The Beginning of South African History

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. DESCRIPTION OF THE RANTU (continued). The Bantu were agriculturists. Millet of several varieties, all now called by Europeans kaffir-corn, was the grain exclusively grown. They raised large quantities of this, which they used either boiled or bruised into paste from which a very insipid kind of...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. DESCRIPTION OF THE RANTU (continued). The Bantu were agriculturists. Millet of several varieties, all now called by Europeans kaffir-corn, was the grain exclusively grown. They raised large quantities of this, which they used either boiled or bruised into paste from which a very insipid kind of bread was made. In good seasons much millet was converted into beer. It was steeped in water until it began to sprout, then dried in the sun, and afterwards partly crushed in wooden mortars made by hollowing the end of a block of wood about three feet high. Two women, standing by the mortar, stamped the contents with heavy wooden pestles, keeping time with the strokes and usually lightening their labour by chanting some meaningless words. The malt was then boiled, and leaven mixed with it to cause it to ferment. Sometimes a bitter root was added to flavour it. It could be made so weak as to form a harmless and refreshing beverage, or so strong as to be intoxicating. In the latter case unmalted corn was crushed and mixed with water, which was then boiled, and malt was added afterwards until it was almost as thick as gruel, and to a European palate would have been nauseating. Millet beer was largely consumed at feasts of all kinds. It was used as soon as it ceased fermenting, for it speedily became sour. Some women were reputed to be able to make it much better than others, and on that account their services were largely in demand. In some parts of the country an intoxicating drink was also made from honey, which was plentiful in the season of flowers. More pernicious was the custom of smoking the dried leaves of wild hemp, which had the effect of producing violent coughing, followed by stupefaction. The usual pipe was a horn, but sometimes the smoke was inhaled through a ..