THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

(who had arrived in the country only from 1820 onwards) on the other hand. But they particularlywrestled with the future pattern as to the relationship between all of the White people on the onehand (whether they normally spoke English or Afrikaans) and all of the various Black peoples ofSouth Africa on the other.At that time, about one-quarter of the people in South Africa were White. About three-fifths wereBlack (divided into a dozen major tribes). The rest were Coloureds, Indians, and Aboriginals. Sincethen, the White percentage has constantly diminished.There were then (and still are) tribes and differences , between the various Black nations. This wasnot really a problem at all back in 1910 -- because the Black peoples, at least at that time, were stillquite primitive. But it was foreseen that they would develop.Particularly as they became more christianised and more civilised, the country could head in thedirection of the ultimate integration and absorption of these huge numbers of Blacks into the fabricof White society. Inevitably, South Africa would then cease being a Western nation -- and insteadbecome a Black nation with some vestiges of Western influence.On the other hand, the future direction of South Africa could instead involve some kind ofsegregation between Whites on the one hand and Blacks on the other -- hopefully leading to anultimate policy of good neighbourliness. The Whites could then preserve their Western culture, andthe Blacks their own culture.Both of them would hopefully then be Christian nations by that time. Thereafter they wouldbecome more and more sanctified, until ultimately co-existing as good neighbours -- not mixed upwith one another, but existing alongside of one another. They would then help one another andborrow from and lend to one another -- on a basis of formal equality.In the interim, there would obviously be many problems -- as Christian or Semi-Christian Whitesextended civilisation in South Africa among the various groups of then-hardly-evangelised Blackpeople. We now give an example of this.A little before this time, a very interesting situation took place. There was a group of Black peoplecalled the Venda. They lived and still live in a very beautiful area of South Africa -- in what is nowthe northeast of the Transvaal. It is an area rather more mountainous and well-watered than muchof the rest of the country (which is largely desert).The Venda people, who are Black, were and are very different the other Black groups surroundingthem to the north and the east and the west. The White South Africans were to the south of them.The Venda people found themselves on the receiving end from more aggressive and unsympatheticBlack people to the north, so the Venda appealed to the White South African Republic to protectthem against the Black tribes to the north that were then giving them a difficult time. Thus theWhite Christian South African Republic extended its control over Vendaland, establishing it as a defacto Protectorate. But at this point, the difficulties began.The Venda were pagans at that time. They then had a rather obnoxious practice. When the girls ofthe village reached puberty (as a "class"), the local witch doctor would shake his dice and thenpoint to one of these girls of the group. She would then be required to bear the "sins" of the wholeclass.This poor unfortunate girl was thereupon required to have sexual intercourse with her own father infront of the onlooking villagers. After that, she was picked up and tossed to the local "holy