The Black Man's Place in South Africa by Peter Nielsen

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THE BLACK MAN'S PLACE IN SOUTH AFRICA

BY

PETER NIELSEN.

JUTA & CO., LTD.,

CAPE TOWN. PORT ELIZABETH. UITENHAGE.

JOHANNESBURG.

1922

_To

MY MOTHER_.

PREFACE.

The reader has a right to ask what qualification the writer may have for
dealing with the subject upon which he offers his opinions.

The author of this book claims the qualifications of an observer who,
during many years, has studied the ways and thoughts of the Natives of
South Africa on the spot, not through interpreters, but at first hand,
through the medium of their own speech, which he professes to know as
well as the Natives themselves.

P.N.

THE BLACK MAN'S PLACE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

THE QUESTION STATED.

The white man has taken up the burden of ruling his dark-skinned fellows
throughout the world, and in South Africa he has so far carried that
burden alone, feeling well assured of his fitness for the task. He has
seen before him a feeble folk, strong only in their numbers and fit only
for service, a people unworthy of sharing with his own race the
privileges of social and political life, and it has seemed right
therefore in his sight that this people should continue to bend under
his dominant will. But to-day the white man is being disturbed by signs
of coming strength among the black and thriving masses; signs of the
awakening of a consciousness of racial manhood that is beginning to find
voice in a demand for those rights of citizenship which hitherto have
been so easily withheld. The white people are beginning to ask
themselves whether they shall sit still and wait till that voice becomes
clamant and insistent throughout the land or whether they shall begin
now to think out and provide means for dealing with those coming events
whose shadows are already falling athwart the immediate outlook. The
strong and solid feeling among the whites in the past against giving any
political rights to the blacks however civilised they might be is not so
strong or as solid as it was. The number is growing of those among the
ruling race who feel that the right of representation should here also
follow the burden of taxation, but while there are many who think thus,
those who try to think the matter out in all its bearings soon come to
apprehend the possibility that where once political equality has been
granted social equality may follow, and this apprehension makes the
thinking man pause to think again before he commits himself to a
definite and settled opinion.

Taking the civilisation of to-day to mean an ordered and advanced state
of society in which all men are equally bound and entitled to share the
burdens and privileges of the whole political and social life according
to their individual limitations we ask whether the African Natives are
capable of acquiring this civilisation, and whether, if it be proved
that their capacity for progress is equal to that of the Europeans, the
demand for full racial equality that must inevitably follow can in
fairness be denied. This I take to be the crux of the Native Question in
South Africa.

Before we attempt to answer this question it is necessary to find out,
if we can, in what ways the African differs from the European; for if it
be found that there are radical and inherent differences between the two
races of a kind that seem certain to remain unaltered by new influences
and changed environment then the whites will feel justified in denying
equality where nature herself has made it impossible, whereas if the
existing difference be proved to be only outwardly acquired and not
inwardly heritable then the coming demand for equality will stand
supported by natural right which may not be ignored. The question, then,
before us is this. Is the African Native equal to the European in mental
and moral capacity or is he not? We must have an answer to this
question, for we cannot assign to the Native his proper place in the
general scheme of our civilisation till we know exactly what manner of
man he is.

We of to-day are rightly proud of our freedom from the sour
superstitions and religious animosities of the past, but these
hindrances to progress and general happiness were only dispelled by the
light of scientific thought and clear reasoning. Let us then bring to
bear that same blessed light upon our present enquiry into the reasons,
real or fancied, for those prejudices of race and colour which we still
retain, for it is only by removing the misconceptions and false notions
that obscure our view that we can come to a clear understanding of the
many complex issues that make up the great Native problem of Africa.

BODILY DIFFERENCES.

