Kaffirs (also spelt Kaffirs and Caffres), a well-marked division of the Bantu family of the Negro race, inhabiting the districts now known as Swaziland, Zululand, the South African Republic, Orange Free State, Natal, the Cape Colony dependency of Pondoland, Griqualand East, Tembuland, and Transkei. They embrace two main divisions, the Zulus (q.v.) and the Kaffirs proper. The word 'Kaffir' is a corrupt form of the Arab 'Káfir,' meaning 'unbeliever,' and was borrowed from the African Mohammedans by the Portuguese, and from them by the Dutch and English. The Kaffirs proper never at any time formed one united race, but have always been split up into a number of tribes, the most influential of which have been the Ama-Tembu, the Ama-Xosa (represented by the Gealekas and the Gaikas), and the Ama-Mpondo. Of these the first named are the tribe of royal blood, though the greatest power has always been in the hands of the Gealeka chief. The Kaffirs are a fine, stalwart race of men, well made, muscular, and tall. Their skin varies in colour from light brown to sepia black. The racial characteristics depart more and more from the strict Negro type the farther the tribe lies to the south. Yet in all the nose is broad, the lips thick, and the hair woolly; but it does not grow in tufts, as is generally asserted. They are fond of decorating their persons with beads, shells, and feathers, and they protect their skins from the sun by rubbing them with fat and red clay, which makes them look like polished bronze. The women, upon whom devolves the hard labour of cultivating the fields, are individually of inferior physique to the men. The principal article of dress is a tanned ox-skin; but for this many have within recent years substituted a blanket. They live in beehive-shaped huts, grouped in kraals or villages. These huts are formed of strong wicker-work frames thatched with reeds and grass, the largest about 25 feet in diameter and 7 or 8 feet high in the centre. They are a pastoral people, the chief occupations of the men being stock-breeding and hunting; but in quite recent times the cultivation of the soil has begun to extend amongst them. The care of cattle is the most honourable employment, and belongs entirely to men. They formerly worked in both iron and copper, and were not unskilful in pottery and wood-work. The principal articles of food are milk, maize, and millet. Youths are circumcised at fifteen or sixteen, living thereafter for a couple of months by themselves; the entrance into womanhood is marked by the ntonjane, a dancing festival closing a period of seclusion. They practise polygamy, but the wives are not of equal rank, and cannot belong to the same tribal name as the husband. The custom known as ukuhlonipa prohibits females from pronouncing the names of any of their husband's male relatives in the ascending line, or any words whatever in which the principal syllables of such names occur—a usage which leads to the women using different words from the men almost to the extent of a different dialect. The three clicks of the Ama-Xosa, usually represented by the superfluous letters, c, q, and x, are easily sounded separately by Europeans, but are insurmountably difficult to the adult in combination. The religious instinct has never been very strongly developed amongst this people, and their rites consist merely in sacrifices to appease the malignant spirits on every hand. Their supreme being, Qainata, is indifferent to man, and is seldom invoked in prayer. Snakes are treated with great respect, being regarded as a favourite form assumed by ancestral spirits. The belief in witchcraft is deeply rooted, and the witch-doctor is generally a person of great influence in the tribe. The original fine moral qualities of the Kaffirs—hospitality, honesty, and truthfulness—have been greatly contaminated through contact with vicious Europeans. At the same time Christian missions have made considerable progress, and the well-known unsectarian mission settlement of Lovedale (opened 1841), so generously supported by the Free Church of Scotland, with its offshoot, Blythswood, 120 miles distant, in the Transkei, has already brought thousands of natives within the range of its influence. The Kaffirs have ever been notable for their bravery. In war they arm themselves with ox-lide shields, about 5 feet long, wooden clubs with heavy heads, and assegais. Politically they are organised in a number of tribes, each subject to a hereditary chief, whose power is supreme. Yet one chief was recognised as paramount of all the tribes.
Partly owing to the war-loving propensities of the Kaffirs, and partly to their cattle-lifting raids and disputes with the colonists about cattle, Kaffir wars have been frequent. In 1780 the Great Fish River was declared the boundary of Cape Colony to the east, but the Kaffir incursions became so troublesome that in 1810-11 they had to be driven back behind the Fish River by force of arms.
After a similar little war, undertaken for a similar reason, in 1819, during which the Kaffirs made an unsuccessful attack upon Graham's Town, the boundary was advanced eastwards to the Kat River. But peace was constantly being broken. In 1834 the first of the greater Kaffir wars broke out, and lasted until the following year. But, although the enemy were repulsed and their territories up to the Kei River annexed by the colonial government, the annexation was not ratified by the home authorities until the termination of the next war (1846-48). The conquered districts were called British Kaffraria, and from 1853 to 1865 formed a separate crown-colony; but in the last-quoted year British Kaffraria was incorporated in Cape Colony. The power of the chiefs was nevertheless still unbroken: in 1850 the turbulent Gaikas, who had waged most of the former wars, in conjunction with the rest of the Ama-Xosa and the Ama-Tembu tribes, and a large body of revolted Hottentots, once more invaded the colony, but after a struggle of nearly three years were successfully driven back. In 1856 the frontier districts were settled by the men of the German legion who had fought in the Crimea, nearly 2500 in number. The last war broke out in 1877: the Gealekas took up arms, and were joined by the Gaikas, and eventually the Zulus also entered the fray (see ZULUS). The war ended in the overthrow of the power of the Kaffir chiefs, and the gradual incorporation of their territory in the Cape Colony. By 1888 all Kaffraria up to the frontiers of Natal, with the single exception of East Pondoland—which, however, was a British protectorate—had been included within the bounds of the Cape Colony.
The Ama-Fengus, or Fingoes, are the remnants of broken Kaffir tribes; they are despised by the organised Kaffir races, and but for the protection of the British would probably be little better than slaves to them. They have always been loyal to their protectors, and live scattered from Zululand to Cape Colony.
See G. Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas (1872); grammars of the Kaffir language by Bleek (1869) and Colenso (1855); Chase and Wilmot's History of the Cape of Good Hope (1869); G. M'Call Theal's Kaffir Folklore [1882], and History of South Africa (1888); and G. de Rialle, Les Peuples de l'Afrique (1880).