The
young man next sends his sister with a spear, or some
other trifling article, which she leaves at the door of
the girl's home. If this be not returned within the
three or four days allowed for consideration, the
Bushman takes it for granted that he is accepted, and
gathering a number of his friends, he makes a grand
hunt, generally killing an elephant or some other large
animal and bringing the whole of the flesh to his
intended father-in-law. The family now riot in an
abundant supply.... After this the couple are
proclaimed husband and wife, and the man goes to live
with his father-in-law for a couple of winters, killing
game, and always laying the produce of the chase at his
feet as a mark of respect, duty, and gratitude."
It would take considerable ingenuity to condense into an equal number
of lines a greater amount of ignorance and naivete than this passage
includes. And yet a number of anthropologists have accepted this
passage serenely as expert evidence that there is love in all the
marriages of the lowest of African races. Peschel was misled by it;
Westermarck triumphantly puts it at the head of his cases intended to
prove that "even very rude savages may have conjugal affection;" Moll
meekly accepts it as a fact (_Lib.
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