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Abstract
Kalahari and Transvaal Tswana practised a mixed economy of herding, agriculture, and hunting for meat (and for skins). While faunal remains reflect higher percentage of domestic stock than of wild animals, such proportions alone do not reflect hunting's importance. Hunters probably slaughtered animals in the veld and dried the meat in strips for transport home with the skins. Moreover, hunting-related vocabulary and numerous references to wildlife trophies as associated with status show that hunting was integral to Tswana life. Hunting and wildlife utilisation changed after firearms, horses, and ivory trading were introduced. Non-consumption and trade assumed greater importance. Hunters killed wild animals to obtain trading trophies and to remove predators from expanding grazing and settlement areas. In the Transvaal, hunting largely disappeared, as Tswana were dispossessed by white settlers involved in commercial cattle and cash crop farming, and as elephants retreated north of the Limpopo River. To the west, however, game remained abundant and many observers in the Kalahari noted a wide variety of Tswana hunting practices, some likely predating the nineteenth century. Some of these hunting practices yielded substantial returns of ivory, skins, ostrich feathers, and other products which were fed into a wide-ranging trade throughout southern Africa.
Notes
1. T.M.O'C. Maggs ‘Faunal Remains and Hunting Patterns from the Iron Age of the Southern Highveld’, Annals of the Natal Museum, 22, 2 (1975), 449–454.
2. A.J.B. Humphreys, ‘A Prehistoric Frontier in the Northern Cape and the Western Orange Free State: Archaeological Evidence in Interaction and Ideological Change’, Kronos, 3 (1988), 3–13; I. Plug, ‘Animal Remains from Industrial Iron Age Communities in Phalaborwa, South Africa’, South African Archaeological Review, 16, 3 (1999), 155–184; J. Bradfield, S. Holt, and K. Sadr, ‘The Last of the LSA on the Makgabeng Plateau, Limpopo Province’, South African Archaeological Bulletin, 64, 190 (2009), 176–183.
3. Maggs, ‘Faunal Remains’, 450.
4. D.T. Cole and L. Moncho-Warren, Setswana and English Illustrated Dictionary (Northlands: Macmillan South Africa, 2012), 139: ‘… leaving buffalo calves hanging on the bushes…’ from the self-praise (leboko) of Pilane that dates to the period c. 1830, refers to dried meat strips awaiting transport home. I. Schapera, Praise Poems of Tswana Chiefs (Cape Town: Oxford University, 1965), 58, 59n6. See also S. Kay, Travels and Researches in Caffraria (New York: B. Waugh & T. Mason, 1834), 195; R.P. Kirby, ed., The Diary of Dr. Andrew Smith. Vol. II (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1940), 118–119.
5. J. Barrow, A Voyage to Cochinchina in the Years 1792 and 1793 (London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, 1806), 393–394.
6. J. Campbell, Travels in South Africa (London: Black & Parry 1813), 289.
7. J. Campbell, Travels in South Africa: Second Journey, 2 Vols (London: Francis Westley, 1822), I: 186.
8. J. Campbell, Travels in South Africa: Second Journey, 2 Vols (London: Francis Westley, 1822), II, 68.
9. W.M. Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, Vol. II (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1824), 320.
10. W.M. Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, Vol. II (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1824), 420–421.
11. Campbell, Travels in South Africa, 243.
12. H. Lichtenstein, Travels in Southern Africa in the Years 1803, 1804, 1805 and 1806. Two Vols. Trans. By A. Plumptre (London: Henry Colburn, 1815), II: 306.
13. Campbell Travels in South Africa: Second Journey, I: 134.
14. Campbell Travels in South Africa: Second Journey., 214.
15. T. Arbousset and F. Daumas, An Exploratory Tour to the North-east of the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope, Trans. by J.C. Brown (Cape Town: Saul Solomon, 1846), 230–231.
16. Kirby, Diary, II: 149, plate 23.
17. Maggs, ‘Faunal Remains’; N. Walker, ‘Game Traps: Their Importance in Southern Africa’, Botswana Notes and Records, 23 (1991), 235–242.
