1: Joao Baptista Lavanha, 1597

It being now late, the chief of that region, who had heard from some of his Kaffirs [1] that our people were there, came with about sixty Negroes to visit the Captain-major. When he drew near, Nuno Velho got up and went a few steps to receive him, and the Negro, after welcoming him by saying 'Nanhatá, Nanhatá,' as a sign of peace and friendship laid his hand on the Captain-major's beard and after stroking it kissed his own hand. All the other barbarians performed the same courtesy to our people, and ours to them. This Negro was called Luspance. He was fairly tall, well made, of a cheerful countenance, not very black, with a short beard , long moustaches, and appeared to be about forty-five years old . ...

The dress of these Kaffirs was a mantle of calf-skins, with the hair on the outside, which they rub with grease to make soft. They are shod with two or three soles of raw hide fastened together in a round shape, secured to the foot with thongs and with this they run with great speed. They carry in their hand a thin stick to which is fastened the tail of an ape or of a fox, with which they clean themselves and shade their eyes when observing. This dress is used by nearly all the Negroes of this Kaffraria, and the kings and chiefs wear hanging from their left ear a little copper bell, without a clapper, which they make after their fashion .

These and all the other Kaffirs are herdsmen and husbandmen, by which means they subsist. Their husbandry is millet, is white, about the size of a peppercorn, and forms the ear of a plant which resembles a reed in shape and size. This millet, ground between two stones or in wooden mortars, they make flour, and of this they make cakes, which they bake under the embers. Of the same grain they make wine, mixing it with a lot of water, which after being fermented in a clay jar, cooled off, and turned sour, they drink with great gusto.

Their cattle are numerous, fat, tender, tasty, and large, the pastures being very fertile. Most of them are polled cows [2] in whose number and abundance their wealth consists. They also subsist on their milk and on the butter which they make from it.

They live together in small villages, in huts made of reed mats, which do not keep out the rain. These huts are round and low, and if any person dies in one of them, all the other huts and the whole village are pulled down, and they make others from the same material in another place, believing that in the village where their neighbor or died , everything will turn out unluckily. And thus, to themselves this trouble, when anyone falls ill they carry him into the bush, so that if he dies it may be outside their huts. They surround their huts with a fence, within which they keep their cattle. 

They sleep in skins of animals, on the earth, in a narrow pit measuring six or seven spans long and one or two deep. They use vessels of clay dried in the sun, and also of wood carved with some iron hatchets, which resemble a wedge set in a piece of wood,  and they also use these for clearing the bush. In war, they make use of assegais [slender spears]; and they have gelded whelps [3] about the shape and size of our large curs.

They are very brutish and worship nothing, and thus they would receive our holy Christian faith very easily. They believe that the sky is another world like this one in which we live, inhabited by another kind of people, who cause the thunder by running and the rain by urinating. Most of the inhabitants of this land from latitude 29° southwards are circumcised. They are very sensual and have as many wives as they can maintain , of whom they are jealous . They obey chiefs whom they call Ancosses.

The language is almost the same in the whole of Kaffraria, the difference between them resembling that between the languages of Italy, or between the ordinary ones of Spain. They seldom go far away from their villages, and thus they know and hear nothing except what concerns their neighbours. They are very covetous, and so long as they have not received payment they will serve, but if payment is made in advance no service is to be expected of them, for when they have received it they make off with it.

They value the most essential metals, such as iron and copper, and thus for very small pieces of either of these they will barter cattle, which is what they most prize, and with cattle they drive their trade and commerce, and cattle forms their treasure . Gold and silver have no have no value among them, nor does there appear to be either of these two metals in the country, for our people saw no signs of them in the regions through which they passed. 

The above is all they noticed of the dress, customs, ceremonies, and laws of these Kaffirs, nor can there be more to take note of among so barbarous a people ....