The early Cape Hottentots

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Foreword.

The manuscript account of the Cape and its native peoples, the original text of which is here for the first time printed, was purchased at the sale of the Sunderland library in 1882 by the late Mr. C.A. Fairbridge, who subsequently presented it to the South African Public Library, Cape Town, where it now is. A small quarto volume of 120 pages, neatly bound in vellum, it is evidently the copy of a letter written to an (unnamed) clergyman in Holland, and is dated 1695. How it got into the Sunderland library is not known.

Its author, Johannes Gulielmus de Grevenbroek (as he usually signs himself), was born in Holland about 1644. Of his early life the only facts he reveals are that he visited Italy in 1673, and had also been to Madrid. There is, however, good reason to believe that he was employed at home for some time as a clerical assistant in the Rotterdam Chamber of the Dutch East India Company. In June 1684 he sailed to the Cape in the Company's service, and in October, soon after his arrival, he was promoted to be Secretary of the local Council of Policy. He seems to have accompanied the Commissioner Ryklof van Goens to India almost immediately afterwards, and did not take up his regular duties until after his return (1686). A large number of the official records for the next few years have preserved for us his beautifully clear handwriting and decorative signature. He served as Secretary until June, 1694, when he resigned voluntarily, and went to live at Stellenbosch as a free burgher. Adam Tas, in his famous Diary (1705-6), on several occasions mentions Grevenbroek, then an elder of the Church, but does not tell us much about him. It is evident, though, from stray remarks in this book, that Grevenbroek was on the whole sympathetic with the movement of the discontented farmers against Governor Adriaan van der Stel, although his name is not attached to their memorandum of complaints addressed to the Chamber of Seventeen.

His will, signed at Welmoed, Eerste River, on February 3, 1714, when in his seventieth year, shows him to have been a careful man of business and a grateful friend. Apparently he never married, for there is no reference in it to wife or family. The bulk of his estate, after various legacies to friends and acquaintances in both Holland and the Cape, is left to a certain Isak Schepers. The date of

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his death is not known, but it must have occured some time before 1726, when his will was filed with the Cape Orphan Chamber (Cape Archives O.C. 4 No. 14). In it he directed that his body should be buried not in church or churchyard, but in the courtyard of the house where he died; and he chose as his own epitaph the words: ‘Hic exspectat resurrectionem J.G. de Grevenbroek C.F.’

That Grevenbroek had been engaged in compiling an account of the Cape and the Hottentots seems to have been fairly well known during his lifetime. The earliest reference to his work appears in Peter Kolb's Caput Bonae Spei Hodiernum (Nürnberg, 1719), the most detailed and serviceable treatise we have on the early Cape Hottentots. In discussing the Hottentot customs relating to the Mantis, Kolb says: ‘For long I did not know what to call this insect, as I had never seen it, nor could I believe that they worshipped such an insignificant creature, although I had occasionally heard this stated. At last Mr. Johann Wilhelm de Grevenbroek, a man of remarkable industry, understanding and knowledge, who after serving several renowned ambassadors had finally come here as Political Secretary to the Illustrious Company, taught me from the notes, which he had likewise made concerning the Hottentots during his residence here, that this insect was really a sort of beetle’ (p. 416). There is no other mention of Grevenbroek in the whole of Kolb's work.

Valentyn's Beschryvinge van de Kaap der Goede Hoope (Amsterdam, 1726) tells us more about these ‘notes’ of Grevenbroek's. Writing of the Hottentots, Valentyn says: ‘I have seen a Latin treatise by Mr. Secretary Grevenbroek, who had taken the trouble to write an elaborate and able account not only of their manners and customs, but also of their language; this treatise he allowed me to read in Stellenbosch in 1705’ (p. 106). He adds that from it he learned about the dialectical differences of the local native languages as illustrated by the forms of the numerals; and also extracted a small Latin-Hottentot-Dutch vocabulary, which he then prints (pp. 106-8).

There is no further mention of Grevenbroek's work until 1763, when in his posthumous Journal historique du Voyage fait au Cap de Bonne-Espérance the Abbé de la Caille, who was at the Cape from 1751 to 1753, violently attacked Kolb as unreliable and inaccurate, and went on to assert that everything Kolb had written about the Hottentots was derived from Grevenbroek. ‘M. Grevenbroek, ... an extraordinary man,’ says de la Caille, ‘had made some researches into the manners and customs of the Hottentots. After his death his papers were sent to Kolb, who pieced them together without any skill or judgement. This I was

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told by the most intelligent local residents, especially the Governor, M. Grand-Pré and M. Dessin’ (pp. 156-57). And again: ‘All that Kolb says in the rest of his book [i.e. concerning the Hottentots] is taken from the memoirs of a certain Grevenbroek, Secretary of the Council at the Cape, who had put into writing what the Hottentots whom he had seen had replied to his questions’ (p. 322).

