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Ethnographic background

The |Xam once occupied much of the Calvinia, Prieska and Kenhardt districts of the Republic of South Africa. Their language, with only slight regional differences, was spoken in many parts of the country west of Port Elizabeth and south of the Gariep River. It is likely, but not certain, that all of the speakers of this language called themselves the |Xam.¹

All of these |Xam-speakers are now extinct; many thousands were killed off by white farmers and others, between the early 18th and late 19th centuries. By the first decade of the 20th century numbers were so depleted and their culture so eroded that extinction became inevitable. In the northwestern Cape this process had begun much later than elsewhere because the inhospitable climate and poor farming conditions discouraged white settlement. The northwestern Cape, therefore, formed a pocket in which the San survived longer than they did further to the east and south. However, after the mid-19th century, penetration by the farmers into even this arid country caused severe reductions in the numbers of game animals as farmers hunted with firearms. At the same time the farmers’ cattle broke up the soil crust which supported the plant-life upon which the |Xam relied for much of their food. The livelihood of the |Xam was threatened and many were forced to seek employment on the farms.

By the 1870s the process of cultural disintegration was well under way. There is, unfortunately, no information of the extent to which traditional life in this area was maintained under the pressure of European penetration. The texts collected by Bleek and Lloyd often make reference to the beliefs and customs of the informants’ parents, as though these were no longer current. On the other hand, some accounts of rituals, beliefs and social customs are also described as part of contemporary life. This may indicate that while the life of the |Xam in the Cape was being rapidly destroyed, much still remained intact at the time of collection.

By being both a record of current practices and beliefs, and also containing ethnographic data relating to the period before European settlement in the northwestern Cape, the Bleek and Lloyd texts are the primary source of ethnographic information relating to the |Xam. A number of official papers, and the writings of various missionaries and travellers also provide additional information on these and other |Xam-speaking San; most of this was written in the late 18th century and the first half of the 19th century. As the Bleek and Lloyd collection was made in the 1870s, the time-span covered by this body of data is approximately 100 years.

The area which was inhabited by |Xam-speakers consists, in the main, of semi-desert with a mean annual rainfall of below 5 inches in the northwest, to 15 inches in the east. The period of heaviest rainfall is between January and April when the monthly mean ranges between 0.5 to 3 inches from west to east. In the northwest the dominant vegetation is largely short bushes, grasses and occasional thorn trees poking from the pebbles, rock fragments and sand, which cover a thin layer of sandy loam. Dry river-beds, which flow for a few days during some rainy months, course this region in places but the main water sources are the 11 ‘pans’ – shallow natural basins – which contain water for varying periods (Wellington 1955, Vol 1, 240ff, 278ff, 323, 374ff, 474ff).

Here the |Xam lived as hunter-gatherers, having little contact with other races except, in some areas, with the Khoe-khoen and, ultimately, the European farmers (Wilson & Thompson 1969, Vol 1, 63ff). They lived in small groups each of which shared the resources of a defined area within which they led a semi-nomadic existence, erecting simple hemispherical huts of branches covered with grass or reed mats, standing about three or four feet high (Barrow 1801, Vol 1, 275).

Social units

Estimates by early travellers of the size of |Xam bands, were entirely based on isolated sightings and did not take into account temporary fission, where a section or sections of the group might move to another part of the resource territory, or seasonal migrations, during which two or more groups might join together for a period of time either to share resources or for the purpose of defence. However, Dorothea Bleek, who visited the |Xam in 1910–11, reported that

Three or four huts stand together, in one is the father, in others his married children. At most eight or ten huts of connections were dotted about within a radius of a few miles from the water, but this is an institution of later days (D.F. Bleek 1923: viii).

Many earlier writers also reported similar numbers of people living together. The most detailed of such reports come, unhappily, from the official accounts of those sent on expeditions to exterminate the San in certain areas. Thus the ‘Report of the Field-Commandant Nicholas van der Merwe, of the Expedition performed against the Bushman Hottentots’ which ‘took the field on the 16th of August 1774’ (Moodie 1960: 35ff) described the many San ‘kraals’ which the expedition surrounded, as containing between eight and 30 people, men, women and children, whom they slaughtered. Other expedition reports give similar numbers (ibid., 33, 38, 45). The reports of travellers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries tend to confirm these numbers (ibid., 231; Campbell 1822: 17; Sparrman 1785, Vol 1, 202).

Larger groups were also sometimes reported. Often such groups were seen living near to farms or were defensive aggregations (Moodie 1960: 5f, 25, 34; Lichtenstein 1930, Vol 2, 62; Barrow 1801, Vol 1, 307). That different groups did occasionally share resources is suggested by J. Barrow the traveller, who writes:

During the day vast numbers of the savages had appeared upon the plain digging up roots: that they came from different quarters and in so many groups that (local farmers) concluded there must be several hordes in the neighbourhood (Barrow 1801, Vol l, 271).

