Notebooks

Story: Dorothea Bleek - Book BC151_A3_018

Title

Dorothea Bleek - Book BC151_A3_018

Collection

Summary

Naron notebook (volume VII). Descriptions of daily life, contemporary life and personal history. Much about sorcery (doctors and old people), healing, cutting practises, games (eg the 'war game'), dancing and magic animals (such as baboons and lions); artefacts and dress, food hunted and eaten, relations with inhabitants of the region; marriage, birth, name-giving and other family life; and naming stars and asking stars for food, as well as rain and related animals such as the mantis. References to the coming of Christianity and associated beliefs.

Comments

1) Inside front cover 'D1885'. 2) p.411: 14.12.21. |kukurrib, words and sentences, some personal history. 3) p.412: 15.12.21. ≠nukei, naming items [possibly responding to pictures being shown]eg. digging sticks, bone arrow, head apron etc. 3) p. 413 16.12.21. |kukurrib, description of 'driving the cows', mention of a policeman, mention of seeing two wagons, description of travel to and from Olifantskloof, comments on the horses, and on riding and falling off a horse when he was young, describes wearing clothes and working, describes a white man coming to photograph the people, describes fighting [wrestling] each other. 4) p.415: 17.12.21. ≠nukei and |kukurri, 'play war' description of a game, male and female weapons. 5) p.416: 18.12.21. |kukurri, description of a dance, of sorcerers who are like lions (men and woman), sorcerers like baboons, people who see the sorcerer, if you dont dance you dont see her, 'the old doctors have seen it'. 6) p.417v-419: ≠nukei, ≠nukeba, ≠nukime, being cut when the narrator was a boy, dancing and doctoring, 'a doctor cuts', 'the doctors the old ones. the doctors are dead, are none the boy are not cut any more', stringing beads, making a pipe, naming of artefacts, someone disguised as an ostrich. 7) p.419v: Stow 108 [reference to one of his plates?] 19.12.21. ≠nukeiba, identifying numbered things (5,8,4,7) and commenting on who makes them. 8) p. 421: 20.12.21.'page 172' an eland, a lion, spoons, spears, collecting and eating certain foods when the rain falls, mention of a chief, making a pipe of clay, shooting ostrich, on drought. 9) p.422v: reference to a Bushmen who worked with Dorothea's parents when she was small, identifying Bushmen and different animals. 10) p.423: 21.12.21. |kukurri, ≠nukei, on crickets and about 'Baas', description of the 'good' Baas, names for spoons, vessels used by different peoples especially the cast iron pot on legs. 11) p. 425: 22.12.21 |kukurrib, reference to heaven's things and to God and Jesus, 'from white men heard it', some personal history, Hartebeest is the oldest Bushman, effects of poison, conversation about God and poisoning game. 12) p.426v ≠nukei, 23.12.21. His memory of raining, clothes, belongings of the Namaqua, about a captain who had many people. 13) p.428: ||axas, 'Bild 28 & 27' words and sentences, clothing worn by women. 14) p.429v: 24.12.21. ≠nukei and |kukurib, christmas celebration. 15) p.430: 26.12.21. The old people prayed to the moon, illness, narrative of a Bushman captain who gives rope to trap buck and find food. 16) p.431v: 27.12.21. ||axas, collecting food and other tasks, her children's lives, growing up with the Kaffirs at Sandfontein. 17) p.433 ≠nukei, treatment of wasps, the 'Mossie is a wizard makes a person swollen the wasp and the Mossie both are wizards a man burns both'. 18) p. 435: 28.12.21. ≠nukei. 19) p. 435v: 29.12.21. ≠keku ba, personal history, people dying of fever, the seasons and the making of medicine to drink, smallpox. 20) |kukurib p.437: smallpox in his family, he had it his mother died of it, smallpox epidemic when Hartebeest was a boy. 21) p.438: 30.12.21. ||axas, on smallpox and the treatment thereof, work done in the past, her history and her children, making fire from sticks and scorching the earth, a lot about fire. 22) p.441: 31.12.21. |kukuri, personal history, and about a girl who was given away about the seasons and food, 'the Bushmen have great faith in a passport, always want one on every occassion as protection against the police - who they believe can do them no harm, if they show such a paper and say they are so and so's Bushmen'. 23) p.443: 1.1.22. ||axas, the wind, sorcerery, invoking a spirit, 'when rain does not fall, the doctor says to it (the spirit) "go wind." The wind goes, it drops, rain falls, seeing ghosts and sorcerers male and female. 24) p.444v: 2.12.21. |kukuri, 25) p.445: 'Auen doktor', visiting, dancing. 