Odd People: Being a Popular Description of Singular Races of Man

It is supposed to be this fashion of literally “sleeping in the bush,” as also the mode by which he skulks and hides among bushes, – invariably taking to them when pursued, – that has given origin to the name Bushman, or Bosjesman, as it is in the language of the colonial Dutch. This derivation is probable enough, and no better has been offered.

The Bushman sometimes constructs himself a more elaborate dwelling; that is, some Bushmen; – for it should be remarked that there are a great many tribes or communities of these people, and they are not all so very low in the scale of civilisation. None, however, ever arrive at the building of a house, – not even a hut. A tent is their highest effort in the building line, and that is of the rudest description, scarce deserving the name. Its covering is a mat, which they weave out of a species of rush that grows along some of the desert streams; and in the fabrication of the covering they display far more ingenuity than in the planning or construction of the tent itself. The mat, in fact, is simply laid over two poles, that are bent into the form of an arch, by having both ends stuck into the ground. A second piece of matting closes up one end; and the other, left open, serves for the entrance. As a door is not deemed necessary, no further construction is required, and the tent is “pitched” complete. It only remains to scoop out the sand, and make the nest as already described.

It is said that the Goths drew their ideas of architecture from the aisles of the oak forest; the Chinese from their Mongolian tents; and the Egyptians from their caves in the rocks. Beyond a doubt, the Bushman has borrowed his from the nest of the ostrich!

It now becomes necessary to inquire how the Bushman spends his time? how he obtains subsistence? and what is the nature of his food? All these questions can be answered, though at first it may appear difficult to answer them. Dwelling, as he always does, in the very heart of the desert, remote from forests that might furnish him with some sort of food – trees that might yield fruit, – far away from a fertile soil, with no knowledge of agriculture, even if it were near, – with no flocks or herds; neither sheep, cattle, horses, nor swine, – no domestic animals but his lean, diminutive dogs, – how does this Bushman procure enough to eat? What are his sources of supply?

We shall see. Being neither a grazier nor a farmer, he has other means of subsistence, – though it must be confessed that they are of a precarious character, and often during his life does the Bushman find himself on the very threshold of starvation. This, however, results less from the parsimony of Nature than the Bushman’s own improvident habits, – a trait in his character which is, perhaps, more strongly developed in him than any other. We shall have occasion to refer to it presently.

His first and chief mode of procuring his food is by the chase: for, although he is surrounded by the sterile wilderness, he is not the only animated being who has chosen the desert for his home. Several species of birds – one the largest of all – and quadrupeds, share with the Bushman the solitude and safety of this desolate region. The rhinoceros can dwell there; and in numerous streams are found the huge hippopotami; whilst quaggas, zebras, and several species of antelope frequent the desert plains as their favourite “stamping” ground. Some of these animals can live almost without water; but when they do require it, what to them is a gallop of fifty miles to some well-known “vley” or pool? It will be seen, therefore, that the desert has its numerous denizens. All these are objects of the Bushman’s pursuit, who follows them with incessant pertinacity – as if he were a beast of prey, furnished by Nature with the most carnivorous propensities.

In the capture of these animals he displays an almost incredible dexterity and cunning. His mode of approaching the sly ostrich, by disguising himself in the skin of one of these birds, is so well-known that I need not describe it here; but the ruses he adopts for capturing or killing other sorts of game are many of them equally ingenious. The pit-trap is one of his favourite contrivances; and this, too, has been often described, – but often very erroneously. The pit is not a large hollow, – as is usually asserted, – but rather of dimensions proportioned to the size of the animal that is expected to fall into it. For game like the rhinoceros or eland antelope, it is dug of six feet in length and three in width at the top; gradually narrowing to the bottom, where it ends in a trench of only twelve inches broad. Six or seven feet is considered deep enough; and the animal, once into it, gets so wedged at the narrow bottom part as to be unable to make use of its legs for the purpose of springing out again. Sometimes a sharp stake or two are used, with the view of impaling the victim; but this plan is not always adopted. There is not much danger of a quadruped that drops in ever getting out again, till he is dragged out by the Bushman in the shape of a carcass.