And again:

Several little children came down upon the plain … presently afterwards the women and young girls, to the number of thirty or forty (ibid., 273).

Dorothea Bleek (1923: ix) also claimed that ‘several family groups’ sometimes joined together for a game drive.

When writing about dwellings, however, the majority of the early travellers describe only a few huts at each encampment. M.H.C. Lichtenstein (op. cit., 61ff) reports that:

A horde commonly consists of the different members of one family only and no one has power or distinction over the rest.

and that

Very little intercourse subsists between the separate hordes: they seldom unite, unless in some extraordinary undertaking, for which the combined strength of a great many is required.

The picture which emerges, therefore, is that of a number of extended family groups of various sizes, probably related by blood or marriage and joining together at certain times mainly for economic reasons. The concept of ‘the band’, however, lacks both spatial and social definition in the absence of adequate data. It might have been the case that a band consisted of a number of extended families related to a core of siblings, sharing a defined territory which contained a number of water sources. These people would be related to members of neighbouring bands with whom they visited, exchanged gifts, and married. The picture, however, must remain vague.

According to Dorothea Bleek (1923: vii),

The Colonial Bushman’s property was the water. Each spring or pool in that dry country had its particular owner and was handed down from father to son with the regularity of an entitled estate. Many families owned more than one water, had summer and winter residences, to which they resorted as the growth of the field supplies or the movements of the game necessitated. However, the owners never lived near the spring, for that would prevent the game from using it. The huts were a good way off, perhaps an hour’s walk and hidden by bushes. Their position was frequently changed.

Miss Bleek’s observation that water resources were ‘handed down from father to son’ may have been based on a statement by ||Kabbo, one of her father’s informants, that his own territory – his !xoe – containing several waterholes, had belonged to his father’s father, and, upon his death, had gone to his father, then to ||Kabbo’s elder brother, and, on his elder brother’s death, to ||Kabbo (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 305ff). However, this is the only instance of such information being given. It is possible that inheritance may have been patrilineal in some cases and matrilineal in others. Such was certainly true of the !Kung-speakers of the Dobe area studied by Richard Lee (1972, Vol 1, 129).

The territory itself was defined by water sources and other natural landmarks. |Hang ǂkass’o reported that ||Kabbo’s !xoe had a name, ||Gubo, and that it contained a number of named sites including water sources (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 307). The precise nature of the relationship between the inheritor of a resource area and the rest of the group is unclear. Beside possibly being responsible for regulating the use of water-holes, and having unquestionable rights to food resources, there is no evidence that any special privileges attached themselves to the inheritor and, judging by reports of usage and descriptions of everyday life in the oral literature, the question of ownership did not arise or influence the collective use of water, game and veldkos² by the group. From the earliest to the last reports, all writers claimed that, except in times of warfare, the San had no leaders of any kind (Schapera & Farrington 1933: 75; Lichtenstein 1930: 61f; Moodie 1960: 34; Barrow 1801, Vol 1, 274).

Membership of the group was either by consanguinity or through marriage. The father and mother lived in one hut together with their young children until the children could feed themselves and ‘talked with understanding’ (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 307), when they made their own huts next to their parents. In the other huts would live the married children with their offspring. Membership was not based on descent traced exclusively through either the male or the female line and both married sons and married daughters belonged to the same band. There is no evidence that bride service existed.

Kinship and marriage

Such kinship terms as were collected³ are incomplete and based mainly on vocabulary sources rather than on any actual observations of kinship as a system of obligations and affiliations within the group. However, beside purely descriptive terms of relationship, some terms were collected which were applied to whole groups of different relatives and these might have indicated special social relationships. Siblings and both cross and parallel cousins had the same terms of address applied to them, ||kã: (male), ||kãxai (female). (Cousin marriages, however, were not forbidden, and did occur.) Similarly, the parents of a son or daughter-in-law, and the parents of a brother and sister-in-law were addressed by the same term, ||k’en (male), ||k’aiti (female). The terms for ‘grandfather’ and ‘grandmother’, !kõing and !kõite, were used in addressing any elderly relative or person distinctly senior to the speaker. The term xoakengu, ‘mothers’, was applied to older women of the group and was ‘often used where we should say “the elder women” or “mother and her friends”’ (ibid., 57). These women were especially responsible for the education of young girls in matters concerning puberty rites.

