To the Muslims we are all
kafirs (Arabic for "infidel") but, when I was still a kid in South Africa in the late 1940s, we used to call black Africans
kafirs. In the 1950s
kafir was replaced with "native" because
kafir had come to be seen as a derogatory term. In the 1960s, with the implementation of the "native homelands" known as "Bantustans," "native" was replaced with Bantu. In the 1970s the American "Black consciousness" movement arrived in South Africa and the native South Africans began to call themselves "blacks" but the word
kafir was used up until the 1990s (when it became illegal to use the word in South Africa) as an adjective to describe many different South African flora and fauna. The Afrikaners spell the word with one
f and pronounce it with a long
a as "kahfir." The British spell the word "kaffir" and pronounce it with a short
a as "keffa."
Here's some info on the word
kafir from
Wikipedia:
By the 15th century, the word kafir/kuffar was used by Muslims in Africa to refer to the non-Muslim African natives. Many of those kuffar, who were enslaved and sold by their Muslims captors to European and Asian merchants, mainly from Portugal, who by that time had established trading outposts along the coast of West Africa. These European slave traders adopted that Arabic word to refer to their captives, and eventually changed it into many forms.
[...]
The earliest use of the term in English is by Richard Hakluyt in 1589, who used the name Caffar for the inhabitants of southern Africa, a region roughly coinciding with the present territories of Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Mozambique.
The word was used officially in this way, without derogatory connotations (apart from the implicit generalisation), during the Dutch and British colonial periods until the early twentieth century. It appears in many historical accounts by anthropologists, missionaries and other observers, as well as in academic writings. For example, the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford originally labelled many African artifacts as "Kaffir" in origin. For another example, the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica made frequent use of the term, even to the extent of having an article of that title.
[...]
Kaffraria was the descriptive name given to the southeast part of the Cape Province of South Africa. Kaffraria, i.e. the land of the Kaffirs, is no longer an official designation. It used to comprise the districts now known as King Williams Town and East London, which formed British Kaffraria, annexed to Cape Colony in 1865, and the territory beyond the Kei River south of the Drakensberg Mountains as far as the Natal frontier, known as Kaffraria proper.
The word was used thus:
The Kaffir Wars or Kafir Wars of South Africa which are now known as the Cape Frontier Wars.
Kitchen Kafir or Fanagalo, a pidgin or creole spoken in South Africa which is sometimes known as "kitchen Zulu" because it is derived mostly from that language.
Kaffirs, a nickname for shares of South African gold mining companies used in the London Stock Exchange.
Kaffir Duiker, a species of tiny antelope - the smallest in the world and so cute that all of us kids wanted one as a pet. "Duiker" is Afrikaans for diver. They are called that because they live on river banks and dive under water to escape.
Kaffir Finch ("Kafirvink"), the Red Bishop bird, Pyromelana oryx.
Kaffir Rail, the bird Rallus caerulescens.
Kafirlemoen or Kaffir watermelon, either of two species of melon, Citrullus caffer or C. vulgaris which we now know as the watermelon.
Kaffir orange, a shrub or small tree of the genus Strychnos pungens, or its fruit.
Kaffir tea, the plant Helichrysum nudifolium.
Kafir corn, an obsolete name for durra, a millet-like grain. This is a breakfast staple in South Africa. It looks like dark brown grits and has a delicious nutty flavor.
Kafirbrood or encephalartos is a genus of cycad native to Africa. Several species of Encephalartos are commonly referred to as bread palms or Kaffir bread since a bread-like starchy food can be prepared from the centre of the stem.
Kaffir date, Kaffir plum or Kaffir's scimitar tree, is a South African tree, Harpephyllum caffrum, family Anacardiaceae. When I was a kid growing up in Zululand, these were also known by the Zulu name - amatingulu - and grew everywhere. They are very tasty but have a sticky white sap which turns black on your lips.
(From Wikipedia:
Anacardiaceae is a family of 72 genera of flowering plants bearing fruits that are drupes. Some species produce the irritant urushiol. The type genus is Anacardium, the cashew. Other species included in this family are mango, poison ivy, sumac, smoke tree, and pistachio. The latter is sometimes placed in its own family, the Pistaciaceae.)
Kaffir tree, or Kafirboom is a South African leguminous tree, Erythrina caffra, known as Coral Tree in Hawaii to which it was imported and where it thrives (as do most South African plants.)
Kaffir lily is the name given to two distinct species: clivia miniata (sometimes known as Flame Lily) and schizostylis coccinea.
Pictures from top to bottom:
1 and 2) kafirduikers - alive and dead - which are commony used for food.
3) Kafirbrood
4) Kafir plum
5, 6 and 7) Kafirboom which only flowers when the leaves fall off the tree during the dry winter.
8 through 17) Clivia miniata. I used to grow these in California but cannot grow them in Oregon because the lush foliage is evergreen and will be destroyed by frosts. They have naturalized all throughout Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I could grow them in containers and bring them inside in winter but that's too much like hard work.
18, 19 and 20) Schizostylis coccinea. I can grow these in Oregon because they are deciduous and lose their leaves in winter. They start blooming in early Spring and keep blooming all summer. They are in bloom right now in all shades of pink from pale rose to salmon.
The Alliance