The story of this alleged plagiarism is told at greater length by de la Caille's editor. Kolb, it is well known, had been sent to the Cape in 1705 to make astronomical observations, but by his incompetence soon lost the favour of his patrons. He lived for a while without any employment, and was then installed as Secretary to the Landdrost of Stellenbosch; but after a couple of years he was superseded, and returned to Germany in 1713. ‘Kolb's mission being almost over,’ says de la Caille's editor, ‘he discovered that during his stay at the Cape he had done nothing but drink and smoke. Not knowing what to report in Europe or to show as the fruits of his expedition, he applied to some residents of the Cape, who took advantage of the occasion to serve their own ends as well as his. These men had tried several times, always without success, to convey to Holland their complaints against the maladministration of the Colony. The memoirs on this subject which they had sent to the Estates-General in Holland had all been intercepted, and the Colony continued to groan beneath its oppression. They now conceived the idea of dictating to Kolb a description of the Cape; and in order to make it seem more interesting they collected all the current popular beliefs and palmed them off on to Kolb, who did not know the country, together with numerous marvellous details derived from their imagination. These oracles of Kolb's also lifted much of the matter in Grevenbroek's compilation, to which reference has already been made; nor did they ignore themselves in the course of the work, into which they inserted their observations on the government of the Cape, exposing all its iniquities and suggesting the means of remedy. These revelations, coming from a stranger, could be published without compromising anyone. Kolb, delighted at the service thus rendered to him, left the Cape with his work. He caused it to be printed in Holland, as a translation from the German. The book was read with astonishing avidity, and the edition soon sold out. The Dutch Government, roused by what was said in it concerning the state of affairs at the Cape, made inquiries which confirmed Kolb's report. The principal officers of the settlement were recalled, and proceedings taken against them on their return,’ etc. (pp. 317-19).

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A somewhat similar story is told in greater detail by Mentzel in his Beschreibung des Vorgebirges der Guten Hoffnung (Glogau, 1785-7). After discussing Kolb's career at the Cape, he goes on to say: ‘We can note that Kolbe had very little time during his short period of office as Interim Secretary [at Stellenbosch] to travel over the country and to make topographical observations. He had certainly gathered much information and heard many stories from local inhabitants during his eight years' residence at the Cape, but without investigating whether these were authentic or legendary. Unexpectedly, Kolbe came into possession of a store of remarkable information that proved both interesting and useful. Herr Grevenbroek, a former Secretary to the Council of Justice, had made various notes about the Hottentots and other Cape peculiarities. Had he lived longer he would have undoubtedly studied more closely the subject-matter of his notes and arranged everything in proper order. On his death his notes were handed over to Kolbe, who thus acquired a rich collection of material, but bundled together higgledy-piggledy’ (Mandelbrote's translation, V.R. Soc., 4, p. 19).

I have thought it necessary to give these statements in full, as they have an important bearing upon the history of Grevenbroek's MSS. Let us first examine the charges against Kolb. The story consists of two parts: (a) that he was the medium through which the discontented farmers of the Cape brought their grievances against the Governor to the notice of the Dutch Government; (b) that Grevenbroek's MSS found their way into the hands of Kolb and were used by him as the basis of his description of the Hottentots. The first may at once be dismissed. The only possible event to which it could refer is the movement of the colonists against Adriaan van der Stel. The latter in consequence of a memorandum conveyed to Holland in 1706 by four of the disaffected burghers was recalled the following year. The whole affair was over within two years of Kolb's arrival at the Cape; and he stayed there for another six years. That his book, which in its Dutch translation (it was originally written in German) was not published until 1727, could have been instrumental in bringing about the recall of van der Stel twenty years previously is utterly ridiculous.

This does not of course do away with the charge that Kolb based his account of the Hottentots on Grevenbroek's manuscript. As we have seen, he himself admits having read it; and there is other evidence to suggest that he used it. His vocabulary of Hottentot words is almost identical with that quoted by Valentyn from Grevenbroek,

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and in all probability therefore was also derived from the same source; especially as Kolb says that he made some attempts to learn the Hottentot language and could never succeed. Moreover some of the statements he makes about Hottentot custom and belief are also found in Grevenbroek's account printed below, and nowhere else in contemporary descriptions of the Hottentots. The coincidences are occasionally too striking to be entirely due to independent observation.

