple nor idol, nor any place of worship that I did see or hear of. Yet their mirth and nocturnal pastimes at the new and full of the moon looked as if they had some superstition about it. For at the full especially they sing and dance all night, making a great noise: I walked out to their huts twice at these times in the evening when the moon arose above the horizon, and viewed them for an hour or more. They seem all very busy, both men, women and children, dancing very oddly on the green grass by their houses. They traced to and fro promiscuously, often clapping their hands and singing aloud. Their faces were sometimes to the east, sometimes to the west: neither did I see any motion or gesture that they used when their faces were towards the moon, more than when their backs were toward it. After I had thus observed them for a while I returned to my lodging, which was not above 2 or 300 paces from their huts; and I heard them singing in the same manner all night. In the grey of the morning I walked out again and found many of the men and women still singing and dancing; who continued their mirth till the moon went down, and then they left off. Some of them going into their huts to sleep and others to their attendance in their Dutch houses. Other Negroes are less circumspect in their night dances as to the precise time of the full moon, they being more general in these nocturnal pastimes and use them oftener; as do many people also in the East and West Indies: yet there is a difference between colder and warmer countries as to their divertissements. The warmer climates being generally very productive of delicate fruits, etc., and these uncivilised people caring for little else than what is barely necessary, they spend the greatest part of their time in diverting themselves after their several fashions; but the Indians of colder climates are not so much at leisure, the fruits of the earth being scarce with them, and they necessitated to be continually fishing, hunting, or fowling for their subsistence; not as with us for recreation.

As for these Hottentots they are a very lazy sort of people, and though they live in a delicate country, very fit to be manured, and where there is land enough for them, yet they choose rather to live as their forefathers, poor and miserable, than be at pains for plenty. And so much for the Hottentots: I shall now return to our own affairs.

CAPTAIN HEATH REFRESHES HIS MEN AT THE CAPE, AND GETTING SOME MORE HANDS, DEPARTS IN COMPANY WITH THE JAMES AND MARY, AND THE JOSIAH.

Upon our arrival at the Cape, Captain Heath took a house to live in in order to recover his health.

Such of his men as were able did so too, for the rest he provided lodgings and paid their expenses. Three or four of our men who came ashore very sick died, but the rest, by the assistance of the doctors of the fort, a fine air, and good kitchen and cellar physic, soon recovered their healths.

Those that subscribed to be at all calls and assisted to bring in the ship received Captain Heath’s bounty, by which they furnished themselves with liquor for their homeward voyage. But we were now so few that we could not sail the ship; therefore Captain Heath desired the governor to spare him some men; and, as I was informed, had a promise to be supplied out of the homeward-bound Dutch East India ships that were now expected every day, and we waited for them. In the meantime in came the James and Mary, and the Josiah of London, bound home. Out of these we thought to have been furnished with men; but they had only enough for themselves; therefore we waited yet longer for the Dutch fleet, which at last arrived; but we could get no men from them.

Captain Heath was therefore forced to get men by stealth such as he could pick up whether soldiers or seamen. The Dutch knew our want of men, therefore near forty of them, those that had a design to return to Europe, came privately and offered themselves, and waited in the night at places appointed, where our boats went and fetched three or four aboard at a time and hid them, especially when any Dutch boat came aboard our ship. Here at the Cape I met my friend Daniel Wallis, the same who leapt into the sea and swam at Pulo Condore. After several traverses to Madagascar, Don Mascarin, Pondicherry, Pegu, Cunnimere, Madras, and the river of Hooghly he was now got hither in a homeward-bound Dutch ship. I soon persuaded him to come over to us and found means to get him aboard our ship.