26) p.445v: 3.12.21. |kukuri, |nukei, personal history, hippos and animals that live in the water, about the peoples of the area what kind of masters they make, names of socerers eg |ki|kai is a doctor, Anni u is a sorceress, about doctoring ill people, and talking to the moon, "if the moon lies on its side illness comes; but if it stands upright (with the horns up) they get well - so the sorcerers say." 27) 447: 4.1.22 |nukei, 'the sorcerer is a doctor, doctoring illness', details of doctoring people. 28) 448: 5.1.22. ≠nukei, about the sun, the moon, bad and good respectively, collecting food and water, illness. 29) p.450: 7.1.22. |nukei, fragments of the moon and hare story. 30) p.452v-453: 9.1.22. |kukuri, water and wells, more fragments of the moon and hare story. 31) p.454: 11.1.22. |nukei, about the locust, more on the moon and the hare story. 32) p.455: |kukurib, looking at the moon and getting ill. 33) p.455: 12.1.22. |kwi |kais, making arrow poison from a grub, soe personal history, the rainy season, bees and honey. 34) p.457v: 13.1.22. |kukuri and ≠nukei, about the hyena that steals the game of others, the lion burns the hyena story, the story of the old woman and the hyena, the hyena carries off the old woman at the end. 35) p.459: 14.1.22 |kukuri, story of an ostrich, mostly untranslated, the story of when all animals were men, the trees were people, about Hisheba heard from the old people. 36) p.461: 25.1.22. |kukurib, story of the 'paauw'? and the ostriches and the children. 37) p.463: 26.1.22. ||axas, about the hyena who steals [early race story], Hisheba who made the game and all things, the doctors talk about him and invoke him, cutting the mark between the eyes at the spirits house and they see Hisheba, 'Hisheba is a spirit', when people became ostriches, on catching lynx, the name of a big star ≠konniuba kei ba. 38) p.465: |kukuri, 29.1.22. the actions of sorcerers, how they see things and throw them away, their healing ritual 'the sorcererers as a rule wear no particular dress. They are not distinguishable in any way from other people', some personal history, the dress o f sorcerers, a dance. 39) p.467v: 30.1.22. |kukuri, lots of personal history, marriage relations, other peoples of the area and work done for them, beliefs about infanticide and punishment. 40) p.469: 1.2.22. |nuke ha not looking at the moon and hunting, what is eaten when game is shot, observances. 41) p470: 2.2.22. ≠nukei, on death and the wind which is the spirits thing, actions of ghosts which are seen by sorcerers, mmore about Hisheba, the people speak to him when they cannot find game, 'Hisheba is often confused by the younger ... men with !xu ba', the prayer to Hisheba. 42) p472: 3.2.22. |kukuri, reference to the mantis, the rain, the rain's hair (clouds), it speaks and thunders when it shouts, lightening killing people and cattle. 43) p. 473: 6.2.22. ≠nukei, about the dance |gi danced by young men doctors who also spoke, how the Klipkaffirs cut their hands, cutting of girls and boys by doctors, reference to who practices it and who does not. 44) p.474v: 7.2.22. |kukuri, about taking a woman and marriage, how a woman fetches a husband and gives him things at her home, showing the children to the grandparents, name giving practices, married life and separation, custody of children, reasons for divorcing a woman, remarriage. 45) p.475v: 8.2.22. |kukuri, catching and roasting yellow locusts, giving birth, massaging a child. 46) p.477: 9.2.22. ≠nukei, making an arrow and marking arrows, who uses them, evil dreams, sleeping, treatment for bad dreams, seeing ghosts in dreams especially by sorcerers, leaving signs to show the way for people who have left home. 47) p.478v: 10.2.22. |kukuri and ≠nukei, the wind as a bird and a spirit which can be seen by the doctors, 'the bird is the spirit', a prayer when the rain doesn't fall, what the people say to the stars when they are hungry (they want their hearts), the names of stars eg. the dawn star, southern cross, milkyway, pleiedes and other celestial bodies, the Bushmen 'in old days prayed morning star'. 48) p.480v: 11.2.22. |kukuri and ≠nukei, about baboons, magic things whose honey the Bushmen do not eat for they will die, the magic thing is like a Bushmen 'he talks. Bushmen say they understand its cries, they certainly imitate them beautifully', they curse the Bushman like a sorcerer and the Bushman dies.

Contributors

|kukuri/|kukurib/|kukurrib, ≠nukei, ≠nukeba, ≠nukime, ||axas, ≠kekuba, |kwi |kais

Date

December 1921 - February 1922

Story Pages

411-481

The Digital Bleek & Lloyd