Theophilus Hahn - Tsuni-Goam: the Supreme Being of the Khoi-khoi

Trbners Oriental Series

AFRICA
In 3 Volumes

First published in 1881 by
Trbner & Co Ltd

Reprinted in 2000 by
Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Transferred to Digital Printing 2007

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

1881 Theophilus Hahn

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library

Tsuni-Goam
ISBN 0-415-24455-2
Africa: 3 Volumes
ISBN 0-415-24283-5
Trbners Oriental Series
ISBN 0-415-23188-4
ePub ISBN 9781136373008

TO

THE MEMORY

OF

THE LATE

GEHEIMRATH HANS CONON VON DER GABELENTZ

OF POSCHWITZ

AND TO

PROFESSOR AUG. FRIEDR. POTT

OF HALLE ON THE SAALE

THE following pages must speak for themselves ; they will, I trust, be welcome to the student of Comparative Mythology, and to the Ethnologist and Anthropologist in general.

The reader will be sometimes disappointed on finding that my references to authorities are not always exact enough. I had often to quote from memory, and had then to confine myself to mentioning the names of the authors only. I may, however, expect that the reader will be lenient towards my failings on this point, if he puts himself in my position. I live here in a country village, and am entirely confined to my own small collection of books. The nearest and largest Colonial Library is in Cape Town, where, I am sorry to say, the standard works on Comparative Philology, Ethnology, and Anthropology, as well as the leading Journals and Periodicals of the Societies which cultivate these sciences, are still desiderata. With regard to Africa, and especially to South Africa, more and better selected materials are found in the Libraries of Vienna, Berlin, and London, than in the South African Public Library in Cape Town. The blame, however, does not attach to the Committee of Management, who indeed, with the limited means in their hands, have tried to please all parties. Colonists have still to be taught to look on the South African Public Library as a National Institution, and with this view, in a true patriotic spirit, to contribute voluntarily such books, records, and documents as bear specially on our country. Then, and then only, the South African Public Library will thrive as a public institution, and soon become the workshop and nursery of South African science. With the spread of education, no doubt the interest in Our Library will increase. The name of Dr. Dale, the Superintendent General of Educa-tion in this Colony, is a guarantee that education will continue to advance with daily greater strides ; and thus we may hope that, ere long, Colonial youths will aspire to distinguish themselves in historical and purely philosophical studies.

For the orthography of the Hottentot and Bantu words, I employed, with slight modifications, the excellent Standard Alphabet of Professor Lepsius, which proves, after all, the most serviceable, as far as South African languages are concerned.

The words and names quoted from travellers are given in their own orthography ; in a few instances, however, I considered it necessary to substitute for their spelling that introduced by Professor Lepsius, in order to render the phonetic composition of words more transparent, and, consequently, their etymology more evident. The clicks, which are of vital importance for the etymologist, are very indiscriminately treated by most travellers, with the sole exception of Professor Dr. Gustav Fritsch.

Travellers and missionaries who wish to serve the cause of South African Philology should be well acquainted with the principles of Phonology before they venture to write down texts of illiterate languages. No missionary should be sent to the heathens without having acquired as thorough a knowledge of Phonetics as he has of the Gospel, and he should be taught to respect every vowel, every accent, every consonant ; in fact, every jot and tittle in any, even the most barbarous, dialect he may hereafter have to analyse. once correctly established, the natural offshoot will be a true scientific etymology. This science is the telescope with which, where all other records fail, we can draw prehistoric times into our immediate view, and which allows us a look far back into the very dawn of man's life.

It is an urgent want for us here in South Africa that a Standard Orthography for the Native Languages should be introduced in all official, educational, and public departments. The task is not as difficult as it may appear at first sight, and where there is a will, there is a way.

In the present Standard Orthography we write the clicks as follows :

The Lateral ||, 1 ||a, 2 ||na, 3 ||kha, 4 ||ga,
The Cerebral !, 5 !, 6 !n, 7 !kh, 8 !g,
The Palatal , 9 , 10 n, 11 kh, 12 ga.
The Dental |, 13 |, 14 |n, 15 |kh, 16 |g.

The importance of the clicks will be best illustrated by giving the meanings of these words here at once, thus, 1 to wash, 2 to drop, 3 to be able, 4 to split, 5 to fall, 6 to light, 7 to bore, to perforate, 8 to serve, 9 to wash, 10 to pour, 11 to refuse, 12 to plant, 13 to be sharp, 14 to filter, 15 with, 16 isolated, separated, thin, &c, dotted.

Those who wish to inform themselves about the nature of these clicks and their bearing on the phonology of the Hottentot language, I refer to Henry Tindalls excellent Grammar and Vocabulary of the Namaqua-Hottentot Language, and to my Sprache der Nama.

In Tindalls book, however, and in my own no mention is made of a harsh faucal sound peculiar to the old Cape Hottentot dialectsof which Witsen and Leibniz have supplied some materialsto the !Kora-Hottentot and to the Bushman languages of the |Kham, !Ai, |Nuni, !Koang, Heiguis, Matsanakhoi and !Gabe. I write this consonant, which most resembles a forcibly produced short croaking sound just as if a person is endeavouring to get rid of a bone in the throatwith the Hebrew