Notebooks

Story: Dorothea Bleek - Book BC151_A3_020

Title

Dorothea Bleek - Book BC151_A3_020

Collection

Summary

Naron notebook, Vol. IX? (with Auen contributions too). Fairly fragmented accounts of contemporary life, history and building of the settlement, and personal history; much daily life, including illness, names of plants and animals, rain and seasons and food, fire, habits of animals, and burial practises and family life. Some interesting descriptions of using buchu to say 'goodbye' to the dead. Mostly in the form of words and sentences with some scattered narrative.

Comments

1) Book starts inside front cover (p.554opp.). 16.11.21. Words and sentences, description of washing clothes, food eaten, names of trees, flowers, plants and fruit, buchu mentioned, gathering veldkos & names for foodstuffs and actions, cleaning something by rubbing with sand, something that comes out in rain, goes away in winter, seasons & food that comes out; 2) p.558: 19.11.21. ≠nu kei. What can be eaten and what cannot - plants, where to find food, personal history and names of relations; 3) p.559v: 20.11.21. ≠nukeba. Rain, peoples at the place, languages spoken and understood, rain speaks (thunder), growing food, 21.11.21. ≠nu kiba. Policeman on a camel, white man & Klipkaffir (policemen), Saul is ill, his chest is ill, holes and trapping miercats, rain coming, catching ostrich, snake holes, buchu, making a musical instrument, fragmented description of an event involving wagons and the missus; 4) p.560v: ≠nu keba. Daily life and some history - spring hares and miercats, peoples coming & going in the area, missus was brought a letter in the wagon, leopards that walk about at night, he trapped & killed leopards as a young men, 23.11.21: about the Namaqua, their daily life and habits, hunt and possess cows, their relations with others (black men etc); narrator's personal history and the peoples that lived near him when younger (Betchuanas, Klipkaffirs, when the Namqua came), building houses, making of the settlement, making of stone house by white men; 5) p.564: 24.11.21. Development of the settlement described further, personal history, about the Agama lizard, not eaten by Bushmen, nor any other lizard, names of trees, names of places, history - place and personal, languages spoken there, p.566: 'a person has pain, if it builds there, illness illness lives there rheumatism makes mischief'; 6) p.566v: 26.11.21. ≠nukeba. Making fire and baking, the rheumatism bird (sorcerer), DB thinks it a hawk, makes a person ill, a doctor works with his hands and treats amna till he can walk, rubs him with his hands (treating rheumatism), the bird is a wizard, birds that are eaten and birds that are wizards, work performed goat-herding, being afraid of lions, snakes, wasps and wizards, lion is a wizard and kills and is feared, being killed by an elephant; 7) p.569v: 27.11.21≠ nu keba. Lions coming, trapping jackals, bartering spoons and sewing clothes, about birds and their habits, personal history (an Auen wife who died), living in Auen country, a bird that bewitches, it is a wizard; 8) p.571v-73v: 28.11.21. |kukurrib. Illness (smallpox), history of the place, an old Bushman saw 'Boers and Englishmen who travelled along here', Betchuanas gave smallpox, who had it and who recovered, how the people do not dance, personal history, references to eland, quagga, wildebeest,giraffe and a man sewing a kaross. 9) p.573v: ≠nukeba.Describes a musical instrument that the Bushmen learnt to make from the Betshuanas,fetching and carrying water, wood and veldkos, making fires, cooking, cooking pots, aspecial root which makes men shoot well which a German doctor came to dig, describes selling roots to the white men because they do not 'dig', rituals and potions for seeing well for hunting. 10) p.575: |kukurrib. Lemke's wagon, Dau ≠ke sold his stick for a knife, personal history of Dau ≠ke, Dau ≠ke has returned to these parts to eat veldkos again, mention of |kukurrib having worked for many Boers and Englishmen, 'I am smoking tobacco smoke - like a drunk', detailed description of preparing a skin, bartering with the kaross, mention of the wind spirit, 'the wind gently blows fetches the clouds the rain comes up ... ', the black and white bumble bee and where it lives and how it makes honey that only the children eat. 11) p.577: 1.12.21. ||axas. describes the relationship between a man's headache and the spirit wind, talks of rain and heat, winter and summer, words for parts of the body, refers to ostrich, hartebeest, wildebeest, eland, birds, springbok, duiker all things that are eaten, snails, he entreats the missus to write a letter and give it to Lemke, words and phrases. 12) p.579v: 2.2.21. Refers to the arrival of the wagon being pulled by donkeys and the departure of the Missis, Missis threw sweets to the children, words for colours, tells of his wife travelling through Gobabis to Windhuk[sic], he has also been to Winhuk, he has seen a motor car at Gobabis, also mention his travels in Bechuanaland, personal history. 