Beside these terms, there were others which indicate a special relationship between certain individuals. A woman called her father’s parents her ‘real’ (kwokwang) grandparents, and her mother’s parents her ‘lent’ (|xwõbe) ones. A man reversed this. His mother’s parents were his ‘real’ grandparents. Another special relationship seems to be indicated between a woman’s siblings and her sons, for a man addressed his mother’s sister as ʘpwaxai, ‘daughter’, and his mother’s brother as ʘpwõng, ‘son’, while they called him oä, ‘father’. Dorothea Bleek admits that she is unable to give an explanation for these terms but, in the latter case, suggests that ‘a particularly affectionate relationship is indicated’ (ibid., 59). A joking relationship appears to have existed between alternating generations of cosanguines but there are no extant details concerning this relationship.

The |Xam were strictly monogamous, although some early writers have suggested that occasionally a man might have two wives, one elderly and one much younger. This impression might have resulted from observers mistaking the wife’s younger sister, who customarily helped in the married home, for a second wife (D.F. Bleek 1923: ix; Stow 1905: 95; Barrow 1801, Vol 1, 241ff). (After the death of his wife, a man was free to marry whoever he chose but there is no evidence to show if this was also true for women.) Marriage could be between any man and woman except between brothers and sisters, and tended to be between members of different groups, although marriage within groups also occurred. The marriage was marked by no ceremony and there were no special requirements, save the consent of both parties. Residence was a matter of convenience and could be with the parents of either party. Miss Bleek (1923: ix) writes:

Sometimes the young couple build their hut near the bridegroom’s father, sometimes near the bride’s. They seem to keep the family groups fairly even.

The couple lived together in one hut with their young children and usually close to the huts of the rest of the family. Certain avoidances were practiced between the wife’s parents and their son-in-law. A man would not usually talk to his mother-in-law but would address his comments to his father-in-law. However, sometimes the same man would address his mother-in-law and not his father-in-law. In this case his wife or his children would address his father-in-law on his behalf. There is no further information to indicate when these avoidances or the breaching of them occurred (Bleek 1924: 58).

Children

Nothing is recorded about child-bearing amongst the |Xam but it is known that naming was done by the child’s parents. According to George Stow (op. cit., 103), the child would be named either from the place where it was born, a cave, river, etc. or from some other thing which might distinguish it, such as a physical peculiarity of the child or one of its parents. In the Bleek and Lloyd material the name given to a child at birth was called its ‘little name’. In later life, however, this name would be supplemented by another given, apparently in an informal way, by the community, and the name given at birth would fall from use. There is no record of name-giving being done in any formalised fashion (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 101, 305, 367; also notebooks, L. VIII, (4) 6370 rev.).

Babies were not weaned until they were about three years old. They were carried in their mother’s karosses⁴ on food-gathering treks long after they could toddle, which they did at an early age. Children were soon expected to help with the gathering of veldkos, and large numbers of children would accompany the women to the food sources, and would work with the women. They were explicitly encouraged to be self-supporting and learn to gather, catch and cook food as an insurance for themselves against the sudden loss of both or either parent. Small boys were given miniature bows and arrows to practise with and would also be expected to help on a game drive by attending to many small but necessary tasks such as raising clouds of sand or planting the sticks used to guide the game. Again, they might be sent to discover the location of an antelope recently shot by a poisoned arrow and lying within a known area, or would watch out for game while the hunters slept during the day. Older boys would accompany their fathers when out hunting.

All children would help gather ants’ chrysalids and fulfil certain constant duties like fetching water or collecting firewood. All were expected to learn cooking techniques, the girls helping their mothers on occasions and, well before puberty, should be able to catch various small creatures, such as tortoise and lizard, and cook them without assistance from adults. In these ways children were educated into a close knowledge of the world about them and taught to acquire the skills needed in adult life (Lichtenstein 1930, Vol 2, 290; Barrow 1801, Vol 1, 273, 287; W.H.I. Bleek 1875: 14, 19; Bleek & Stow 1930: text facing plate 34; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 313, 337, 359).

The aged

Once a man became too old to hunt successfully a number of less demanding duties fell to him. He might be expected to do jobs such as gathering wood or guarding the fire at night when lions were known to be in the vicinity. Old women would probably continue to collect veldkos well after the age at which men ceased to hunt, but collecting veldkos was a task specifically for women and children, and the old men would not engage in this work (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 185; D.F. Bleek 1931–36, Part II: 62, Part IV: 340, Part V: 306).

The old people were respected for their knowledge and wisdom and would support the hunters by suggesting and giving the appropriate food to be eaten prior to a hunt.⁵ The old women were particularly responsible for helping with the children and were regarded as especially trustworthy consultants when children were ill.

