Tue 27 Oct 2009
A Vanishing Culture in Southern Africa
Posted by South Africa Travels Webmaster under South Africa TravelNo Comments
Bushman (San) inhabited most parts of Southern Africa thousands of years before the arrival of the main African Tribes who originated from North Eastern Africa, or the Europeans at the Cape.
They settled in the most fertile areas – hillsides teeming with game and, and vast plains offering an abundance of fruit trees, bush and shrub. Life was uncomplicated and free.
Although small, they were well proportioned and strong, endowed with incredible stamina, tenacity and almost unlimited powers of endurance. They were children of nature, totally self sufficient and dependent on the land for all their needs.
They neither planted crops nor bred cattle. Their tiny, flimsy huts were probably the crudest known to man, and for obvious reasons, not built with performance in mind, as they were constantly on the move. They often lived in caves, beneath rock ledges or in rough grass shelters.
Possessions were kept to a minimum: weapons, skins, implements and utensils.
Despite the simplicity of their weapons, they were and still are renowned for their extraordinary skill in tracking, stalking and snaring game.
With the arrival of warlike African tribes from the North East, the Bushman were driven from their happy hunting grounds. Many who resisted were butchered and their woman taken by force. Those who escaped retreated south, and by the time Van Riebeeck founded the Dutch settlement at the Cape in 1652, small bands of Bushmen were scattered across the vast territory known as the Western Cape.
By 1800 the Bushmen were nearly extinct except in the western desert regions of the Kalahari where today they continue to roam the desolate flats in small isolated family groups.
Only about 2000 or 3000 of the 60000 surviving Kalahari Bushmen live off the land as their forefathers did. The remainder have in varying degrees been absorbed by other societies.
