The Digital Bleek & Lloyd

Contributors

|xam contributors

|a!kunta (Stoffel) (I) |a!kunta or Klaas Stoffel was Bleek and Lloyd’s first |xam contributor who came to Mowbray on 29th August 1870 and stayed until October 1873. He originally came from an area called the ‘Strondbergen’ and was what ||kabbo called a Ss’wa ka !kui or ‘Flat Bushman’ (meaning he belonged to a group of |xam who lived on the plains). Bleek refers to |a!kunta as a ‘boy’ in his first report of 1873 though his age is recorded as 20 years in the Breakwater Prison records. |a!kunta was married to a woman called Ka or Marie and they had no children. Bleek had become aware of the presence of 28 ‘|xam’ (or what were then known as ‘Cape Bushmen’) at the Breakwater Convict Station and, on the recommendation of the chaplain Revd G Fisk, |a!kunta (whose prisoner number was 4636) was selected for relocation to Bleek’s home because he was the ‘best-behaved Bushman boy’. He had been imprisoned for two years for stock theft (or, as he said, for eating from stolen livestock).

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||kabbo (Jantje) (II)

||kabbo (in English ‘Dream’), |uhi-ddoro or Jantje (Touren, Tooren or Toorm) stayed with Bleek and Lloyd between February 1871 and October 1873. ||kabbo refers to his people as Ss’wa ka !kui or ‘Flat Bushman’ (meaning he belonged to a group of |xam who lived on the plains). ||kabbo was from an area close to |a!kunta’s home and the ‘Strondbergen’ called the ‘Bitterpits’. ||kabbo was sent to Bleek and Lloyd on the 16th of February from the Breakwater Convict Station, where he had been imprisoned for two years for stock theft, or sharing in the spoils of theft. On pages 242-250 of Lloyd’s notebooks he relates how black men took him and some of his people from the place where they were eating springbok. On pages 266-272 of Lloyd’s notebooks ||kabbo tells of his capture along with his close relations, his journey to the Cape (via stays in Victoria West and Beaufort West), and his eventual imprisonment at the Breakwater (where his prison number was 4628). At least some of this period of incarceration was spent doing hard labour.



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≠kasin (Klaas Katkop) (IV)

≠kasin or Klaas Katkop was a ‘!nussa !e’: the ‘Flat Bushmen’s’ name for a ‘Grass Bushman’ and came from the Katkop mountains north of Calvinia. He was with Bleek and Lloyd for the first time from November 1873 until March 1874. ≠kasin was between 38 and 41 years old when he arrived at Mowbray after the departure of ||kabbo and |a!kunta. He was joined by Dia!kwain (his brother-in-law) before Christmas 1873. ≠kasin’s father was a Koranna chief and his mother was |xam and he was, as a result, able to understand and speak both languages (he spoke what Bleek and Lloyd termed a ‘Katkop dialect’) equally well and knew examples of folklore from both groups. ≠kasin was imprisoned at the Breakwater Convict Station for culpable homicide (his convict number was 4435) and served four years of a five-year sentence there. He was involved with Dia!kwain in the killing of a farmer called Jacob Kruger. ≠kasin was impatient to return to his family and soon left Mowbray with Dia!kwain on the 18th of March, bound for Calvinia.



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Dia!kwain (David Hoesar) (V) Dia!kwain or  David Hoesar (or Hussar or Huzar) was a ‘!nussa !e’: the ‘Flat Bushmen’s’ name for a ‘Grass Bushman’. He came from the Katkop mountains north of Calvinia and spoke what Bleek and Lloyd term a ‘Katkop’ dialect of |xam. He stayed with Bleek and Lloyd for the first time from before Christmas 1873 until March 1874. Dia!kwain was imprisoned for culpable homicide at the Breakwater Convict Station (his prisoner number was 4434) and served four years of a five-year sentence along with his brother-in-law ≠kasin whom he joined at Mowbray in 1873. At the time he arrived there he appeared to be in his late twenties (his prison record stated he was 25). The details of the incident that led to Dia!kwain’s and ≠kasin’s imprisonment are not clear but it appears that Dia!kwain shot a farmer who had threatened to kill his family. The judge gave Dia!kwain a relatively light sentence of five years for culpable homicide, believing him to have acted in self-defense.

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!kweiten ta ||ken (Rachel) (VI) !kweiten ta ||ken or Rachel was a ‘!nussa !e’: the ‘Flat Bushmen’s’ name for a ‘Grass Bushman’. She came from the Katkop mountains north of Calvinia and spoke what Bleek and Lloyd called a ‘Katkop’ dialect of |xam. She was Dia!kwain’s sister and was married to ≠kasin. !kweiten ta ||ken accompanied Dia!kwain and ≠kasin on their second visit to Mowbray and arrived there with the two men, as well as two of her younger children (boys, aged 6 and 2), on the 13th of June 1874. Her two older sons joined their family at Mowbray on the 25th of October. They had been temporarily left in Wellington.

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|han≠kass'o (Klein Jantje) (VIII) |han≠kass’o or Klein Jantje stayed with Lucy Lloyd and the Bleek family from January 1878 until December 1879. |han≠kass’o called himself a Ss’wa ka !kui or ‘Flat Bushman’ (meaning he belonged to a group of |xam who lived on the plains) although his father was a !kaugen ss'o or ‘Mountain’ Bushman. |han ≠kass’o was ||kabbo’s son-in-law. Although |han≠kass’o was present at the Breakwater Convict Station in 1870, he was not selected as an informant and returned to Bushmanland after the completion of his sentence in November 1871 (his prisoner number was 4630). He had been imprisoned for two years for stock theft along with his father-in-law ||kabbo and brother-in-law ‘Witbooy Touren’. (Northern Border Court record, State Archives: 1/NBM, volume 3).

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