While being valued members of the group, old people were, nevertheless, minimally productive in economic terms and could be a threat to the existence of the whole group when water supplies were low. At such times the old people might be left by the group and would usually die of hunger and thirst or be devoured by wild animals unless the rest of the group reached a water source in time to send someone to hurry back with supplies. An aged grandparent, or sometimes both grandparents, would be left in this fashion. Their children would do as much as they could towards the protection of their parents before leaving. They would close the sides of the hut and the door-opening with sticks from the other abandoned huts, thus giving a certain protection from beasts of prey, but they would leave the top of the hut open so that the occupants could feel the warmth of the sun. They would also leave a fire burning and extra firewood to frighten away dangerous animals, and a small supply of food and water if they could spare it (Lloyd, op. cit., 22; Sparrman 1785, Vol 1, 358; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 229).

Hunting

Hunting was done exclusively by the men, although women would occasionally assist during game drives. There were several methods of catching game. Usually animals were stalked with a bow and arrow, the hunters waiting not far from the waterholes or setting out to intercept predictable movements of game following rain. Springbok, for example, were always hunted after rain. Hunters worked either singly or in small groups but sometimes a large game drive would occur involving many of the men and some women and children. In springbok hunting a number of sticks would be planted in the ground at a distance from one another and ostrich feathers tied onto the top of each stick to make it more noticeable. These feathers would be made and owned by one of the men. A number of people would stand at strategic points and, while others drove the game toward the sticks, would make a great deal of noise and throw up sand to force the bucks along the line of sticks beyond which hunters would wait, arrows at the ready, and shoot the bucks as they passed by Bleek & Lloyd (1911: 285ff).

Springbok, duiker, gemsbok, rhebok, eland, quagga, zebra and ostrich were all hunted with bow and arrow but during the dry season when the game may have migrated, and at other times when there was little game about, smaller animals were also hunted. Anteater, porcupine, hare and dassie were all hunted, anteaters and porcupines being dug out of their holes with the use of a long barbed stick, while dassies and hares were often run to ground or killed with a thrown club. Most groups possessed a number of hunting dogs which were trained to total silence. Dogs were the property of individual hunters rather than of the group (ibid., 251ff, 311; Lloyd, op. cit., 16; W.H.I. Bleek 1875: 17; Moodie 1960: 231; Campbell, op. cit., Vol 2, 18; L. II, (26) 2320–2504).

Several kinds of traps were also used in hunting. These included very deep covered pitfalls, often seven or eight feet in depth, containing sharpened stakes on which the animals would impale themselves. Sometimes water-holes were covered over with bushes and reeds, and shallow pits dug nearby which soon filled with water. These pits were poisoned with Euphorbia branches; when the animals came to drink they would die, usually after a very short time. Both of these kinds of pits were dug by the men using horn-tipped digging-sticks, and, in the case of pitfalls, must have involved an immense amount of labour (Stow, op. cit., 81, 90ff; Campbell 1815: 215; 1822: 42; Barrow, op. cit., Vol 1, 284f).

Fishing was practised wherever possible. Groups living close to the Gariep River used funnel-shaped traps of closely woven reeds, about 3 feet long and 18 inches to 2 feet wide, which narrowed towards the mouth. These were stretched across a shallow part of the river while several men drove the fish towards the baskets where they would be caught and thrown ashore. On other occasions larger fish were harpooned, the harpoon being of wood pointed with bone and fixed to a long sinew line (Barrow, op. cit., Vol 1, 290, 300; Stow, op. cit., 93).

All large game was cut up where it was killed. The unwanted contents of the stomach were buried on the spot and the meat carried home in sinew nets. Arrows were scored with a personal mark so that each hunter could gather his own arrows after the hunt. The hunter whose arrow was responsible for the kill would have possession of the skin, if he so desired, although this does not seem to have been the case with springbok hunting (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 275ff, 361ff; D.F. Bleek 1931–36, Part II, 55).

The arrow poisons used by the |Xam were a mixture of animal and vegetable poisons, or sometimes a ‘black rock’ (Campbell 1822, Vol 1, 31; Barrow, op. cit., Vol 1, 230) poison, probably a form of arsenic. The most frequently used ingredients were amaryllis juice (Haemanthus toxicarius) and snake poison, which were mixed together in a fragment of ostrich shell. This mixture was then boiled until it took on a thick jelly-like consistency. When required for use, part of it was heated in a tortoise shell and placed in a special ‘poison stone’, a small flat stone deeply grooved in the middle. The tip was pressed down into the groove and slowly turned. The poison did not take instantaneous effect, but usually the smaller the animal, the more rapid the action. With large game animals, the hunter would have to return to his camp and wait overnight for the poison to take effect. He would then go out on the following morning and track the animal (Stow, op. cit., 78; Moodie, op. cit., 401; Schapera 1925a).

Gathering

Gathering was the responsibility of women of all ages. They gathered roots, bulbs, berries, edible leaves, in fact any wild vegetable food that was in season. The range of veldkos collected seems, from innumerable references in the Bleek and Lloyd texts, to have been very great indeed. Some lists of plants used by the |Xam were collected, but in the absence of reliable botanical information or information on the relative quantities of each species used, no picture of the |Xam diet and its nutritional value can be drawn.

