CRAP. V1.] EANDAS AND OMAKURU. 115
double, because there is one at Omaruru, and another near Omutchamatunda), and out of this tree came Damaras, Bushmen, oxen, and zebras. The Damaras lit a Ere, which frightened away the Bushmen and the zebras ; but the oxen remained. Hence it is that Bushmen and wild beasts live together in all sorts of inaccessible places, while the Damaras and the oxen possess the land. The tree gave birth to everything else that lives ; but has not been prolific of late years. It is of no use waiting by the side of the tree in hopes of capturing such oxen and sheep as it might bear.
Again, notwithstanding that everything comes out of the tree, men have in some separate manner a special origin or " eanda." There are six or seven eandas, and each eanda has some peculiar rites. The tribes do not correspond with the eandas, as men of every descent are to be found in each tribe. The chiefs of tribes have some' kind of sacerdotal authority-more so than a military one. They bless the oxen; and their daughters sprinkle the fattest ones with a brush dipped in water every morning as they walk out of the kraal.
They have no expectation of a future state; yet they pray over the graves of their parents for oxen and sheep,-fat ones, and of the right colour. There is hardly a particle of romance, or affection, or poetry, in their character or creed ; but they are a greedy, heartless, silly set of savages.
Independently of the tree and the eanda, there is also Omakuru ; he can hardly be called a deity, though he gives and withholds rain. He is buried in several different places, at all of which he is occasionally prayed to.
The Damaras have a vast number of small superstitions, but these are all stupid, and often very gross ; and there is not much that is characteristic in them. Messengers are greased before they set out on a journey, and greased again when they come back ; of one sort of ox only grown men eat ; out of one particular calabash of milk only grown men drink, and so on ad infinitum. A new-born child is washed -the only time he is ever washed in his life-then dried and greased, and the ceremony is over. Some time during boyhood the lads are circumcised, but at no particular age. Marriage takes place at what appears to be the ages of fifteen or sixteen, but as the Damaras keep no count of years it is scarcely possible to be certain of their ages; my impression was that the Damaras were not so precocious as black people usually are. The teeth are chipped with a flint when the