The Bushman’s ingenuity does not end here. Besides the construction of the trap, it is necessary the game should be guided into it. Were this not done, the pit might remain a long time empty, and, as a necessary consequence, so too might the belly of the Bushman. In the wide plain few of the gregarious animals have a path which they follow habitually; only where there is a pool may such beaten trails be found, and of these the Bushman also avails himself; but they are not enough. Some artificial means must be used to make the traps pay – for they are not constructed without much labour and patience. The plan adopted by the Bushman to accomplish this exhibits some points of originality. He first chooses a part of the plain which lies between two mountains. No matter if these be distant from each other: a mile, or even two, will not deter the Bushman from his design. By the help of his whole tribe – men, women, and children – he constructs a fence from one mountain to the other. The material used is whatever may be most ready to the hand: stones, sods, brush, or dead timber, if this be convenient. No matter how rude the fence: it need not either be very high. He leaves several gaps in it; and the wild animals, however easily they might leap over such a puny barrier, will, in their ordinary way, prefer to walk leisurely through the gaps. In each of these, however, there is a dangerous hole – dangerous from its depth as well as from the cunning way in which it is concealed from the view – in short, in each gap there is a pit-fall. No one – at least no animal except the elephant – would ever suspect its presence; the grass seems to grow over it, and the sand lies unturned, just as elsewhere upon the plain. What quadruped could detect the cheat? Not any one except the sagacious elephant. The stupid eland tumbles through; the gemsbok goes under; and the rhinoceros rushes into it as if destined to destruction. The Bushman sees this from his elevated perch, glides forward over the ground, and spears the struggling victim with his poisoned assagai.

Besides the above method of capturing game the Bushman also uses the bow and arrows. This is a weapon in which he is greatly skilled; and although both bow and arrows are as tiny as if intended for children’s toys, they are among the deadliest of weapons, their fatal effect lies not in the size of the wound they are capable of inflicting, but in the peculiar mode in which the barbs of the arrows are prepared. I need hardly add that they are dipped in poison; – for who has not heard of the poisoned arrows of the African Bushmen?

Both bow and arrows are usually rude enough in their construction, and would appear but a trumpery affair, were it not for a knowledge of their effects. The bow is a mere round stick, about three feet long, and slightly bent by means of its string of twisted sinews. The arrows are mere reeds, tipped with pieces of bone, with a split ostrich-quill lapped behind the head, and answering for a barb. This arrow the Bushman can shoot with tolerable certainty to a distance of a hundred yards, and he can even project it farther by giving a slight elevation to his aim. It signifies not whether the force with which it strikes the object be ever so slight, if it only makes an entrance. Even a scratch from its point will sometimes prove fatal.

Of course the danger dwells altogether in the poison. Were it not for that, the Bushman, from his dwarfish stature and pigmy strength, would be a harmless creature indeed.

The poison he well knows how to prepare, and he can make it of the most “potent spell,” when the “materials” are within his reach. For this purpose he makes use of both vegetable and animal substances, and a mineral is also employed; but the last is not a poison, and is only used to give consistency to the liquid, so that it may the better adhere to the arrow. The vegetable substances are of various kinds. Some are botanically known: the bulb of Amaryllis disticha, – the gum of a Euphorbia, – the sap of a species of sumac (Rhus), – and the nuts of a shrubby plant, by the colonists called Woolf-gift (Wolf-poison).

The animal substance is the fluid found in the fangs of venomous serpents, several species of which serve the purpose of the Bushman: as the little “Horned Snake,” – so called from the scales rising prominently over its eyes; the “Yellow Snake,” or South-African Cobra (Naga haje); the “Puff Adder,” and others. From all these he obtains the ingredients of his deadly ointment, and mixes them, not all together; for he cannot always procure them all in any one region of the country in which he dwells. He makes his poison, also, of different degrees of potency, according to the purpose for which he intends it; whether for hunting or war. With sixty or seventy little arrows, well imbued with this fatal mixture, and carefully placed in his quiver of tree bark or skin, – or, what is not uncommon, stuck like a coronet around his head, – he sallies forth, ready to deal destruction either to game, animals, or to human enemies.

