Blood-Brotherhood is a pact of alliance formed between two persons by a ritual act in which each swallows the blood of the other. The pact is one of mutual assistance and is backed by powerful sanctions. It may bind only the two participants to certain obligations, or it may also involve the social groups of which they are members. Alliances based on exchange of blood have been recorded from many parts of the world, especially from Africa where they are exceedingly common. In some tribes the participants drink one another's blood directly from incisions made on their bodies, while in other tribes the blood is swallowed on a piece of meat or ground-nut or coffee-berry. But though the actual method of consumption varies in different cultures the purpose of the rite is always the same, and there is often much similarity between the ways in which it is carried out. Blood-brotherhood is not only widespread throughout Africa but it is also a ceremony which a European may inquire into easily and may even take part in without involving himself in social difficulties. It is the more surprising therefore that descriptive records of the ceremony by which the pact is formed and of the obligations which it entails are so scanty.

The BaKxatla baxaKxafêla belong to the Sotho cluster of Southern Bantu peoples. They lived originally in the Rustenberg district of the Transvaal, where many of them are still found; but in 1869 the main body of the tribe, owing to trouble with the local Dutch authorities, crossed the border into what is now Bechuanaland Protectorate. Here they are now settled in a proclaimed reserve approximately 3,600 sq. miles in extent. Much of their land, however, is arid, poorly watered, and of little practical value. Their population inside the Reserve may be estimated at about 12,000 souls. Two-thirds of them live in the large central town of Mochudi. The rest are distributed over nearly a dozen much smaller villages to the south and west, at distances of six to thirty miles from Mochudi.

The accuracy of a Census return is taken for granted in England; it is only when we turn to Africa that we realize how far it is the outcome of close and efficient administration, and of a people willing and able to do their part. The reader who passes from these fair-seeming tables to study the methods by which they were compiled, will conclude, all the more if he knows his Africa, that neither the will nor even the money are enough to obtain the information necessary for wise government. Africa presents us here with something of a vicious circle; knowledge cannot far outrun good administration; administration is therefore condemned to be empirical. Fortunately, however, the circle is not quite complete, and readers of Africa know that the Institute is doing its part to take advantage of the gap.

Die folgenden Ausführungen möhten als ein Versuch gewertet werden, wodurch mit dazu beigetragen werden sollte, dass die Aufgaben erkannt werden, die sich für die Missionskirchen innerhalb ders Länder der Bantu-Kultur ergeben. Denn neue Aufgaben sind dadurch erwachsen, dass Umwertungen und Umgestaltungen der gesellschaftlichen und wirtschaftlichen Lebensformen der Bantu eingeleitet worden sind. Diese sind mit bedingt durch die von den Missionen eingeführte christliche Eheform und das darauf aufzubauende Familienleben.

Sometimes I have an uneasy feeling after attending meetings or conferences connected with well-meaning, but not always wisely directed, efforts to better the lot of the African child. We good-intentioned folk would be well advised to find out something more about the system and ideas which African parents themselves practise or hold regarding this subject before we rush in to criticize, interfere with, or offer advice to those who in the long run are mainly responsible—namely, the childrens’ own parents. Too often, I fear, our attitude is to treat these parents as being themselves but poor, benighted, heathen children.