Small animals such as tortoises, snakes, lizards and locusts were also collected by the women if they happened to come across them but for the most part the women would concentrate on a specific veldkos source, gather there over a period of time until the source was exhausted and then move to another source. The women worked together in large numbers, accompanied by their children, using, where appropriate, a weighted digging-stick of about three feet long, sharpened at one end or perhaps tipped with horn and weighted by a perforated stone which was wedged in place about 12 inches from the bottom. Each woman collected her own food, packing it into skin bags, and returning home, together with the other women, when she had gathered sufficient (Moffat 1842: 54; Barrow, op. cit., Vol 1, 271ff; D.F. Bleek 1923: vi).

Judging by other hunter-gatherer groups, it is likely that the women contributed much more veldkos to the group than men contributed meat (Lee & DeVore 1968: 92ff). They were also responsible for fetching water. A woman would set out for a water-hole with as many ostrich egg-shells as she could carry in her nets of leather thongs. Each egg-shell had a small hole drilled at the top plugged with a stopper. She would fill the shells in turn with a perforated half-shell, plug each shell firmly, and return to the encampment. Most of the shells were then stored near the huts or buried to keep them cool and lifted out when required.

Some types of gathering were also performed by the men. Honey was exclusively the province of men. The |Xam were extremely fond of honey and any nest that was discovered would be marked by a small pile of stones or other sign to make ownership explicit. A nest was the property of the man who discovered it and the responsibility for distributing the honey was initially his. Another form of gathering in which the men engaged was the digging-out and sifting of ants’ chrysalids, also a favourite and common food for the |Xam. The men used digging sticks for this job but the sticks they used were unweighted (Moffat, op. cit., 172; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 353ff; Lloyd, op. cit., 17).

Industries and trade

The main goods manufactured by the group were hunting implements, digging-sticks, cooking and eating utensils, clothing, bags, nets, small containers for buchu⁶ or various medicines, body ornaments, musical instruments and pipes for smoking. The only division of labour was between the sexes. Anything to do with hunting, arrows, bows, poisons, etc. was made by the men as were clothes and some small eating utensils. Women made clay cooking pots, egg-shell beads, drums and dancing rattles. From what is known of the division of labour, it appears that the manufacturing tasks falling to women tended to be for items only infrequently in need of manufacture, while those of the men would be likely to occur more frequently. Without a complete inventory, however, it is difficult to tell what this indicates in terms of relative hours spent in hunting and gathering. In any case it is known that both sexes enjoyed a great deal of leisure time except in periods of scarcity when the women would have greater difficulty in collecting sufficient veldkos (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 11, 343ff, 351, 359; Bleek & Stow, op. cit., xxiiif).

Most of the manufactured tools were of flint, bone or reed, except where iron had been obtained through trade. These included blades, scrapers, awls and borers. On the manufacture of clothing and bags Dorothea Bleek writes:

Every hunter owns the skin of the animal he shoots and dresses it himself. After being scraped with a stone it will be squeezed, rolled and unrolled, wetted, burried in sand, and rubbed with fat. Then he will make it up into a bag or garment for his family or for barter (Bleek & Duggin-Cronin 1942: vii).

Nets, bowstrings, the strings of musical instruments, harpoon cords, etc., were made by rubbing strands of sinew together between the palms. Spoons were made either from springbok horn, from a shaped rib bone or from a small piece of wood to which animal hair was attached by binding. Pipes were of many kinds but were usually made from a short section of an antelope’s leg bone (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 251, 293; Stow, op. cit., 52).

Trade was carried on both with other groups and with other races. Between |Xam groups exchange was sometimes for articles of value which could not be obtained within the territory of the group. Colouring, for example, used as a body decoration, might be acquired from a group living in an area where pigments were found and these would be purchased in exchange for arrows, skin bags, or other manufactured articles (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 377). Such exchange, however, is difficult to distinguish from reciprocal gift-giving. Trade with other races is more recognisably barter. Dorothea Bleek writes:

Barter with Hottentot or Bantu tribes has long been carried on by the Bushmen. Besides utensils and iron for knives and arrowheads, tobacco has been the object of greatest demand. In exchange Bushmen give game or skins, but they adore smoking, and as they grow no tobacco, must obtain that from others. Everyone smokes, even the children (Bleek & Duggin-Cronin, op. cit., 5).

Food-sharing

The division and sharing of food was a complex matter governed by a number of rules, obligations and avoidances. It appears that veldkos was gathered for each nuclear family independently but all meat was shared by the whole group. Springbok seem to have been the game most commonly eaten by the |Xam of the northern Cape and something is known of its division.

