Cousins informs me that between their various
feasts the Kaffirs, both men and women, have to live in
strict continence, the penalty being banishment from the
tribe if this law is broken."
It would be interesting to know what Barrow means by "extremely
modest" since he admits that that attribute
"might be questioned. If, for instance, a young woman
be asked whether she be married, not content with
giving the simple negative, she throws open her cloak
and displays her bosom; and as most frequently she has
no other covering beneath, she perhaps may discover at
the same time, though unintentionally, more of her
charms."
But it is his assertion that "a Kaffir woman is chaste" that clashes
most outrageously with all recorded facts and the testimony of the
leading authorities, including many missionaries. Dr. Fritsch says in
the preface to his standard book on the natives of South Africa that
the assertions of Barrow are to be accepted "with caution, or rather
with suspicion." It is the absence of this caution and suspicion that
has led Westermarck into so many erroneous conclusions. In the present
instance, however, it is absolutely incomprehensible why he should
have cited the one author who calls the Kaffirs chaste, ignoring the
crushing weight of countless facts showing them to be extremely
dissolute.
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