"That which distinguishes man from the beast," said Beaumarchais, "is
drinking without being thirsty, and making love at all seasons," and he
spoke perhaps truer than he knew, for the fact that man is not bound by
seasons and is not in entire subjection to his environment is the
cardinal distinction between him and the brutes. This distinction was
won through man's possession of a thinking brain which caused or
coincided with an upright carriage whereby his two hands were set free
from the lowly service of mere locomotion to make fire and to fashion
the tools wherewith he was enabled to control his environment instead of
remaining like the animals entirely controlled by it. This wonderful
brain also made possible the communication and tradition of his
experiences and ideas through articulate speech by which means his
successors in each generation were able to keep and develop the slowly
spelt lessons of human life.

Are the African Natives as far removed from the beasts as the Europeans,
and do they share equally with the Europeans this great human
distinction of ability to think?

The belief, at, one time commonly held, that in morphological
development and physical appearance the Bantu stand nearer in the scale
of evolution to our common ape-like ancestors than do the white people
does not seem to be warranted by facts. Careful investigations by
trained observers all over the world have shown that the various simian
features discernible in the anatomy of modern man are found fairly
evenly distributed amongst advanced and backward races.

The so-called prognathism of the Bantu has been cited as a racial mark
denoting comparative nearness to the brutes, but when it is noted that
anthropologists differ among themselves as to what constitutes this
feature, whether it is to be measured from points above or below the
nose or both, and when we are informed in some text books that while the
negroes are prognathous, bushmen must be classed with Europeans as being
the opposite, that is, orthognathous,[1] and when, added to this, we
learn from other quarters that white women are, on the average, more
prognathous than white men,[2] then the significance of this
distinction, which in any case is not regarded as being relative to
cranical capacity, is seen to be more apparent than real.

Extreme hairiness of body, on the other hand, which might well be taken
as a simian or vestigial character, is seldom met with in the Bantu, but
is equally common among Europeans and Australian aboriginals and is
found particularly developed in the Ainu of Japan. The texture also of
the African's hair is less like that of the hair of the man-like apes
than is the hair of the European. The proportions of the limbs of the
Europeans seem, on the average, to be nearer to the supposed prototype
of man than those of the Bantu. The specifically human development of
the red lips is more pronounced in the African than in the European,[3]
and if there is anything in what has been called the "god-like erectness
of the human carriage" then it must be admitted that the Bantu women
exhibit a straightness of form which may well be envied by the ladies of
civilisation.

It is generally accepted that the African Natives have a bodily odour of
their own which is _sui generis_ in that it is supposed to be different
from that of other human races. Some early travellers have compared it
with the smell of the female crocodile, and many people believe it to be
a racial characteristic denoting a comparatively humble origin and
intended by nature as a signal or warning for the rest of human kind
against close physical contact with the African race. A recent student
of the Negro question in America gives it as his opinion that this odour
is "something which the Negroes will have difficulty in living down."[4]
To most Europeans this smell seems to be more or less unpleasant but it
must not be forgotten that it does not seem to affect the large numbers
of white men of all nationalities who have found and still find pleasure
in continued and intimate intercourse with African women. It would seem
as if highly "refined" Europeans are nowadays given to exaggerate the
sensation produced on their over delicate olfactory nerves by the
exhalations caused by perspiration through a healthy and porous skin. In
many of the so-called Ladies' Journals published in England and America
advertisements appear regularly vaunting chemical preparations for the
disguising of the odour of perspiration which, it is alleged, mars the
attractiveness of women. If this is so it would seem that the nostrils
of the modern European are rather too easily offended by the natural
smell of his kind. However this may be there is no evidence for
believing that the African's bodily smell is more animal-like than that
of any other race.

If there is one thing which the white man of South Africa is sure about
it is the comparative thickness of the "nigger skull," but this notion
also would appear to be one of the many which have no foundation in
fact.

The opinion of medical men, based upon actual observation and
measurement, is to the effect that there is no evidence to support the
contention that the Native skull is thicker than that of the
European.[5] That the thick, woolly hair of the Native may account for
his supposed comparative invulnerability to head injuries has not
occurred to the layman observer who is more often given to vehement
assertion than to careful enquiry.