Assuming that three hunters tracked and killed a springbok, the division into parts was made by the two whose arrows did not secure the kill. The viscera were divided between the three families, and the killer received the upper bones of the forelegs and the neck. Of the other two hunters, one received the back, the tail and the skin, and the other the stomach and the blood. It is not recorded who had the remaining parts, but the shoulder-blades were not given to the hunter who made the kill. This division was made prior to the cooking, the meat being then given by the men to the women of each of their households to prepare and cook. When the meat was ready to be eaten, a second distribution was made, the men cutting for their male children, the women cutting for the girls. The children were especially given the leg bones which were broken open for the marrow (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 275ff).

Lorna Marshall (1961: 236ff) has recorded how, in the !Kung-speaking bands of the Nyae Nyae region of the Kalahari, a third wave of sharing takes place throughout the group, this being governed by a network of obligations of various kinds. One such obligation exists where the user of an arrow which has been received as a gift gives meat which has been shot with that arrow to the person who made the gift. The arrow-giver might then share that meat with another from whom they had initially received the same arrow and so on. The |Xam also practiced the exchange of arrows (D.F. Bleek 1931–36, Part VIII, 149; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 281ff) and it is, therefore, likely that some similar system of obligation also operated amongst them. Lorna Marshall also observed that the hunter who secured the kill often ended up with less meat than those further down the line of distribution. The missionary Robert Moffat (op. cit., 59) noticed that in the division of food-gifts from Dutch farmers to the |Xam, ‘Generally it is observed the one who first received the boon retained least for himself’. Lorna Marshall believed that amongst the !Kung-speakers, this custom might be designed to avoid tensions and jealousies that could arise if the hunter was consistently given preference.

However complex the initial system of meat distribution, another principle influenced the sharing at a different level and this consisted in a variety of avoidances and preferences based on certain beliefs and superstitions. Certain kinds of food were not eaten by adults at all, only by children. The flesh of the lynx was not eaten by women and it was regarded as unlucky for women with young children to eat hartebeest (an animal thought to resemble the mantis, which, in turn, was associated with the supernatural being |Kaggen). Children were not given the tips of springbok tongues, and certain portions of the ostrich were also forbidden them. Some children were not given jackals’ hearts for fear of promoting cowardice, but given leopards’ hearts, where possible, to encourage bravery. Baboon were not eaten at all by the San inhabiting the north-western plains because of their resemblance to humans. The variety and range of these preferences and avoidances was very great and possibly varied from one area to another and from one time to another (D.F. Bleek 1931–36, Part I, 175f; W.H.I. Bleek, op. cit., 16f; Lloyd, op. cit., 23; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 373).

Social life

As was noted above, the |Xam had a great amount of leisure time at their disposal. The men only hunted for a few hours of the day, and only a few days in any week, and the women’s work of gathering food and wood or collecting water took little time out of each day. Even on days when the men did hunt they would return to their encampment before noon and sleep for a few hours or sit in the shade making arrows or simply talking or smoking together. Often members of the group would visit relatives in other groups and sit exchanging news and anecdotes. The whole group were in more or less continual contact with each other, secrets were practically impossible and most grievances would be endlessly discussed by the members.

The |Xam were particularly fond of music and dancing. Their musical instruments were simply constructed, mainly being variations on the musical bow. One of the most popular of these was the ‘goura’ which consisted of an ordinary bow in which one end of the string, instead of being attached directly to the stave, was fastened onto a small piece of quill which was tied on to the end of the stave. This quill was held to the lips and made to vibrate by strong expirations and inspirations of breath. Drums, made by stretching the skin of a springbok thigh tight across a clay pot, were played by women at dances. Dancing rattles of springbok ears filled with small stones or dried berries were worn by the men which added to the percussion (Bleek & Stow, op. cit., xxiiif; Lichtenstein, op. cit., 292; Balfour 1902; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 325, 351ff).

Dancing was an extremely popular activity amongst the |Xam. Most dances only involved the men, who moved rhythmically in a circle, while the women clapped their hands. One or two women might also play the drums. One dance, known as the |Ku, which consisted of the men nodding their heads as they moved in a circle while the women clapped, seems to have been some kind of expression of criticism of one member of the band, but details are sparse on this matter. Another dance known as the ǂGebbi-gu was said to have been taught them by the baboons and had also been known by the Lion and the Ostrich, characters in a story, who fought and in consequence became animals. In the story the Lion is jealous of the voice of the Ostrich who gains the admiration of the women by his singing while doing this dance. The Lion, furious with jealousy, kills the Ostrich. The dance seems to have been performed by |Xam women who were led in song by one of their number. The songs were simply imitations of various animals, springbok ewes, partridges, ostriches, etc., the lead singer calling out a line of song which was then repeated by the others. The men stood around and called out in response.

