The Bantu knew of no other periods in reckoning time than the day and the lunar month, and could describe events only as happening before or after some remarkable occurrence, such as the death of a chief, a season of famine, or an unusually heavy flood. The rising of the Pleiades shortly after sunset was regarded as indicating the planting season. To this constellation, as well as to several of the prominent stars and planets, they gave expressive names. They formed no theories concerning the nature of the heavenly bodies and their motions, and were not given to thinking of such things. In later times, if questioned by a European, they might venture to remark that the sky was smoke which had risen from fires, but in such cases it would be evident that the effort to find a solution to a query of this kind was new to them.

They had no knowledge of letters or of any signs by which ideas could be expressed. There were old men who professed to be acquainted with the deeds of the past, and who imparted their knowledge to the young, but their accounts of distant times seldom corresponded in details. They touched lightly upon defeats sustained by their own tribe, but dilated upon all its victories. In the traditions of each independent community a particular chief, usually the second or third in descent from the founder, was invariably represented as having conferred extraordinary benefits upon his people.