Note 560 — Chapter II · GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SLAVERY.

Viehe remarks, that slavery in the proper sense does not exist among the Ovaherero. But captive children are reared among them and regarded as making part of the low domestics, so to speak as serfs. These serfs are, most of them, Damaras of the mountains. They do the same kind of work as the Ovaherero. Many of them, when full-grown, acquire wealth and are on a footing of equality with the Ovaherero themselves. “The serfs live entirely without supervision and can at any time return to their free compatriots.” The serfs, as well as the servants of Ovaherero origin, are designated by a native name, originally meaning foreigner, but that has become to mean servant. In another place our informant states, that every individual is called a servant, when compared with a person of higher standing560.