KAFFIR BREAD, in botany, the popular name for a species of _Encephalartos_ (_E. caffra_), one of the cycads, a native of South Africa, so called from the farinaceous food-stuff which is found at the apex of the stem (Gr. [Greek: en], in, [Greek: kephalê], head, and [Greek: artos], bread). It is a tree reaching nearly 20 ft. in height, with very stiff, spreading pinnate leaves 3 to 4 ft. long and recurving at the tip. The species of _Encephalartos_, which are natives of tropical and South Africa, form handsome greenhouse and conservatory plants; some species are effectively used in subtropical gardening in the summer months.
KAFFIRS (Arabic _Kafir_, an unbeliever), a name given by the Arabs to the native races of the east coast of Africa. The term was current along the east coast at the arrival of the Portuguese, and passed from them to the Dutch and English, and to the natives themselves under the form of _Kafula_. There are no general or collective national names for these peoples, and the various tribal divisions are mostly designated by historical or legendary chiefs, founders of dynasties or hereditary chieftaincies. The term has no real ethnological value, for the Kaffirs have no national unity. To-day it is used to describe that large family of Bantu negroes inhabiting the greater part of the Cape, the whole of Natal and Zululand, and the Portuguese dominions on the east coast south of the Zambezi. The name is also loosely applied to any negro inhabitant of South Africa. For example, the Bechuana of the Transvaal and Orange Free State are usually called Kaffirs.
The Kaffirs are divisible into two great branches: the Ama-Zulu with the Ama-Swazi and Ama-Tonga and the Kaffirs proper, represented by the Ama-Xosa, the Tembu (q.v.) and the Pondo (q.v.). Hence the compound term Zulu-Kaffir applied in a collective sense to all the Kaffir peoples. Intermediate between these two branches were several broken tribes now collectively known as Ama-Fengu, i.e. "wanderers" or "needy" people, from _fenguza_, to seek service[1] (see FINGO).
The ramifications of the Kaffirs proper cannot be understood without reference to the national genealogies, most of the tribal names, as already stated, being those of real or reputed founders of dynasties. Thus the term Ama-Xosa means simply the "people of Xosa," a somewhat mythical chief supposed to have flourished about the year 1530. Ninth in descent from his son Toguh was Palo, who died about 1780, leaving two sons, Gcaleka and Rarabe (pronounced Kha-Kha-be), from whom came the Ama-Gcaleka, Ama-Dhlambe (T'slambies) and the Ama-Ngquika (Gaika or Sandili's people). The Pondo do not descend from Xosa, but probably from an elder brother, while the Tembu, though apparently representing a younger branch, are regarded by all the Kaffir tribes as the royal race. Hence the Gcaleka chief, who is the head of all the Ama-Xosa tribes, always takes his first or "great wife" from the Tembu royal family, and her issue alone have any claim to the succession. The subjoined genealogical tree will place Kaffir relations in a clearer light:--