18. F. Morton, When Rustline became an Art: Pilane's Kgatla and the Transvaal Frontier, 1840–1902 (Cape Town: David Philip/New Africa Books, 2009), 12.
19. Campbell, Travels in South Africa, 303, 304.
20. Campbell, Travels in South Africa., 262 This probably refers to the site of Matsieng, located near Rasesa in present-day Botswana, referred to in many accounts as the origin of the Tswana.
21. Campbell, Travels in South Africa., 300; Campbell, Travels in South Africa: Second Journey, I, 148.
22. R. Moffat, Missionary Labours and Scenes in Southern Africa (London: John Snow, 1841), 8, 9.
23. Campbell, Travels in South Africa: Second Journey, I, 225, 239.
24. Schapera, Praise Poems, 48.
25. P-L. Breutz, The Tribes of the Rustenburg and Pilanesberg Districts (Pretoria: Government Printers, 1953), 248.
26. Schapera Praise Poems, 48n2, 54n1. Phuduhudu (steenbok) remains a Setswana synonym for a boy or man's loin skin: Cole and Moncho-Warren, Dictionary, 448. See also Kirby, Diary, II: 156.
27. – are based on information gleaned from Barrow, A Voyage; Campbell, Travels in South Africa; Lichtenstein, Travels; Campbell, Travels in South Africa: Second Journey, I & II; W.M. Burchell, Travels in the Interior of Southern Africa, Vol. II. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme & Brown, 1824); Kay, Travels; Cape Town, South African Museum, A. Smith journals, n.d. [1835]: Moffat, Missionary Labours; P.B. Borcherds, Auto-Biographical Memoir (Cape Town: A.S. Robertson, 1861). R.P. Kirby, The Diary of Dr. Andrew Smith, Vol. I (Cape Town: Van Riebeeck Society, 1939); Kirby, Diary, II; Schapera, Praise Poems; W.H.C. Lichtenstein, Foundation of the Cape: About the Bechuanas, Trans. By O.H. Spohr (Cape Town: A.A. Balkema, 1973); and Cole & Moncho-Warren, Dictionary.
28. I. Plug, ‘Overview of Iron Age Fauna from the Limpopo Valley’, South African Archaeological Society Goodwin Series, 8 (2000), 122.
29. F. Morton, ‘Settlements, Landscapes and Identities among the Tswana of the Western Transvaal and Eastern Kalahari before 1820’, South African Archaeological Bulletin, 68, 197 (2013), 15–26.
30. The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British and Foreign India, China, and Australia, 13, New Series (March, 1834); W.C. Harris, Narrative of an Expedition into Southern Africa, during the Years 1836 and 1837 (Bombay: American Mission Press, 1838); Moffat, Missionary Labours; R. Godlonton, A Narrative of the Irruption of the Kaffir Hordes into the Eastern Province of the Cape of Good Hope, 1834–1835 (Cape Town: Struik, 1965 [Facsimile Reprint from 1835]).
31. J.C.A. Boeyens and M. Van der Ryst, ‘“You have found your Master!”: The Rhinoceros as an Enduring African Cultural Symbol,’ paper abstract, Association of Southern African Professional Archaeologists Biennial Conference, University of Botswana, July 2013.
32. Moffat, Missionary Labours, 505, 506.
33. T. Keegan, Colonial South Africa and the Origins of the Racial Order (Cape Town: David Philip, 1996), 179.
34. Smith, Journal, 71.
35. Simmond's Colonial Magazine and Foreign Miscellany, 7, 25 (January 1846), 126 (http://www.nla.gov.au/ferguson/14606011/18460100/00070025/121-128.pdf (accessed 15 May 2013).
36. B. Morton, ‘The Hunting Trade and the Reconstruction of Northern Tswana Societies after the Difaqane, 1838–1880’, South African Historical Journal, 36 (1997), 226.
37. D.T. Cole, Setswana: Animals and Plants (Gaborone: The Botswana Society, 1995).
38. J.T. Brown, Sestwana Dictionary (Gaborone: Pula Press, 1982) [reprint of 1875 edition]; Cole and Moncho-Warren, Dictionary.
39. D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London: John Murray, 1857), 18–19. See also the drawings of the gopo (lemena) facing pp. 23 and 12.