Of these last he has no lack. Every man, not a Bushman, he deems his enemy; and he has some reason for thinking so. Truly may it be said of him, as of Ishmael, that his “hand is against every man, and every man’s hand against him;” and such has been his unhappy history for ages. Not alone have the boers been his pursuers and oppressors, but all others upon his borders who are strong enough to attack him, – colonists, Caffres, and Bechuanas, all alike, – not even excepting his supposed kindred, the Hottentots. Not only does no fellow-feeling exist between Bushman and Hottentot, but, strange to say, they hate each other with the most rancorous hatred. The Bushman will plunder a Namaqua Hottentot, a Griqua, or a Gonaqua, – plunder and murder him with as much ruthlessness, or even more, than he would the hated Caffre or boer. All are alike his enemies, – all to be plundered and massacred, whenever met, and the thing appears possible.

We are speaking of plunder. This is another source of supply to the Bushman, though one that is not always to be depended upon. It is his most dangerous method of obtaining a livelihood, and often costs him his life. He only resorts to it when all other resources fail him, and food is no longer to be obtained by the chase.

He makes an expedition into the settlements, – either of the frontier boers, Caffres, or Hottentots, – whichever chance to live most convenient to his haunts. The expedition, of course, is by night, and conducted, not as an open foray, but in secret, and by stealth. The cattle are stolen, not reeved, and driven off while the owner and his people are asleep.

In the morning, or as soon as the loss is discovered, a pursuit is at once set on foot. A dozen men, mounted and armed with long muskets (röers), take the spoor of the spoilers, and follow it as fast as their horses will carry them. A dozen boers, or even half that number, is considered a match for a whole tribe of Bushmen, in any fight which may occur in the open plain, as the boers make use of their long-range guns at such a distance that the Bushmen are shot down without being able to use their poisoned arrows; and if the thieves have the fortune to be overtaken before they have got far into the desert, they stand a good chance of being terribly chastised.

There is no quarter shown them. Such a thing as mercy is never dreamt of, – no sparing of lives any more than if they were a pack of hyenas. The Bushmen may escape to the rocks, such of them as are not hit by the bullets; and there the boers know it would be idle to follow them. Like the klipspringer antelope, the little savages can bound from rock to rock, and cliff to cliff, or hide like partridges among crevices, where neither man nor horse can pursue them. Even upon the level plain – if it chance to be stony or intersected with breaks and ravines – a horseman would endeavour to overtake them in vain, for these yellow imps are as swift as ostriches.

When the spoilers scatter thus, the boer may recover his cattle, but in what condition? That he has surmised already, without going among the herd. He does not expect to drive home one half of them; perhaps not one head. On reaching the flock he finds there is not one without a wound of some kind or other: a gash in the flank, the cut of a knife, the stab of an assagai, or a poisoned arrow – intended for the boer himself – sticking between the ribs. This is the sad spectacle that meets his eyes; but he never reflects that it is the result of his own cruelty, – he never regards it in the light of retribution. Had he not first hunted the Bushman to make him a slave, to make bondsmen and bondsmaids of his sons and daughters, to submit them to the caprice and tyranny of his great, strapping frau, perhaps his cattle would have been browsing quietly in his fields. The poor Bushman, in attempting to take them, followed but his instincts of hunger: in yielding them up he obeyed but the promptings of revenge.

It is not always that the Bushman is thus overtaken. He frequently succeeds in carrying the whole herd to his desert fastness; and the skill which he exhibits in getting them there is perfectly surprising. The cattle themselves are more afraid of him than of a wild beast, and run at his approach; but the Bushman, swifter than they, can glide all around them, and keep them moving at a rapid rate.