The supposed arrest of the brain of the Bantu at the age of puberty
owing to the closing of the sutures of the skull at an earlier age than
happens with Europeans is another popular notion for which a sort of
pseudo-scientific authority may be quoted from encyclopaedias and old
books of travel. The opinion of modern authorities on this subject is
that those who say that the closure of the sutures of the skull
determines brain growth would or should also say that the cart pulls the
horse, for, if the sutures of the Native skull close at a somewhat
earlier date in the average Native than in the average European then it
simply means that the Native reaches maturity slightly earlier than the
average white man.

The loss of mental alertness which is said by some to be peculiar to the
Natives at the time of puberty is very often met with in the European
youth or girl at that period of life. Competent observers have of late
years come to the conclusion that this supposed falling off in
intelligence, in so far as it may differ in degree from what has so
often been noticed in European boys and girls at that point of
development, is due to psychological and not to physiological causes. It
is realised that this lapse in mental power of concentration in European
youth in the stage of early adolescence is prevented by the force of
example and fear of parental and general reprobation coupled with
unbroken school-discipline, all of which factors are as yet seldom
present in the surroundings of the average Bantu boy or girl.

The outward ethnic differentiae of the Bantu are admittedly palpable and
patent to everyone, but in the opinion of competent observers there is
nothing in the anatomy of the black man to make him a lower beast than
the man with the white skin. It is now seen that there is no apparent
relation between complexion or skull shape and intelligence, but while
this is so there appears to be a correlation between the size of the
brain and the number of cells and fibres of which it is made up,
although this correlation is so weak as to be difficult of
demonstration.[6]

The capacity of the normal human cranium varies from 1,000 cubic
centimetres to 1,800 cubic centimetres, the mean capacity of female
crania being 10 per cent. less than the mean of male crania. On this
basis skulls are classified in the text books as being _microcephalic_
when below 1,350 cubic centimetres, such as those of the extinct
Tasmanians, Bushmen, Andamanese, Melanesians, Veddahs, and the Hill-men
of India; _mesocephalic_, those from 1,350 to 1,450 cubic centimetres,
comprising Negroes, Malays, American Indians, and Polynesians; and
_megacephalic_, above 1,450 cubic centimetres, including Eskimos,
Europeans, Mongolians, Burmese and Japanese. The mean capacity among
Europeans is fixed at 1,500 cubic centimetres, and the average weight of
the brain at 1,300 grams.

These figures show that the skull capacity of the average European is
larger than that of the average Negro, and as it seems plausible that
the greater the central nervous system, the higher will be the faculty
of the race, and the greater its aptitude for mental achievements, the
conclusion that the European is superior in this respect seems on the
face of it to be well grounded. There are, however, certain relevant
facts which qualify this inference, and these must be briefly
considered.

The anthropologist Manouvrier measured thirty-five skulls of eminent
white men and found them to be of an average capacity of 1,665 cubic
centimetres as compared to 1,560 cubic centimetres general average
derived from 110 ordinary individuals. On the other hand he found that
the cranial capacity of forty-five murderers was 1,580 cubic
centimetres, also superior to the general average. Professor Franz Boas,
in discussing this experiment, says that most of the brain weights
constituting the general series are obtained in anatomical institutes,
and the individuals who find their way there are poorly developed on
account of malnutrition and of life under unfavourable circumstances,
while the eminent men represent a much better nourished class. As poor
nourishment reduces the weight and size of the whole body, it will also
reduce the size and weight of the brain.[7] Dr. Arthur Keith when
dealing with the so-called Piltdown skull in his book "The Antiquity of
Man" says to the same effect that the size of brain is a very imperfect
index of mental ability in that we know that certain elements enter into
the formation of the brain which take no direct part in our mental
activity, so that a person who has been blessed with a great robust body
and strong, massive limbs requires a greater outfit of mere tracts and
nerve cells for the purposes of mere animal administration than the
smaller person with trunk and limbs of a moderate size.[8]

It seems fair, therefore, to assume that the brain-weights of big men of
the Zulu, the Xosa and the Fingo tribes will be considerably above those
of European women, but to conclude from this that the capacity of the
big black man is higher than that of the average white woman would
hardly be possible to-day. I would say here that I do not accept the
suggestion, recently advanced, that the mental faculty of woman is
qualitatively different from that of man. I hold that there is no
difference of any kind between the intellectual powers of the male and
female human being. The comparative lack of mental achievement on the
part of women in the past I believe to have been due to a natural, and,
as I think, wholesome feminine disinclination to take up intellectual
studies and scientific pursuits that until recently have been deemed the
prerogative of men, and not to any innate inferiority of the female
brain.