40. D. Livingstone, Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa (London: John Murray, 1857), 56.
41. Leapetswe Khama, personal communication to Hitchcock, 1976.
42. R.G. Cumming, The Lion Hunter of South Africa. Five Years' Adventures (London: John Murray, 1850); J. Denbow, ‘A New Look at the Later Prehistory of the Kalahari’, Journal of African History, 27, 1 (1986), 3–28; E.N. Wilmsen, Land Filled with Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); P.J. Mitchell, The Archaeology of Southern Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
43. Morton, ‘The Hunting Trade’, 227.
44. J. Leyland, Adventures in the Far Interior of South Africa including a Journey to Lake Ngami and Rambles in Honduras (Cape Town: Struik, 1972 [Imprint 1866]).
45. M. Hall, M., ‘Shakan Pitfall Traps: Hunting Technique in the Zulu Kingdom’, Annals of the Natal Museum, 23, 1 (1977), 1–13.
46. E. Mohr, To the Victoria Falls of the Zambezi (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876), 156–157.
47. E. Mohr, To the Victoria Falls of the Zambezi (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876), 157.
48. E. Mohr, To the Victoria Falls of the Zambezi (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1876), 162.
49. E.g., J. Chapman, Travels in the Interior of South Africa 1849–1863. Hunting and Trading Journeys from Natal to Walvis Bay, and Visits to Lake Ngami and Victoria Falls, 2 Vols. Ed. By Edward C. Tabler (Cape Town: A.A. Balkema, 1971 [Imprint 1868]), I: 71, discussing what he saw in the Boteti River District in the eastern Kalahari in 1852.
50. E.g., J. Chapman, Travels in the Interior of South Africa 1849–1863. Hunting and Trading Journeys from Natal to Walvis Bay, and Visits to Lake Ngami and Victoria Falls, 2 Vols. Ed. By Edward C. Tabler (Cape Town: A.A. Balkema, 1971 [Imprint 1868]), I: 71, discussing what he saw in the Boteti River District in the eastern Kalahari in 1852., I: 145.
51. E. Holub, Seven Years in South Africa: Travels, Research and Adventures Between the Diamond Fields and the Zambezi (1872–1879), 2 Vols (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1881), II: 82.
52. E. Holub, Seven Years in South Africa: Travels, Research and Adventures Between the Diamond Fields and the Zambezi (1872–1879), 2 Vols (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1881), 83–84)
53. Chapman, Travels, 145.
54. G. Stow, The Native Races of Southern Africa (Cape Town: Struik, 1905), 143–144.
55. B. Morton, ‘Servitude, Slave Trading, and Slavery in the Kalahari’, in E. Eldredge and F. Morton, eds, Slavery in South Africa: Captive Labor on the Dutch Frontier (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994 [reprint 2009, Bloomington: IUniverse]), 215–250.
56. A.W. Hodson, Trekking the Great Thirst: Sport and Travel in the Kalahari Desert (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), 230.
57. A.W. Hodson, Trekking the Great Thirst: Sport and Travel in the Kalahari Desert (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), 235–236.
58. Information obtained from Tyua informants in the Nata River region of Central District, 1975–1976, 1980–1981, 1992, 2000, 2012.
59. Holub, Seven Years, II: 383.
60. A. Schulz and A. Hammar, The New Africa: A Journey Up the Chobe and Down the Okovango Rivers, A Record of Exploration and Sport (London: William Heinemann, 1897), 124–126.
61. A. Schulz and A. Hammar, The New Africa: A Journey Up the Chobe and Down the Okovango Rivers, A Record of Exploration and Sport (London: William Heinemann, 1897), 137–138.
62. A.W. Hodson, Trekking the Great Thirst: Sport and Travel in the Kalahari Desert (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), 209, 211.
63. A.W. Hodson, Trekking the Great Thirst: Sport and Travel in the Kalahari Desert (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1912), 209, 211., 227.
64. Chapman, Travels, I: 140.
65. Holub, Seven Years, 270.
66. C.J. Andersson, Lake Ngami or Explorations and Discovery during Four Years of Wanderings in Wilds of South-Western Africa (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1856), 81, 246.
