Native African War Dance, 1890

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Kaffir war dance. A war dance is a dance involving mock combat, usually in reference to tribal warrior societies where such dances were performed as a ritual connected with endemic warfare. The word was used to describe all black people in the region, including the San and Khoi Khoi, at the time of Europeans' first contact with them. This included many ethnic groups, such as the Zulu, Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana and others. The term was also used by early Boer trek farmers to describe a person not converted to Christianity, similar to the Arabic meaning. The word was used officially in this way, without derogatory connotations, during the Dutch and British colonial periods until the early 20th century. Image taken from page 83: Stanley and Africa by Henry Morton Stanley, 1890.

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