According to Professor Sollas, whose high authority cannot be disputed,
the size of the brain when looked at broadly seems to be connected with
the taxinomic rank of the race, but when we come to details the
connection between cranial capacity and mental endowment becomes less
obvious. The Eskimo, for instance, who is of short stature, has a
cranial capacity of 1,550 cubic centimetres, thus surpassing some of the
most civilised peoples of Europe, and yet no one of this race has so far
startled the world with any kind of mental achievement. "The result,"
says Professor Sollas, "of numerous investigations carried out during
the last quarter of a century is to show that, within certain limits, no
discoverable relation exists between the magnitude of the brain--or even
its gross anatomy--and intellectual power," and he illustrates this
statement by a list giving the cranial capacities and brain-weights of a
number of famous men which shows that though Bismarck had a skull
capacity of 1,965 cubic centimetres, Liebniz, who attained to the
highest flights of genius, had a cranium measuring only 1,422 cubic
centimetres.

Dealing more particularly with the assumed relation between highly
specialised mental faculties and the anatomy of the brain, as apart from
its mere size, the same author cites the case of Dr. Georg Sauerwein,
who was master of forty or fifty languages, and whose brain after his
death at the age of 74 in December, 1904, was dissected by Dr. L. Stieda
with the idea that, since it is known that the motor centre for speech
is situated in what is called Broca's area, some connection between
great linguistic powers and the size or complication of the frontal lobe
might be found in this highly specialised brain, but the examination
revealed nothing that could be correlated with Sauerwein's exceptional
gift.[9]

Professor R.R. Marett in his handbook on Anthropology says, in
discussing the subject of race, "You will see it stated that the size of
the brain cavity will serve to mark off one race from another. This is
extremely doubtful, to put it mildly. No doubt the average European
shows some advantage in this respect as compared, say, with the Bushmen.
But then you have to write off so much for their respective types of
body, a bigger body going in general with a bigger head, that in the end
you find yourself comparing mere abstractions. Again, the European may
be the first to cry off on the ground that comparisons are odious; for
some specimens of Neanderthal man, in sheer size of brain cavity, are
said to give points to any of our modern poets and politicians.... Nor,
if the brain itself be examined after death, and the form and number of
its convolutions compared, is this criterion of hereditary brain-power
any more satisfactory. It might be possible in this way to detect the
difference between an idiot and a person of normal intelligence, but not
the difference between a fool and a genius."[10]

In his book, "The Human Body," Dr. Keith, in dealing with racial
characters, begs his readers to break away from the common habit of
speaking and thinking of various races as high and low. "High and low,"
he says, "refers to civilisation; it does not refer to the human
body."[11]

The foregoing authoritative opinions serve to show that the Bantu, as
compared with other races, labour under no apparent physiological
disabilities to hinder them in the process of mental development. Let us
now consider in the light of modern psychology upon first-hand and
reliable evidence the allegation of mental inferiority that is
constantly brought against these people.

THE MIND OF THE NATIVE.

The white man has conquered the earth and all its dark-skinned people,
and when he thinks of his continued success in the struggle for
supremacy he feels that he has a right to be proud of himself and his
race. He looks upon the black man as the fool of the human family who
has failed in every way, whereas he, the lord of creation, has achieved
the impossible, and this comparison which is so favourable to himself
naturally leads him to set up achievement as the sole test of ability.
If asked why the African Native has never accomplished anything at all
comparable with the feats of the European or the Asiatic the average
white man will answer, without hesitation, that it is because the Native
has always lacked the necessary capacity.

