File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1998/marxism-international.9801, message 166


Date: Fri, 09 Jan 1998 14:44:09 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Engels on speedy Kaffirs


...The Zulus a few years ago and the Nubians a few months ago -- both of
them tribes in which gentile institutions have not yet died out -- did what
no European army can do. Armed only with lances and spears, without
firearms, under a hail of bullets from the breech-loaders of the English
infantry-acknowledged the best in the world at fighting in close order --
they advanced right up to the bayonets and more than once threw the lines
into disorder and even broke them, in spite of the enormous inequality of
weapons and in spite of the fact that they have no military service and
know nothing of drill. Their powers of endurance and performance are shown
by the complaint of the English that a Kaffir travels farther and faster in
twenty-four hours than a horse. His smallest muscle stands out hard and
firm like whipcord, says an English painter.

That is what men and society were before the division into classes. And
when we compare their position with that of the overwhelming majority of
civilized men today, an enormous gulf separates the present-day proletarian
and small peasant from the free member of the old gentile society.

That is the one side. But we must not forget that this organization was
doomed. It did not go beyond the tribe...

(From Chap. 3 of "Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State"

************

OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY: Kaffir

Kaffir (k=E6f(r)); prop.

Kafir

Kafir (kfr), sb. and a. Also kaffer, kaffir, kafir, kaffre; and see caffre.

[a. Arab. kafir infidel: see caffre.]

A. sb. 1. = caffre 1, `infidel', Giaour.

1790 J. Bruce Trav. IV. viii. ix. 497 Why did not you tell those black
Kafrs..to stay a little longer.

1814 Southey Roderick v. 198 A Moor came by, and seeing him [the Goth],
exclaimed Ah, Kaffer! worshipper of wood and stone. 

1865 Daily Tel. 23 Oct. 5/1 Mecca..if the Moslems would permit..a `kaffir'
to come there.

2. a. = caffre 2; one of a South African race belonging to the B=E2ntu
family. Also attrib., and as the name of their language. Also, usu.
disparagingly, with reference to any Black African; transf., as a term of
opprobrium, a white man who associates with or is thought to favour Black
Africans.

1792 E. Riou tr. J. van Reenen's Jrnl. Journey from Cape Good Hope 22 We
saw several Kaffers.

1801 Monthly Rev. XXXV. 346 The incursions of the tribe of people called
Kaffers.

1834 Boyce (title) Grammar of the Kaffir Language.

1852 Godlonton & Irving Narr. Kaffir War iii. xv. 180 The other
teachers..who could speak Kaffir.

1857 Chambers's Inform. People II. 294/2 The Kafirs, a race strikingly
different both from Hottentots and negroes. The Kafir nation consists of
numerous sections.

1890 Pall Mall G. 15 May 3/1, I asked questions about the Kafir voter. 1926
S. G. Millin S. Africans 209 In the old days..men, thrusting their
ancestry, their traditions.completely behind them, became what people
sometimes call in South Africa `white Kafirs'. They merged themselves with
the natives, stayed for ever with the wives they had bought and with their
African children.

1949 [see Hotnot].

1949 Cape Argus 9 July 3/5 `Did you think he was a perfectly reliable
person to give information to?'-`I would have given the statement to a
Kaffir if someone had sent a Kaffir along.'

1959 New Statesman 2 May 62/3 How, for instance, does one describe negroid
South Africans? The early missionary word `kaffir', meaning heathen, has
become a term of abuse.

1960 Cape Times 6 Sept. 7 A mob which swore at the police, called them
`white Kafirs', and hurled bottles at them.

1961 L. van der Post Heart of Hunter i. iii. 62 Kaffir is the term used by
Europeans to describe all black people in Africa irrespective of their race
and origin.

1967 [see coolie, cooly 2 b].

1973 Deb. Senate S. Afr. 17 May 2777 When we.were young people the word
`kaffir' meant nothing more than to indicate a Black man... It has
deteriorated to such an extent that it offends people with a dark coloured
skin and..we try to avoid it.

1973 Deb. Senate S. Afr. 2798, I have heard people when I visit a farm call
out `Kaffir' and a wife appears, and he says `my kaffir, prepare food for
us'..; but, if I called my friend the hon. Senator.., `You are a kaffir',
then it has another meaning.

b. pl. The Stock Exchange term for South African mine shares. Also attrib.

1889 Rialto 23 Mar. (Farmer), Tintos climbed to 121/4, and even Kaffirs
raised their sickly heads.

1895 Daily News 2 Apr. 2/2 Dealers in the Kaffir market.

1895 Nation (N.Y.) 19 Dec. 451/2 The mines floated on the London Stock
Exchange which are classed under the general head of `Kaffirs'.

1899 H. Frederic Market Place 32 It was one of the men I've been talking
about-one of those Kaffir scoundrels.


B. adj. S. Afr. slang. Bad, unreliable.

1934 'N. Giles' Ridge of White Waters ii. vii. 266 `Another kaffir
bargain!' said Sir Alfred wearily. 

1961 Spectator 14 July 53 `That was a real Kaffir shot.'..This..was the
first time I had come across Kaffir, adj.: bad, clumsy, inferior..etc.

Hence Kaffirhood; Kaffirize v.

1858 Compend. Kafir Laws and Cust., Mount Cope, Brit. Kaffraria 166 A
Kafirized form of some tribal name given by the Hottentots. 

1877 J. A. Chalmers Tiyo Soga xxi. 435 He was disposed to glory in his
Kafirhood.
------------------------------------------
The text of the Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. is Copyright by Oxford
University Press. This web presentation is Copyright by the Trustees of
Columbia University in the City of New York.

Louis Proyect



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