A story told to me by an old Bushman who appears to be between 70 or 80 years of age

A story told to me by an old Bushman who appears to be between 70 or 80 years of age

Other Documents

Ink on paper

c. 1930s

Handwritten testimony on a scored, blue foolscap sheet.

Old Africaander, hole (waterhole), flowers (that grow in water), pluck (flowers), dragged into the water (a girl is caught by the hand and), spoors (the missing girl's), Veldt (shrubs in the), shrubs (that Waterwomen are fond of were nearby), fine powder (made from dried shrubs by the girl's mother), dust (thrown over the water by the girl's mother), hiding (the girl's mother stood a little way off), bait (using this powdered shrub to lure Waterwomen), white cheeks (the girl's cheeks were 'licked [...] quite white'), unhurt (the girl returned alone), fine houses (of the Waterwomen are underwater)

A story told by an old Bushman of around 70 or 80 years (unnamed). No locality or date (c. 1930s) recorded. Historically, 'Africaander' also referred to the multi-ethnic, often 'Afrikaans'/Dutch-speaking, semi-nomadic groups of southern Africa's hinterland, like the Oorlam (Dedering, 1997: 58-59). UCT's BC 151 library fonds speculatively dates this material 'c. 1930', however, 'Africaander' (one of several variant forms) had come to mean something different by the late early twentieth century, and would have been conspicuously archaic.