A Bushman Voice from the Drakensberg: Zanele Mkhwanazi's Story

Abstract

There is a popular perception that the people who are commonly referred to as the Bushmen or San vanished from the Drakensberg region, leaving only their rock art behind. In 2003, however, Zanele Mkhwanazi won The Witness newspaper's “true short story competition” with a piece in English about her Bushman grandmother, Makhulomhlophe, who had passed away a few years before. Mkhwanazi charts her growing realisation of her own Bushman roots, and opposes the stigma that still attends Bushman identity in the region. This article discusses Mkhwanazi's story in the context of the supposed disappearance of the Drakensberg Bushmen, and considers some of the ambiguities that attend identity politics in the region.

Keywords:

• Bushmen
• identity
• narrative
• painting
• agency
• activism

Notes

The use of the terms “Bushman” and “San” present difficulties. Neither was invented by the people denominated by it. “San” is a Khoi-derived word that refers to people without cattle in an insulting fashion (Bennun 2005: 30), and “Bushman” (or its Afrikaans equivalent, “Boesman”) is a term that was introduced by the settlers to the Cape to refer dismissively to the hunter-gatherers of the region. Both Orpen and Mkhwanazi use the term “Bushman”. Although the term “Abatwa” also has derogatory connotations in different places in the region, it is the name the Bushman descendants in the Drakensberg usually choose to refer to themselves today (Francis 2007: 23; Prins 2009: 198). The term is a very old Bantu word that refers to the “aboriginal peoples that encountered the Bantu as they moved south” (Francis 2007: 5).

Prins (2009: 201) writes that: “Perhaps the most celebrated ‘protector’ of the mountain San was chief Moorosi of the Baphuti people.” He was far from the only one, however.

Solomon (2007) identifies Qing's language as N//ŋ. Francis (2007: 79) implies that there was only one Bushman language in the Drakensberg area, which all the Abatwa people would have spoken: “The language of the Drakensberg San has been given multiple names and is recorded as ‖Xegwe, ‖Xekwi, Batwa, Bush-C, Abathwa, Boroa, Tloue, Tloutle, Kloukle, Lxloukxle, Amankgqwigqwi, Nkqeshe, Amabusmana, Gi|kxigwi, Ki‖kxigwi …”. Prins (2009: 196) suggests that there were a number of Bushman languages or dialects in the Drakensberg: “Although some San groups who occupied the Drakensberg most probably belonged to the larger southern San linguistic family, they comprised of distinct linguistic dialects and ethnic units.” He also observes that some Bushman groups spoke an Nguni language or even “Cape Dutch” (197).

Chiefly through the work of David Lewis-Williams (see, for instance, Lewis-Williams 1981 or Lewis-Williams and Dowson 1989).

Zanele Mkhwanazi passed away in 2008. The Witness carried an obituary that focused on her HIV/AIDS work and also her connection to San and First People's movements and organisations.

Francis (2007: 82) was told by “urban raised Zulus that they grew up learning that Abatwa were not ‘Bushmen’, but fantastical creatures much like a Tokolosh (goblin type creature or witch's familiar). I am also told that these fantastic tales of the Abatwa resulted in much violence towards them and their descendants, another reason for secreting themselves away as Zulu or otherwise.”

Prins (2009: 202) notes that “the secrecy surrounding the San's cultural origins is part and parcel of their present identity”. Francis (2007: 200) observes that people's “‘San-ness’ is kept secret from the communities around them, for fear of retribution and discrimination”.

Descent is patrilineal among both the Abatwa and Nguni elements of the people of the region (Francis 2007: 94). Bushman heritage is generally claimed through the male line, as is the case here.

This organisation began collecting stories in the area in 2002 but has since become inactive (Francis 2007: 43; 136; 144).

Ancestral spirits were important to both the Bushman and Nguni people of the area. The relationship of the two groups to these spirits was different, though: “Unlike Nguni ancestors, the San ‘spirits of the dead’ were not venerated, but could be actively manipulated and even controlled by skilled San medicine people” (Prins 2009: 191).

Francis (2007) explores some of the forms that a re-assertion of Bushman identity in the area is assuming. These include alliances with Khoisan groups elsewhere, the holding of an annual eland ritual, and the claiming of “socio-economic rights relating to the rock art sites and cultural tourism” (18).

As one of Francis's (2007: 11) informants memorably puts it:”Hamba njalo. Abatwa nobantu bahamba njalo.” (“They always go together. The Bushmen and the Bantu have always gone together”)