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|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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|a!kunta had many relations who were also incarcerated at the Breakwater. His brother Yarrisho or Jantje was imprisoned with him and Lloyd notes on the inside cover of the first of her notebooks that another of his brothers, two of his nephews, two of his uncles, and three of their sons were there as well (although Lloyd does not mentioned when). |a!kunta did not relate much of his people’s folklore, contributing only a few narratives and a large number of words and sentences. An older man, ||kabbo, was sent to join him in Mowbray in February 1871. |a!kunta’s term of penal servitude expired mid 1871 and in his report of 1873 Bleek wrote that he was making enquiries as to the whereabouts of |a!kunta’s and ||kabbo’s wives in an attempt to induce them to stay longer. |a!kunta left Mowbray with ||kabbo on the 15th of October 1873 for Victoria West from where they intended to go on and locate their relations and belongings. From the authorities in Victoria West Bleek and Lloyd heard that |a!kunta arrived there safely and found his wife.
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||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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||kabbo was between 55-60 years old at the time of his arrival at Mowbray and proved to be an experienced and accomplished storyteller. While he was at Mowbray Bleek and Lloyd tried to locate his wife !kwabba-an (or Oud Lies) without success and had to secure his continued presence at Mowbray after the expiry of his jail sentence in 1871 with the promise of a much desired reward – a gun. ||kabbo is described by his son-in-law |han≠kass’o on p.8033 of Lloyd’s notebooks as being ‘a mantis’s man’ or a man who ‘had’ mantises, and on p.4701v of Lloyd’s notebooks Dia!kwain describes ||kabbo’s ‘place’ as one where its sorcerers transform themselves into birds and jackals. ||kabbo was also closely associated with a sorcerer called |kannu (or |kaunu) who was the ‘Rain's man’ and who was also ||kabbo's 'person' (see pages 2264opp and 2264v). In addition, on page 7303v of her notebooks, Lloyd notes that |han≠kass’o heard about the habits of sorcerers from ‘||khabbo’ and some other people ‘who were all ‘!giten’ (or sorcerers). These notes associate ||kabbo with practices Involving sorcery and magic, or what is often today called shamanism.
Lloyd commented, in her preface to Specimens of Bushman Folklore, that ||kabbo enjoyed the idea that his stories would become known through books. He contributed the largest number of narratives (over 3000 pages). ||kabbo left Mowbray on the 15th of October 1873 with |a!kunta for Victoria West where he found his wife. He also wanted to visit members of his family in Calvinia and obtain news of his other relatives. ||kabbo intended returning to Mowbray and Lloyd tried to contact him in Vanwyksvlei, but he died there on the 25th of January 1876. His widow !kwabba-an died on Mr C. St L. Devenish’s farm in Van Wyk’s Vlei the following year before she was able to journey to Lucy Lloyd in Cape Town. It is likely that Lloyd had been hoping for the unique input of an older female |xam narrator.
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≠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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≠kasin returned to Mowbray accompanied by his wife !kweiten ta ||ken and their two youngest children, as well as Dia!kwain, on the 13th of June 1874. ≠kasin was not interviewed during his second stay in Mowbray (although his wife was) and Bleek and Lloyd do not seem to have regarded him as one of their best narrators (he only contributed towards five notebooks altogether). ≠kasin’s most useful contributions seem to have been in providing of Koranna or (!Ora) and |xam vocabulary, and information relating to elements of daily life such as poisons and hunting. On the 25th of October ≠kasin’s two older children arrived at Mowbray. They had been left at Wellington near Cape Town. ≠kasin and his family remained at the Bleek and Lloyd household until the 13th of January 1875 when they left for Bushmanland.
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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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Dia!kwain contributed over 2000 pages of narrative to Bleek and Lloyd, as well as several drawings. His father was trained as a ‘sorcerer’ or ‘magician’ and was said to have made paintings on skin and engravings.
Dia!kwain returned to Mowbray for the second time on the 13th June 1874. He accompanied his sister !kweiten ta ||ken and brother-in-law ≠kasin and two of their young children. He remained at Mowbray after Bleek’s death in August 1875 and eventually left on the 7th March 1876 for Calvinia. He was anxious to visit relations and hear news of his children. Dia!kwain worked in Calvinia for a while in the employ of Dr H Meyer and later went into the country to visit one of his sisters, leaving some of his wages in Dr Meyer’s care. Dia!kwain intended to pass back through back through Calvinia and then return to Mowbray, but he never collected his pay and was not heard from again despite Dr Meyer’s enquiries as to his whereabouts. According to Jan Plat (who left Calvinia with Dia!kwain), interviewed by Lloyd in January 1884 (see page 6046ev), he had heard that Dia!kwain accompanied a farmer called ‘Louw’ (whose sheep he had been keeping) to Kenhardt and then the Free State, possibly in search of his sons who Dia!kwain thought might be in that region. It is also possible, according to a story Janette Deacon unearthed, that Dia!kwain was killed by friends of the farmer he shot, in an act of retaliation.
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!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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Although the Bleek and Lloyd household struggled financially to accommodate and feed such a large family, Lloyd was very keen to interview a |xam woman who could provide information that the men could not (or would not) regarding female customs, rituals and experiences. !kweiten ta ||ken had also refused to remain at Mowbray without her children. However !kweiten ta ||ken was not happy in Cape Town and only contributed two notebooks of stories and information. Her dictations, which took place over a short period between December 1874 and January 1875, did contain some useful information regarding practices involving ‘maidens’ (such as the painting of young men with red haematite) and other specifically female activities. !kweiten ta ||ken, left Mowbray for Bushmanland on the 13th of January 1875 with her husband ≠kasin and their children. Her brother Dia!kwain remained behind in Mowbray.
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|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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After ||kabbo’s death in 1876 it was arranged for |han≠kass’o and his wife Suobba-||kein to journey to Lloyd in Cape Town from Vanwyksvlei near Kenhardt. The two departed in April 1877 with an infant child, leaving their young son !hu !hun behind in Vanwyksvlei with friends. As a result of an incident where she was badly beaten by a policeman, Suobba-||kein died in Beaufort West in December 1877 on the way to Cape Town. Her and |han≠kass’o’s baby also died in Beaufort West soon after their arrival there, as a result of the attack that led to its mother’s death. |han≠kass’o arrived alone in Mowbray on the 10th of January 1878 after a long stay in Beaufort West owing to his wife’s illness. His age was estimated at around 30 at the time of his arrival in Mowbray. Lucy Lloyd tried but was unable to get his surviving child (who was indentured to a farmer) brought to him, so he returned to Bushmanland in December 1879 much to Lloyd and her family’s regret. Word was sent to Mowbray of his safe return in Kenhardt by the Border Magistrate JH Scott. |han≠kass’o was one of Lloyd’s most skilled narrators and he helped the Bleek and Lloyd family with practical matters such as the maintenance of the household as well. He longed to converse in his own language and with his own people and Lloyd tried to organize a |xam-speaking family to be sent to Mowbray to provide some companionship for him. Unfortunately a ‘Hottentot’ (or !Ora family) was sent in error which had, none the less, to be supported for almost 12 months. |han≠kass’o contributed the second-largest number of narratives and notebooks (32 of them were taken by Lloyd in all) revealing a great diversity of the richness of his people’s practices, ideas and beliefs.
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