Dances took place after a big kill by the hunters but some dances were reserved for special occasions, e.g., following the first thunder after the dry season, and the !giten, ‘shamans’ (sing. !gi: xa) had an initiation dance of their own called the ||Keng performed by both men and women. In this dance the initiator held a stick of office known as the ‘dancing stick’ and performed a sequence of movements which was followed by the initiates. All participants wore caps made from the heads of young gemsbok and special bangles known as the ‘||Keng’s rings’. Often dances, whether purely social or ritualistic, would last the entire night and well into the following morning (D.F. Bleek 1923: ix; 1931–36, Part I, 177f; Part VII, 11ff; and Stow, op. cit., pls. 13–14; Lloyd, op. cit., 18; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 91ff, 129, 353; Barrow, op. cit., Vol 1, 283f; Sparrman, op. cit., Vol 1, 356).

Belief and ritual

There is no evidence in the writings of the early travellers and missionaries, or in the many thousands of pages of |Xam texts collected by Bleek and Lloyd, of a belief in a deity resembling those deities, such as |Gaua, ǂGao n!a, Hishe, Thora, Huwe, etc., of the central and northern San. Two important supernatural beings, |Kaggen and !Khwa, were believed in by the |Xam. |Kaggen was credited with the creation of certain things in the natural world (see Chapter 7) although his main activities lay in the protection of the antelopes. The beliefs about him can only properly be situated within the complex of beliefs concerning hunting and the relationship between hunters and game animals.⁷ |Kaggen was the central character of a large number of narratives and these narratives together with the beliefs concerning him are discussed at length in Chapters 6–10.

!Khwa, whose name means ‘water’ or ‘rain’ – the |Xam used the same word for both – was principally related to girls’ puberty rituals. He was a threatening force and was believed to cause death by lightning or transformation into non-human forms to girls who did not observe the correct ritual practices during and immediately following menstruation, and to other members of the group as a consequence of this. The beliefs concerning !Khwa and menstruation rituals are discussed in Chapters 4, 7, and 10. !Khwa was never requested to cause rain but was requested by certain men to stop thundering and lightening during particularly heavy storms (D.F. Bleek 1931–36, Part V, 304; 1929a: 307).

The powers of |Kaggen and !Khwa were discrete and concerned only with specific areas of activity. This is typical of all |Xam beliefs in the supernatural. What the texts collected by Bleek and Lloyd display is a complex of beliefs in which different things are credited with various powers which might be tapped or avoided depending on their nature. The new moon and Canopus were addressed at certain times in the belief that they could influence favourably both the gathering of ants’ chrysalids and the abundance of game (D.F. Bleek 1929a: 305ff). The spirits of dead !giten were prayed to for rain on some occasions (D.F. Bleek 1931–36, Part V, 383; Part VII, 37ff). On the other hand a large number of beliefs concerned the sympathetic bond which was thought to obtain between hunters and game animals, and many ritualistic strategies were employed to maintain, exploit, or avoid undesirable consequences of that relationship (ibid., Part VIII, 146ff; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 67ff, 271ff, 353ff).

The concept known amongst the Zu|wasi as n!ow was also held by the |Xam, although many details collected by Lorna Marshall (1957a) on this subject are absent from the |Xam accounts, and no |Xam word was recorded which referred to it. The belief as held by the |Xam may be summarised as follows. Each male⁸ had a wind associated with him, cold and harsh or warm and pleasant, easterly, westerly, etc. This wind was said to blow when a hunter had killed an animal. ‘The wind is one with the man’, one informant expressed it (D.F. Bleek 1931–36, Part IV, 338). Certain game animals and certain stars also had winds associated with them and these were believed to interact with a hunter who had killed an animal. The nature of this interaction is unclear but in some way the man’s wind was affected by the animals wind, and the star’s by his. Different kinds of rain, mild or hard, were also believed to be linked to individuals in the same manner. A man’s wind and rain was a permanent attribute. When a person died his wind blew, removing his footprints from the ground. What kind of wind and rain a man had might influence his deployment in the hunt or whether or not he could address !Khwa. There is no textual evidence to suggest that the |Xam regarded this force as supernatural or magical. Indeed it appears to have been thought of more as a physical attribute than a spiritual one (ibid., 328f, 336; Part V, 303f; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 397).

The most commonly invoked supernatural power was known as !gi, the power possessed by !giten who were responsible for curing illness, making rain and, in some cases, influencing the movements of specific animals. The !giten who were curers could be either men or women, as could game !giten but rain-makers seem to have been exclusively men. These three offices frequently overlapped. !Giten often went into a state of trance during curing and, hidden under a kaross made a heavy snoring noise close to the patient’s body. By this means the illness was taken into the !gi:xa’s nose and was then expelled by repeated sneezing.