He uses stratagem also to obstruct or baffle the pursuit. The route he takes is through the driest part of the desert, – if possible, where water does not exist at all. The cattle suffer from thirst, and bellow from the pain; but the Bushman cares not for that, so long as he is himself served. But how is he served? There is no water, and a Bushman can no more go without drinking than a boer: how then does he provide for himself on these long expeditions?

All has been pre-arranged. While off to the settlements, the Bushman’s wife has been busy. The whole kraal of women – young and old – have made an excursion halfway across the desert, each carrying ostrich egg-shells, as much as her kaross will hold, each shell full of water. These have been deposited at intervals along the route in secret spots known by marks to the Bushmen, and this accomplished the women return home again. In this way the plunderer obtains his supply of water, and thus is he enabled to continue his journey over the arid Karroo.

The pursuers become appalled. They are suffering from thirst – their horses sinking under them. Perhaps they have lost their way? It would be madness to proceed further. “Let the cattle go this time?” and with this disheartening reflection they give up the pursuit, turn the heads of their horses, and ride homeward.

There is a feast at the Bushman’s kraal – and such a feast! not one ox is slaughtered, but a score of them all at once. They kill them, as if from very wantonness; and they no longer eat, but raven on the flesh.

For days the feasting is kept up almost continuously, – even at night they must wake up to have a midnight meal! and thus runs the tale, till every ox has been eaten. They have not the slightest idea of a provision for the future; even the lower animals seem wiser in this respect. They do not think of keeping a few of the plundered cattle at pasture to serve them for a subsequent occasion. They give the poor brutes neither food nor drink; but, having penned them up in some defile of the rocks, leave them to moan and bellow, to drop down and die.

On goes the feasting, till all are finished; and even if the flesh has turned putrid, this forms not the slightest objection: it is eaten all the same.

The kraal now exhibits an altered spectacle. The starved, meagre wretches, who were seen flitting among its tents but a week ago, have all disappeared. Plump bodies and distended abdomens are the order of the day; and the profile of the Bushwoman, taken from the neck to the knees, now exhibits the outline of the letter S. The little imps leap about, tearing raw flesh, – their yellow cheeks besmeared with blood, – and the lean curs seem to have been exchanged for a pack of fat, petted poodles.

But this scene must some time come to an end, and at length it does end. All the flesh is exhausted, and the bones picked clean. A complete reaction comes over the spirit of the Bushman. He falls into a state of languor, – the only time when he knows such a feeling, – and he keeps his kraal, and remains idle for days. Often he sleeps for twenty-four hours at a time, and wakes only to go to sleep again. He need not rouse himself with the idea of getting something to eat: there is not a morsel in the whole kraal, and he knows it. He lies still, therefore, – weakened with hunger, and overcome with the drowsiness of a terrible lassitude.

Fortunate for him, while in this state, if those bold vultures – attracted by the débris of his feast, and now high wheeling in the air – be not perceived from afar; fortunate if they do not discover the whereabouts of his kraal to the vengeful pursuer. If they should do so, he has made his last foray and his last feast.

When the absolute danger of starvation at length compels our Bushman to bestir himself, he seems to recover a little of his energy, and once more takes to hunting, or, if near a stream, endeavours to catch a few fish. Should both these resources fail, he has another, – without which he would most certainly starve, – and perhaps this may be considered his most important source of supply, since it is the most constant, and can be depended on at nearly all seasons of the year. Weakened with hunger, then, and scarce equal to any severer labour, he goes out hunting – this time insects, not quadrupeds. With a stout stick inserted into a stone at one end and pointed at the other, he proceeds to the nests of the white ants (termites), and using the point of the stick, – the stone serving by its weight to aid the force of the blow, – he breaks open the hard, gummy clay of which the hillock is formed. Unless the aard-vark and the pangolin– two very different kinds of ant-eaters – have been there before him, he finds the chambers filled with the eggs of the ants, the insects themselves, and perhaps large quantities of their larvae. All are equally secured by the Bushman, and either devoured on the spot, or collected into a skin bag, and carried back to his kraal.