The average white man has a more or less vague notion that his own proud
position at the top of human society is the result of the continuous and
assiduous use of the brain by his forefathers in the struggle for
existence under the rigorous conditions of a northern climate during
thousands of generations by which constant exercise the mental faculty
of his race grew and increased till it became, in course of time, a
heritable intellectual endowment, whereas the Natives of Africa by
failing always to make use of whatever brain power they might have been
blessed with in the beginning have suffered a continuous loss of mental
capacity.

The idea that the evolution of the human intellect is a perpetually
progressive process by means of the constant use of the brain in the
pursuits of increasing civilisation towards the eventual attainment of
god-like perfection is one that appeals strongly to the popular fancy,
and its corollary, that those who fail during long periods to make full
use of their mental equipment in the ways of advancing civilisation must
gradually lose a part, if not the whole, of their original talents, is
commonly accepted as being warranted by the teaching of modern science.

But science, as a body, does not support the view that bodily characters
and modifications acquired by an individual during his lifetime are
transmissible to his offspring; in other words, science does not, as a
body, accept the theory that the effects of use and disuse in the parent
are inherited by his children. Modern science does not, indeed,
definitely foreclose discussion of the subject, but what it says is that
the empirical issue is doubtful with a considerable balance against the
supposed inheritance of acquired characters.

Very recently evidence has, indeed, been adduced to prove that
"Initiative in animal evolution comes by stimulation, excitation and
response in new conditions, and is followed by repetition of these
phenomena until they result in structural modifications, transmitted and
directed by selection and the law of genetics." The student who tenders
this evidence is Dr. Walter Kidd[12] who claims that his observations of
the growth of the hair of the harness-horse prove that the prolonged
friction caused by the harness produces heritable effects in the pattern
of the hairy coat of this animal. It is admitted by this observer that
such momentary and acute stimuli as are involved in the mutilation of
the human body by boring holes in the ears, knocking out teeth, and by
circumcision, which practices have been followed by so-called savages
during long ages, seldom, if ever, lead to inherited characters, but he
maintains that the effect of prolonged friction by the collar on the
hair on the under side of the neck of the harness-horse has produced
marks or patterns in the same place on certain young foals born by these
horses.

These observations must, of course, be submitted to strict examination
before science will pronounce its opinion. Meanwhile I may be allowed
to cite what Dr. Kidd calls an "undesigned experiment," which to my mind
goes far to prove that the effects of prolonged friction on the human
body during many generations is not heritable. The custom followed by
many Bantu tribes of producing in their women an elongation of the
genital parts by constant manipulation must have been practiced during
very many generations, certainly much longer than the comparatively
recent harnessing of horses in England, for we know how tenaciously
primitive people cling to their old customs, generation after
generation, for thousands of years, and yet no instance has ever been
noticed by these people, who are very observant in these matters, of any
sign of such an inherited characteristic in any of their female
children.

The ordinary layman, though he may feel strongly interested in the
problems of heredity and evolution, has seldom the leisure or the
opportunity for the careful study of biological data, and he must
therefore leave these to the specialists in scientific enquiry, but he
is by no means precluded from using his own common-sense in drawing
conclusions from the ordinary plain facts of life observable around him.
It is when we come to consider this most important question in its
bearing upon the mental side of the human being that the ordinary layman
feels himself to be no less competent to form an opinion than the
trained man of science.

Is it possible, then, we ask, for the parent whose intellect has been
developed through training in his lifetime to transmit to his children
any portion of this acquired increment of mental capacity, or, putting
the question in more concrete terms, is it possible for a parent to
transmit to his offspring any part of that power to increase the size
and quality of the brain which may be assumed to have resulted in his
own case from mental exercise? The question must not be misunderstood.
We do not ask whether clever parents do as a rule have clever children;
what we want to know is whether the successive sharpening of the wits of
generations of people does, or does not, eventually result in
establishing a real and cumulative asset of mental capacity.

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