67. I. Schapera, A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom (London: Frank Cass, 1938), 211.
68. I. Schapera, Native Land Tenure in the Bechuanaland Protectorate (Alice, South Africa: Lovedale Press, 1943), 18.
69. C. Spinage, History and Evolution of the Fauna Conservation Laws of Botswana (Gaborone: Botswana Society, 1991); R. Hitchcock, ‘Traditional African Wildlife Utilization: Subsistence Hunting, Poaching, and Sustainable Use’, in H.H.T. Prins, J.G. Grootenhuis, and T.T. Dolan, eds, Wildlife Conservation by Sustainable Use (Boston, Dordrechrt & London: Kluwer Academic, 2000), 389–415; R Hitchcock, ‘“Hunting Is Our Heritage”: The Struggle for Hunting and Gathering Rights among the San of Southern Africa’, in David G. Anderson and Kazunobu Ikeya, eds, Parks, Property, and Power: Managing Hunting Practice and Identity within State Policy Regimes. Senri Ethnological Studies 59 (Osaka, Japan: National Museum of Ethnology, 2001), 139–156.
70. N. Parsons, ‘Khama III, the Bamangwato, and the British, with Special Reference to 1895–1923’ (PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1973). In January 1931, it was learned that three San were beaten by a group of Bamangwato, one of whom later died (Botswana National Archives and Records Services, Gaborone [hereafter BNA] file S.194/9); N. Parsons and M. Crowder, Monarch of All I Survey: Bechuanaland Diaries 1929–37 by Sir Charles Rey (Gaborone: The Botswana Society, 1988), 246; As the Resident Magistrate from Francistown noted in a letter to his counterpart in Serowe on 26 January, 1931, the man who died had over 300 wounds on his body (BNA file S.194/9). See also discussions of some of the deliberations of the ‘Masarwa Commission’ (e.g., BNA files 2.204/4, 2.204/5, S.204/6) and such follow-up work as E.S.B. Tagart, Report on the Conditions Existing among the Masarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and Certain Other Matters Appertaining to the Natives Living Therein (Pretoria: Government Printer, 1933), and J.W. Joyce, Report on the Masarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve, Bechuanaland Protectorate (Geneva: League of Nations Publications, VI. B.: Slavery. Annex 6: 57–76, 1938).
71. Personal communication, 2011.
72. Alec Campbell, Larry Robbins, personal communication, 2012.
73. A. Crowell and R. Hitchcock, ‘Basarwa Ambush Hunting in Botswana’, Botswana Notes and Records, 10 (1978), 37–51.
74. M. Kornfeld, ‘Affluent Foragers of the North American Plans: Landscape Archaeology of the Black Hills’, BAR International Series 1106 (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 2003); N. Branton, Landscape Approaches in Historic Archaeology: The Archaeology of Places (New York: Springer, 2009); J. Ebert, Distributional Archaeology (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992).
75. D. Cohen, ‘Histories of the Subaltern from the Kalahari's Fringe, Botswana’ (PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 2009).
76. Walker, ‘Game Traps’; Helga Vierich Drever, personal communication; Central District archaeological survey data.
77. R. Hitchcock and J. Ebert, ‘Landscape Archaeology and Ethnoarchaeology in the Nata, Makgadikgadi Pans, and East-Central Kalahari regions, Botswana’, article manuscript (2013, available on request from Robert Hitchcock, [email protected]).
78. K. Matshetshe, ‘Salt Production and Salt Trade in the Makgadikgadi Pans’, Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies 15, 2 (2001), 75–90.
79. N. Walker, ‘The Late Stone Age’, in Paul Lane, Andrew Reid, and Alinah Segobye, eds, Ditswa Mmung: The Archaeology of Botswana (Gaborone: Pula Press and The Botswana Society, 1998), 65–80; N. Walker, ‘Botswana's Prehistoric Rock Art’, in Lane, Reid, and Segobye, Ditswa Mmung, 206–232.
80. J. Potter, ‘The Creation of Person, The Creation of Place: Hunting Landscapes in the American Southwest’, American Antiquity, 69, 2 (2004), 322–338.
81. Morton, ‘Settlements, Landscapes and Identities’.