‘My Name did Float Along the Road’: Naming Practices and |Xam Bushman Identities in the 19^th-century Karoo (South Africa)

Abstract

Naming practices have the potential to inform on a whole series of socio-cultural phenomena, often being deeply embedded in identity-formation at a variety of scales – from the personal to the construction of ‘kin’, as well as in larger-scale group memberships. For this reason, ethnographers of southern African ‘San’ or ‘Bushman’ populations in the Kalahari have long been interested in the significance of naming practices in the production of universalised kin categories amongst these hunter-gatherer societies. This article looks at the evidence for personal names among the Southern Bushmen of the Karoo, drawing on the Bleek-Lloyd archive to explore the relevance of onomastic data for understanding the construction of |Xam identities. In particular, the article explores the variety of ways in which |Xam names intersected with their subsistence practices and ontological orientations, key elements emphasised in emic definitions of ‘personhood’. The article then moves on to examine the ways in which these practices were maintained during the 19^th century, a time in which |Xam societies were undergoing dramatic changes as they attempted to deal with colonial encroachment of their territories.

Key words:

• Bushman
• San
• 19^th century
• colonisation
• identity
• names and naming
• translation

Acknowledgements

The transcription of the Bleek-Lloyd archive on which this analysis was based was produced in the course of my PhD funded by the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford. Further work was undertaken during an NRF-funded post-doctoral position at the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. Both funding sources are gratefully acknowledged here. Thanks are due also to two anonymous reviewers who provided commentary that substantially strengthened the article.

Note on Contributor

Mark McGranaghan is a Claude Leon post-doctoral fellow at the Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. His research focuses upon the interaction of southern African hunter-gatherers with their farmer and pastoralist neighbours, on the historical archaeology of the Northern Cape, and on the oral literature of the |Xam Bushmen.

Notes

1. Dia!kwain to Lucy Lloyd (20 October 1875) (LL.V.19.5448).

2. See Vom Bruck & Bodenhorn (2006) for a recent summary.

3. Five men (|a!kunta, ‖kabbo, ╪kasin, Dia!kwain, |han╪kass'o) and one woman (!kweit∂n-ta-‖k∂ŋ).

4. Names are for the most part left as single un-translated units, though some are explained with narratives or textual asides.

5. Original notebook material <http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/> (hereinafter referred to as LL or WB followed by a Roman numeral denoting the informant (for the LL notebooks), and by notebook volume and page numbers); and in Skotnes (2007).

6. ‖kabbo-|hin as ‘Goes-out-to-dream’, ‖kabba-|hin as ‘Goes-out-leisurely’, and ‖xabba-|hin as ‘Goes-out-to-the-Zoutrivier [Afrikaans Salt-River]’ (Bleek 1956:288, 548, 549, 631).

7. See Bank (2006) for discussion of these relationships.

8. Notwithstanding some evidence for survival – albeit in modified forms and in a different language (Afrikaans) – of certain narrative forms and beliefs (Hoff 1997, 1998, 2007, 2011, 2012; De Prada-Samper 2012) amongst Northern and Western Cape populations that, in part, are genetic descendants of the |Xam.

9. A sorcerer who might bring illness (Hollmann 2007:11).

10. Approximately ‘Exclaims “bbo!”’ (Bleek 1956:17, 123).

11. Dia!kwain's uncle; he was given his name by |abbe-tu (Dia!kwain's maternal grandmother).

12. |ni-tsaxau, probably ‘Perceives-eye’ or ‘Perceives-berry’ (Bleek 1956:213, 347).

13. !kweit∂n-ta-‖keŋ and Dia!kwain were siblings: we again see here their mother's preoccupation with ‘sorcery’.

14. Given that !kwi-!kaxu was also ‘said to be a bad man’, the forcible ‘marriage’ might well refer to an attempted rape.

15. |han╪kass'o to Lucy Lloyd (13 November 1879) (LL VIII.32:8808').

16. 19^th-century term for people of mixed European and Khoe/Bushman descent (Schoeman 1996:xi–xii).

17. This term more literally translates as ‘one-full-of-magical-potency’ (Bleek 1956:255, 382).