Malignant !giten were believed to be able to cause illness and death to those who displeased them in some way, and to take the form of various animals. !Gi was transmitted to !giten at the special initiation dance during which an initiator would snore each of the initiates in turn. This power was capable of diminishing over a period of many years and it was possible for a !gi:xa to lose his or her power completely. !Giten were greatly respected and feared by the |Xam and represented one of the most dominant aspects of |Xam belief in the supernatural.⁹

Two distinct beliefs about the after-life were collected. One informant described how the spirit of a dead person travelled along an underground path leading from the grave to a vast hole where it then lived. The spirits of all San went to this place, so did the spirits of animals and the spirits of Afrikaners (B. VI, 699 rev.; see also Stow, op. cit., 129). Another belief concerning the dead was that the cavity in any new moon which had the appearance of horns was the ‘catching place’ for people who had recently died. As the moon grew full by this means, the corpses inside were revived by the ‘moon-water’. When no more room was left, the people were tipped out onto the earth and lived again until they died again when the whole process was repeated. These two apparently conflicting accounts are all that is known of beliefs about the after-life, although it was also believed that a spirit might haunt the area of the grave briefly following death because the dead person was reluctant to leave his friends and still thought about them (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 399; von Wielligh, op. cit., Vol 3, 43f).

The extermination of the |Xam

The gradual extermination of the San by European settlers and others is well documented.¹⁰ By the early 20th century only a small remnant remained alive. Commando raids, first by the military and, soon after, by civilian farmers, were made upon the San, initially as reprisals for cattle stealing and with increasing frequency. This activity soon assumed the character of a sport, farmers going out to shoot San in large numbers ‘for the fun of the thing’ (Anthing 1563:11).

The area from which Bleek and Lloyd’s informants came became subjected to an intensification of such events after about 1850. In a lengthy official report of 1863, horrific details of the atrocities committed against the San of the northwestern Cape, L. Anthing (ibid., 4f) states that

The evidence I had obtained respecting the past and existing state of things was, that the colonists had intruded into that part of the country which borders on the Hartebeest and Orange [Gariep] rivers some years before, and that they had from time to time killed numbers of Bushmen resident there; that in some cases the latter had stolen cattle from the intruders, but that the killing of the Bushmen was not confined to the avenging or punishing of such thefts, but that, with or without provocation, Bushmen were killed, – sometimes by hunting parties, at other times by commandos going out for the express purpose. That in consequence of the colonists having guns and horses, and their being expert hunters (the pursuit of game being their daily occupation), the wild game of the country had become scarce, and almost inaccessible to the Bushmen, whose weapon is the bow and arrow, having a comparatively short range. That ostrich eggs, honey, grass-seed, and roots had all become exceedingly scarce, the ostriches being destroyed by hunters, the seed and roots in consequence of the intrusion of the colonists’ flocks. From these various causes, the Bushman’s subsistence failed him, and, in many cases they died from hunger. Those who went into the service of the newcomers did not find their condition thereby improved. Harsh treatment, an insufficient allowance of food, and continued injuries inflicted on their kinsmen are alleged as having driven them back into the bush, from whence hunger again led them to invade the flocks and herds of the intruders, regardless of the consequences, and resigning themselves, as they say to the thought of being shot in preference to death from starvation.

Such is the immediate historical background to the texts collected by Bleek and Lloyd, although as Dorothea Bleek (1923: vi) points out:

Their narrators were all Colonial Bushmen, who lived on the rolling plains south of the Orange [Gariep] river in the Prieska, Kenhardt and northern Calvinia districts. They had themselves seen their country invaded by white men for permanent settlement, but not so the parents from whom they heard the stories.

The dreadful conditions under which the |Xam lived at the time of collection impinges only infrequently on the collected texts, and in only one narrative are the settlers even mentioned (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 254ff). Within a few years, however, the |Xam were to vanish completely.

Notes

1Accounts of the distribution of San languages may be found in D.F. Bleek (1927, 1929b, 1956) and Westphal (1971).

2This convenient Afrikaans word meaning ‘field food’ will be used throughout.

3The following account is based on Bleek (1927: 57ff).

4‘Kaross’ is the common Afrikaans word for the skin cloak worn by San men and women.

5A sympathetic bond was believed to exist between a hunter and his quarry. Because of this, his activities, including his eating, were ordered by the need to prevent undesirable attributes, such as speed, from being transmitted to the game. See D.F. Bleek (1931–36, Part III: 233ff; Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 271ff).

6A commonly used powder made from the leaves of aromatic shrubs.

7This relationship is also discussed in Chapter 7.

8There is no evidence that the same attributes could be possessed by women.

9See Appendix B for a more detailed account of !Giten and their role in |Xam society.

10Details of these events are given throughout Stow, op. cit., and, more recently in Ellenberger (1953), and in Laurens van der Post (1958).