Anthropological notes on Bantu natives from Portuguese East Africa / by G.D. Maynard and G.A. Turner.

  • Maynard, George Darell, 1876-1923.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Anthropological notes on Bantu natives from Portuguese East Africa / by G.D. Maynard and G.A. Turner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    and customs with the Lomwes, but are not tatooed to the same extent. The Arab influence among them has been considerable. They are tall, but otherwise not physically a fine race, and on the liaud show A'ery little resistance to disease. They are chietly engaged in agriculture, trading ground nuts to the Indian storekeepers; they are, however, lazy, and at times neglect their crops, so that they suffer unnecessarily from famine. The district of Quilimane can be divided into four areas, namely: — Lomwe, hligher M'Locque, Lower AI’Locque, and Maganja da Costa. The natives in the Lomwe district are of poor physique. On two occasions in recent years they have been almost annihilated by famine and disease. They are exceedingly lazy, and will not take the trouble to plant crojjs, and even when this has been done, frequently neglect to harvest them. The inhabitants of Higher, and Lower AI’Locque are very little superior to the Lomwes. Natives from the district of Alaganja da Costa are a much finer race than those just referred to. They are a coastal tribe of superior physique and intelligence. The above brief sketch of the various native races comprising the population dealt with in our records is not put forward with any claim to accuracy of detail, which it is exceedingly difficult to obtain even if at all possible. Our only object in touching on this matter here is to give the reader—unacquainted with the conditions among these races—some idea of the nature of the material, and to demonstrate the futility of attempting to regard any tribe as a pure strain even if only for a few generations. Nevertheless, there are very marked dift'ei'ences between the natives from tropical districts, and those coming from south of latitude 22° S., and when we come to sub-divide these groups, differences are still discernable though to a less extent. We reproduce drawings bj Miss 0. M. Vieich of native faces. These “ boys ” were chosen by Mr. Lloyd as typical of the race they represent; they further serve to illustrate the facial markings which are so noticeable a feature among many Bantu tribes. We wish here to record our thanks; to Mr. 13. G. Lloyd, General Manager of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, for reading through the manuscript of this part of our pa])er, and for giving us much valuable advice, and further, for allowing us to reproduce the drawings referred to above: and also to Mr. W. C. A. Shepherd, Chief Agent of the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association in Mocambique, for sending us notes on the natives of this district, from which we have quoted freely. We can now turn to an examination of the actual records of the data obtained at the post-mortem examinations, on these natives, conducted in Johannesburg.