Fat Versus Sentiment

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_ By persons who had lived many years among the Colonial Hottentots, Fritsch was assured that these people, far from being the models of chastity Kolben tried to prove them, indulged in licentious festivals lasting several days, at which all restraints were cast aside. And this brings us back to our starting-point--Dr. Jakobowski's peculiar argument concerning the "love poems" which he feels sure must be sung at the erotic dances of the natives, though they are carefully concealed from the missionaries. If they were poems of sentiment, the missionaries would not disapprove, and there would be no reason for concealing them; but the foregoing remarks show clearly enough what kind of "love" they would be likely to sing about. If any doubt remained on the subject the following delightful confession, which the eugolist Hahn makes in a moment of confidence, would settle the matter. To appreciate the passage, bear in mind that the Hottentots are the people among whom excessive posterior corpulence (steatopyga) is especially admired as the acme of physical attractions. Now Hahn says:

"The young girls drink whole cups of liquid fat, and
for a good reason, the object being to attain a very
rotund body by a fattening process, in order that Hymen
may claim them as soon as possible. They do not grow
sentimental and sick from love and jealousy, nor do
they die from the anguish and woes of love, as our
women do, nor engage in love-intrigues, but they look
at the whole matter in a very materialistic and sober
way. _Their sole love-affair is the fattening process,
on the result of which, as with a pig, depends the
girl's value and the demand for her._"

In this last sentence, which I have taken the liberty to italicize, lies the philosophy of African "love" in general, and I am glad to be able to declare it on such unquestionable authority. What a Hottentot "regards" in a woman is _Fat_; _Sentiment_ is out of the question. When Hottentots are together, says Kolben,

"you never see them give tender kisses or cast loving
glances at each other. Day and night, on every
occasion, they are so cold and so indifferent to each
other that you would not believe that they love each
other or are married. If in a hut there were twenty
Hottentots with their wives, it would be impossible to
tell, either from their words or actions, which of them
belonged together." _

Read next: South African Love-Poems

Read previous: Hottentot Coarseness

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