The difficulty about accepting in its entirety the story told by de la Caille and Mentzel is that Grevenbroek was still alive when Kolb left the Cape. The latter can therefore hardly be held to have taken away with him the notes found in the dead Grevenbroek's effects. There is on the other hand no reason why Kolb could not during. Grevenbroek's lifetime have borrowed substantially from the latter's notes on the Hottentots, or even have received them all from him. We know from Valentyn that Grevenbroek allowed others to draw upon his manuscript, and we also know that both Grevenbroek and Kolb were living at Stellenbosch from 1710 to 1712. Certainly some suggestion of this sort is necessary to account for the total disappearance of Grevenbroek's later manuscript. It is evident from what both Kolb and Valentyn say that between 1705 and 1713 Grevenbroek was in possession of a detailed study of the Hottentots compiled by himself. The account here published is dated 1695, and appears to have been sent as a letter to a Dutch clergyman, who must have had it copied, for the manuscript is not in Grevenbroek's writing. That it cannot be the manuscript to which Kolb and Valentyn refer is evident not only from the date it bears, but also from the fact that it does not contain the long vocabulary on which Valentyn drew.

Now Grevenbroek himself hints at the end of this letter to a future study of the same sort in more detail. ‘I hope, nay, I am confident, that this slight sketch of the province and description of the country will soon be superseded, for the common good, by another of more powerful eloquence, fashioned in every line, truly and brilliantly, by the hand of a Lysippus.’ Is it going too far to suggest that Grevenbroek may many years later have seen in Kolb the new Lysippus, and willingly handed over to him the additional notes he had meanwhile compiled? It may reasonably be objected that if Kolb had thus acquired Grevenbroek's material he would have made full acknowledgment to the latter. It is on the other hand equally conceivable, though far less creditable to Kolb, that he may have deliberately suppressed this indebtedness in order to enhance his own reputation. That he was not too

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scrupulous about carrying out his obligations is evident enough from his career at the Cape.

All this, however, is pure speculation. The established facts are that in 1705 and later Grevenbroek had in his possession an account of the Hottentots written by himself; that this was never published under his name, and the manuscript seems to have disappeared; and that there is every reason to believe that Kolb actually made much fuller use of it than is suggested by the quotation given above in which he refers to Grevenbroek.

The manuscript here printed must be looked upon therefore as a preliminary draft of the presumably more detailed and now lost account. It is a very badly arranged piece of work, passing confusedly from one topic to another, with frequent irrelevancies and repetitions. Despite its title it is by no means devoted exclusively to the Hottentots. Towards the end there is a eulogistic account of the Cape's natural beauty and fruitfulness which would do credit to any modern publicity agent; the adventures of the ill-fated Guillaume Chenut and the survivors of the wrecked ‘Stavenisse’ (1686) take up far too much space; and running right through the whole is a violent denunciation of the European colonists coming very oddly from one who ten years later was held to be among the champions of their cause. The ethnographical information that makes up the rest is by no means all based on original research. A good deal of it, referring to the Ama-Xhosa, is taken directly from the accounts of the ‘Stavenisse’ survivors, which were copied into the official records of the Cape by Grevenbroek himself in his capacity as Secretary of the Council. He almost certainly made notes for his own use of their valuable and accurate information about the manners and customs of the natives, for there is a very close correspondence between his statements and the official records, although the literary embellishments in which he indulged compare most unfavourably with the simple narratives of the sailors. His account of the adventures undergone by the latter is much less accurate, and suggests that here he was writing from memory alone. In describing native customs, he does not always distinguish clearly between the AmaXhosa and the Hottentots, whom he obviously regarded as people of the same stock; but a comparison of his statements with the relevant ‘Stavenisse’ records makes it possible to disentangle his own contributions from those of the shipwrecked crew. The information relating to the Cape Hottentots alone does not make up more than about a third of the whole. But it is well worth having, particularly for the descriptions of various social customs, mode of life and warfare, ceremonial

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practices and treatment of disease. The details Grevenbroek gives in this connexion are often new and sometimes valuable, and show that he had managed to learn much about the Hottentots. Nevertheless, the reputation he has acquired as an outstanding ethnographical authority can only be based on the supposition that his later account formed the basis of Kolb's book. The present account, important as it is in some respects, is inferior both in quality and content not only to that of Kolb but also to that of Schreyer, and in arrangement to those of Dapper and Ten Rhyne.

I.S.