13) p.581v: ||Namshe. Auen. The coming of the wagon, personal history, description of the present, a rain is coming, about |kukurrib's master, names for people (eg. a Betshuana called Tibib); 14) p.582v: ≠nu kei. 3.12.21. On burial and digging graves for men and women, dead man buried with knees drawn up, with 'arms down round knees', his things put in with him, burial and time of day, how the dead man is carried, his wife gives the dead man a 'present' , burns buchu at his grave, she leaves his hut and goes to live at another. Making graves for women - dug far from the house. Treatment of the widow and children of the dead man. On catching game, different birds, about ther Mantis which bites, the people call it a biting thing, names and brief descriptions of insects. 15) p.584v: Anni u. Auen. Much about water and the rain that made her afraid, building a house from sticks and wood, women do it, thatching the house. The seasons and where the people go and gather. 16) p.585: |kukurib & ≠nu kei. Naron. The seasons and sickness, using buchu and medicine given by the master to recover. 'The old people knew medicine which they got from plants, but not these people.' 'Naron have no medicine'.; 17) p.585: 4.12.21. ≠nukei. Using mats and sieves, making nets, using sieves for ants. 'The oldest Bushmen used sieves'. 18) p.586v: Reference to a buchu powder (snuff) put in a prepared tortoise-shell (see p.244), description of its preparation, waxing etc. About the use and preparation of buchu. Buchu is put on a stick when a child dies, the rain comes and washes it off, it is saying goodbye. Buchu is used to say goodbye to the dead, white men make a letter[?]. Ostrich and their eggs as food. The different groups of people at Gobabis (Klipkaffirs etc); 19) p.587v: Auen. ||namshe. Oxen belonging to different people (Lemke, Henrick etc), about arrow and their parts, poisoning the arrowhead; 20) p.588: ≠nuke; 21) 6.12.21. ≠nu keba. Marriage customs. The young man gives skins to the bride and her parents.21) p.588v: Mention of the mantis, not to be touched as told by the |xam people [very fragmented], what the old people knew about it 'if they had known it would have told', on understanding and speaking languages, policemen at Gobabis take Bushmen prisoner and kill kudus taking the skins and leaving the meat, the Boers kill two oxen and leave the skins behind which the Bushmen make into bags [?]. 22) p.589: 7.12.21. Anni u. Food gathered and eaten; 23) p.589v: ||axas. Naron. A child's apron, the making and wearing of aprons and karosses by the Naron men and women, daily life and personal history, what they do when the rain comes; 24) p.591: 8.12.21. ≠nukei. Naron women's work, preparing skin for wearing, lung sickness, putting things into the long bag, moon, sun and stars and their movements in the sky; 25) p.592: |kukurrib. Women's and childs' play, the watersnake, how it will get them, how the water swallows one, old women play the game. How the old people sucked water with reed straws but there are none left except at Rietfontein, the sucked water is put into the eggshell and drunk; 26) p.592v: 9.12.21. Anni u. Work and food, eating agamas, sitting and smoking; 27) p.593: Naron ||axas. Making and wearing bags (man and woman), small bags for tobacco and bigger ones, some personal history; 28) p.593v: ≠nukei. Personal history and living at different places, where home is (for |kukurib), who lives where, what the people there do (the boyd are absent learning to shoot), bees and honey, summer and rain; 29) p.594v: 10.12.21. Auen. Anni u. Food eaten, rubbing people with buchu; 30) p.595: Naron. ≠nukeba. |kukurib & 2 Auen - |keishe !na and |kobba !na [?]. Their personal history. About cutting and the name of the cut. About an old man who was a doctor. He cut people and rubbed in black ash. About when boys are cut (called |ni). The informant/subject [|keishe !na?] was cut when middleaged and with a beard [?]. His tattoo-marks are invisible due to his advanced age. Boys are cut to see well. 'The cuts on the face are done by the doctor, for sickness'. The ones done 'on the body by old men for game'. 31) p.595v: about a very old man, a captain, the peoples he saw when he was young [|keishe !na?], when the white men came, old |kukurib helped the white men drive the game for Englishmen and Boers. Women and men dancing. 32) p.596: 11.12.21. Naron. ≠nukei and |kukurib. Personal history, about individuals known by the narrators. What peoples live where, description of the area (Rietfontein, Kalkfontein) and what languages people there speak and understand.

Contributors

≠nukei, |kukurib, Anni u, ≠nukeba, ||Namshe, ||axas, |keishe !na, |kobba !na

Date

November - December 1921

Story Pages

553-596

The Digital Bleek & Lloyd