''Specimens of Bushman Folklore'' is a book by the

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

Wilhelm H. I. Bleek and Lucy C. Lloyd, which was published in 1911. The book records eighty-seven legends, myths and other

traditional stories Traditional stories, or stories about traditions, differ from both fiction and nonfiction in that the importance of transmitting the story's worldview is generally understood to transcend an immediate need to establish its categorization as imagi ...

of the ǀXam

Bushmen The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are members of various Khoe, Tuu, or Kxʼa-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures that are the first cultures of Southern Africa, and whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, ...

in their now-extinct language. The stories were collected through interviews with various narrators, chief among them ǀA!kunta, ǁKabbo, Diäǃkwain, !Kweiten-ta-ǀǀKen and ǀHanǂkasso. These tales were written down and translated by Bleek and his sister-in-law Lloyd. Bleek died in 1875, but Lloyd continued transcribing ǀXam narratives after his death. It is thanks to her efforts that some of the narratives were eventually published in this book, which also includes sketches of

rock art In archaeology, rock art is human-made markings placed on natural surfaces, typically vertical stone surfaces. A high proportion of surviving historic and prehistoric rock art is found in caves or partly enclosed rock shelters; this type also ...

attributed to the Bushmen people and some ǃXun narratives. ''Specimens of Bushman Folklore'' has been considered the cornerstone of study of the Bushmen and their religious beliefs.

Laurens van der Post Sir Laurens Jan van der Post, (13 December 1906 – 15 December 1996) was a South African Afrikaner writer, farmer, soldier, educator, journalist, humanitarian, philosopher, explorer and conservationist. He was noted for his interest in Jun ...

describes the book (and

Dorothea Bleek Dorothea Frances Bleek (later Dorothy F. Bleek; born 26 March 1873, Mowbray, Cape Town – died 27 June 1948, Newlands, Cape Town) was a South African-born German anthropologist and philologist known for her research on the Bushmen (the San peopl ...

's ''Mantis and His Friend'') as "a sort of

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...

Bible" in the introduction to ''The Heart of the Hunter'' (1961), a follow-up to ''The Lost World of the Kalahari''. ''Specimens of Bushman Folklore'', as well as the situation of the Bushmen during their disappearance in South Africa and the lives of Bleek and Lloyd, have been covered in a Dutch documentary series called ''The Broken String''.

External links

''Specimens of Bushman Folklore.''
(entire text)
''Specimens of Bushman Folklore.''
(scanned pages, with search)
Diä!kwain, the 'soft-hearted' prisoner
(an informant)
/Xam (Bushmen and Bushwomen) Intellectuals (1845-1879)
including the five informants of Bleek

(entry under ''1911'')
University of Cape Town, Michaelis School of Fine Art: The Digital Bleek and Lloyddocumentary information (in Dutch)
1911 books Anthropology books {{Africa-myth-stub

Further reading

External links