He hunts also another species of ants that do not build nests or “hillocks,” but bring forth their young in hollows under the ground. These make long galleries or covered ways just under the surface, and at certain periods – which the Bushman knows by unmistakable signs – they become very active, and traverse these underground galleries in thousands. If the passages were to be opened above, the ants would soon make off to their caves, and but a very few could be captured. The Bushman, knowing this, adopts a stratagem. With the stick already mentioned he pierces holes of a good depth down; and works the stick about, until the sides of the holes are smooth and even. These he intends shall serve him as pitfalls; and they are therefore made in the covered ways along which the insects are passing. The result is, that the little creatures, not suspecting the existence of these deep wells, tumble head foremost into them, and are unable to mount up the steep smooth sides again, so that in a few minutes the hole will be filled with ants, which the Bushman scoops out at his leisure.

Another source of supply which he has, and also a pretty constant one, consists of various roots of the tuberous kind, but more especially bulbous roots, which grow in the desert. They are several species of Ixias and Mesembryanthemums, – some of them producing bulbs of a large size, and deeply buried underground. Half the Bushman’s and Bushwoman’s time is occupied in digging for these roots; and the spade employed is the stone-headed staff already described.

Ostrich eggs also furnish the Bushman with many a meal; and the huge shells of these eggs serve him for water-vessels, cups, and dishes. He is exceedingly expert in tracking up the ostrich, and discovering its nest. Sometimes he finds a nest in the absence of the birds; and in a case of this kind he pursues a course of conduct that is peculiarly Bushman. Having removed all the eggs to a distance, and concealed them under some bush, he returns to the nest and ensconces himself in it. His diminutive body, when close squatted, cannot be perceived from a distance, especially when there are a few bushes around the nest, as there usually are. Thus concealed he awaits the return of the birds, holding his bow and poisoned arrows ready to salute them as soon as they come within range. By this ruse he is almost certain of killing either the cock or hen, and not infrequently both – when they do not return together.

Lizards and land-tortoises often furnish the Bushman with a meal; and the shell of the latter serves him also for a dish; but his period of greatest plenty is when the locusts appear. Then, indeed, the Bushman is no longer in want of a meal; and while these creatures remain with him, he knows no hunger. He grows fat in a trice, and his curs keep pace with him – for they too greedily devour the locusts. Were the locusts a constant, or even an annual visitor, the Bushman would be a rich man – at all events his wants would be amply supplied. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for everybody else, these terrible destroyers of vegetation only come now and then – several years often intervening between their visits.

The Bushmen have no religion whatever; no form of marriage – any more than mating together like wild beasts; but they appear to have some respect for the memory of their dead, since they bury them – usually erecting a large pile of stones, or “cairn,” over the body.

They are far from being of a melancholy mood. Though crouching in their dens and caves during the day, in dread of the boers and other enemies, they come forth at night to chatter and make merry. During fine moonlights they dance all night, keeping up the ball till morning; and in their kraals may be seen a circular spot – beaten hard and smooth with their feet – where these dances are performed.

They have no form of government – not so much as a head man or chief. Even the father of the family possesses no authority, except such as superior strength may give him; and when his sons are grown up and become as strong as he is, this of course also ceases.

They have no tribal organisation; the small communities in which they live being merely so many individuals accidentally brought together, often quarrelling and separating from one another. These communities rarely number over a hundred individuals, since, from the nature of their country, a large number could not find subsistence in any one place. It follows, therefore, that the Bushman race must ever remain widely scattered – so long as they pursue their present mode of life – and no influence has ever been able to win them from it. Missionary efforts made among them have all proved fruitless. The desert seems to have been created for them, as they for the desert; and when transferred elsewhere, to dwell amidst scenes of civilised life, they always yearn to return to their wilderness home.