Green’s Dictionary of Slang

the Cape provinces; latterly South Africa.

1785		A. Sparrman Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope I 335: The elephants in this colony are now becoming more wary, withdrawing [...] into Cafferland.
1835		Grahams Town Jrnl 19 June 2/5: Extracts from my letter from an eye-witness of the late interesting events in Cafferland.
1842		Caledonian Mercury 22 Sept. 2/4: The distinct boundary that divides Caffer Land [...] from that held by Dutch Boers.
1845		R. Godlonton Case of the Colonists 71: Kaffirland, a country of mountain, of forest.
1851		J. Stirk in Cook Maids and Madams (1980) 219: Fifty-five Kaffir women arrived here from Grahamstone on their way to Kaffirland.
1854		G.J. Whyte-Melville General Bounce (1891) 81: The dreamer looked forward [to] nightwatches in a savage country — for the 20th were even then in Kaffirland.
1859		G.A. Sala Gaslight and Daylight 83: The adventurous sketching journeys he has undertaken [...] when lion-hunting in Caffreland.
1863		L. Duff Gordon 3 May Letters from the Cape (1875) 336: I would have run up Algoa Bay or East London, by sea, and had a glimpse of Caffreland.
1879		Aberdeen Eve. Exp. 15 May 3/2: [headline] Uneasiness in Kaffirland.
1888		D.C.F. Moodie Hist. of the Battles and Adventures of the British, the Boers, and the Zulus II 33: It was the frontier Kafirs, under the great chief Sandilli – that is, Kafirland proper – who had made war.
1889		B. Mitford Fire Trumpet III 134: He cracked his fingers in the direction of Kafirland.
1910		Daily Press (Newport News, VA) 4 Oct. 5/4: There are fairies of all kinds in Kaffir-land — so at least you would be told by the [...] children.
1948		O. Walker Kaffirs are Lively 97: The old frontier Boers [...] consolidated their encroachments in Kaffraria, or ‘Kaffirland’, by seizing water-holes. [Ibid.] 189: He returned as a qualified preacher to ‘Kaffirland’.
1956		U. Long Journals of E. Lees-Price 230: Africans living on the borders of Cape Colony in Kaffirland.
1968		K. McMagh Dinner of Herbs 19: About the year 1846 when small bands of ‘Wild Kaffirs’ frequently strayed from [...] the borders of ‘Kaffirland’ and infiltrated into the surrounding districts.
1980		J. Cock Maids and Madams 219: Travelling to Kaffirland must have been hazardous.
1990		R. Malan My Traitor’s Heart (1991) 48: He said, ‘These kaffirs must all go back to kaffirland.’.

(S.Afr.) one who is deemed (by racists) to to be overly friendly to blacks.

1978		D. Marechera House of Hunger (2013) [ebook] He began to curse: ‘You bitch. Kaffir-lover. Kafferboetie. You cunt. You …’.
2011		IOL News (Western Cape) 4 June 🌐 Shaik claimed he was beaten up and called k*****-lover.

(S.Afr.) a large, heavy meal.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

to deteriorate, to decline socially .

1950

S.G.L. Millin King of the Bastards 3: ‘He thought no more of such things than our own young men who go to the Kaffirs,’ said Carolus Buys.

a generic term for black people.

1889		B. Mitford Fire Trumpet II 3: Jack Kafir [...] has the bump of acquisitiveness very highly developed.
1892		B. Mitford ’Tween Snow and Fire 76: We’ll pay off some old scores on Jack Kafir’s hide.

pidgin Zulu language.

1989

J. Hobbs Thoughts in a Makeshift Mortuary 92: Though she came from Natal, she did not use the pidgin Zulu once known as kitchen kaffir, but now that the word ‘kaffir’ was acknowledged as insulting, called Fanagalo.

1. a derog. term for a white perceived as behaving badly by their peers.

1911		Blackburn & Caddell Secret Service in S. Afr. 183: Here and there one comes upon creatures who have chosen deliberately the lot of the white Kaffir. They are invariably degenerates.
1981		C. Hope Separate Development 104: ‘My blood’s all right. Skin’s the problem. Say a whitekaffir, then . . . ’ ‘Well, I suppose you mean as opposed to a Bantu, a non-white, an African, a native, or an ordinary common-or-garden kaffir?’.

2. a white who has become overly close to or assimilated into the black community.

1846		Natal Witness 31 July n.p.: One of the white caffers have [sic] been taken into custody on suspicion [DSAE].
1870		C. Hamilton Life and Sport in South-Eastern Afr. 264: In my opinion the Dutch Boer is little else than a White Kaffir [DSAE].
1897		J.P. Fitzpatrick Outspan 27: You can’t imagine — my surprise when I found that my naked white Kaffir sailor-friend, Sebougwaan, was the man of the hour [DSAE].
1908		D. Blackburn Leaven 38: ‘He educated a kaflr girl and married her. That’s the result,’ Betts indicated the huts ... ‘He’s a white kafir now, with plenty of time on his hands for educating his nigger family.’.
1911		Blackburn & Caddell Secret Service in S. Afr. 182: Most of the whites living in seclusion with native wives have much the same excuse. [...] Naturally, any social relationship with white neighbours ceased [...] and in the course of a few years the white Kaffir has become absolutely irreclaimable.
1926		S.G.L. Millin South Africans 209: (Swart), In the old days men, thrusting their ancestry, their traditions [...] completely behind them, became what people sometimes call in South Africa ‘white Kaffirs’ [DSAE].
1949		C. Bullock Rina 91: Sailors who were shipwrecked or had deserted from their ships had sometimes sought refuge in African kraals and become ‘white kaffirs’ [DSAE].
1955		W. Illsley Wagon on Fin 88: If he appeared familiar and friendly with the Africans, the white people dubbed him a white kaffir, a destroyer of white prestige, and ostracized him from their social life [DSAE].
1976		S. Cloete Chetoko 150: Trelawney’s his name .. and he’s a white Kaffir ... He’s gone native [DSAE].
1997		M. de Lange Muzzled Muse: Lit. and Censorship in S. Afr. 92: A bus driver, for example, throws him from a whites-only bus, calling him a white kaffir.
1997		P.-D. Uys No Space on Long Street (2000) 7: ‘Full of hippies,’ that’s what Gracie said. ‘Druggies. Queers. White Kaffirs.’.
2005		(con. 1922) J. Krikler White Rising 149: For many whites, to be ground down into poverty and dependence was to become a ‘white kaffir’.

3. an albino.

1966		L.G. Berger Where’s the Madam? 164: He and his charwoman wife had between them bred three ‘white Kaffirs’ — albino natives with white hair, pink eyes, white freckled skin, yet unmistakable native features.
1974		informant in DSAE.
1981		C. Hope Separate Development 31: ‘White kaffir!’ His words carried very well. In fact they were positively bruited abroad. Passersby took the full force of them and stared at me.
1990		R. Malan My Traitor’s Heart (1991) 50: An albino came in. The Greeks started taunting him, saying, ‘You’re a white kaffir, aren’t you, a white kaffir, hey?’.