THE BUSHMEN PEOPLE OF THE ELAND

Quathlamba

“A mass of Spears. Named thus by the Zulu warriors before the white man came. Today called the Drakensberg, Mountains of the Dragon, a name given by the Voortrekkers. Evocative names, both equally applicable to South Africa’s mightiest mountain range with its spear-like peaks – reminiscent of the saw-toothed spine of a gigantic dragon.”

Panorama April 1966

“Listen to the streams as they gurgle from their cradles and you will hear the story of the mountains. You will hear fascinating tales if only you listen! Lie next to a stream and listen to the song of the mountains. The smiling faces of the flowers, dancing in the wind. Venture into the remote valleys or stand on a peak at sunrise or sunset, after snow has fallen, and you will hear a song that you will never forget - the Song of the High Mountain".

DRAKENSBERG WILDERNESS PHOTOS © WILLEM PELSER

“NO MORE DO WE BUSHMEN HUNT IN THESE HILLS. THE FIRE IS COLD, OUR SONGS ARE QUIET. BUT LISTEN CAREFULLY; YOU WILL HEAR US IN THE WATER. LOOK CAREFULLY, YOU WILL SEE US IN THE ROCK”.

UNKNOWN

THE BUSHMEN

PEOPLE OF THE ELAND

An unedited chapter from my as yet unpublished book: The Drakensberg Wilderness – A Journey through Paradise. ©

“The owl shakes it wings and lifts off the branch. It is a dark night and the stars have just started flickering above. Pretty soon there will be more. Far in the distance a flickering yellow light can be seen dancing against the sandstone walls of a cave. Black shadows chase the light as if in a dance of death. Silently the owl flies past; he has seen this before and knows there is no danger. Landing in the big old yellowwood in front of the cave the owl ruffles his feathers once and settles down. Soon the mice will start their nocturnal journeys.

Inside the cave Xi’ is leading the dance around the flickering fire and the shadows of the Bushmen dances over the painted images on the wall. Xi’ is deep in a trance, in a world full of weird and fantastical characters. Foot stomping round and round in circles they go. The intensity of their clicking sounds pick up in urgency as if calling their forefathers. Outside the night sky has become an expanse of millions of flickering stars, the forefathers of the Bushmen as they believe it to be.

Xi’ wakes up in the early dawn and slowly raises his head, a painful thing to do. Still clearly visible in his mind are the images of the night before. The giggling children are annoying him and with a sharp retort he sends them scampering out of the cave. Today Xi’ will paint some new images on the wall, which would still be visible hundreds of years later.”

I have a great admiration for the Bushmen of the Drakensberg. I love their history except the part at the end where they were exterminated by the white man invading their world.

The highlight of my long range hikes in the Drakensberg is to find a cave with paintings in some lost remote valley. It has become my mission to find caves in the area I roam through. I am fascinated by their paintings and am always trying to figure out what precisely they were depicting when they painted. It is also unbelievable that they could paint so well with the tools at their disposal then, be able to paint images which would last for hundreds of years. By finding the caves it is also quite easy to establish which area of the wilderness they favored.

The Bushmen were hunter/gatherers and where the first people living in the Drakensberg. What a magical world it must have been a thousand years ago. They lived in family groups and their homes were the caves of the Drakensberg. Some of the caves were brilliant place to stay; most had their own water supply right in or at the cave and some caves were also quite large.

The Drakensberg Bushmen are also called the ‘People of the Eland’ and for a good reason. The Bushmen had a great affinity with the Eland and it is very seldom that a cave with paintings does not have quite a few paintings of the eland. In some caves the overriding theme on the walls are eland images; some superimposed on each other. The eland were painted anatomically correct and more or less to scale. Their paintings also proof that they were quite observant.

Not only was the eland an object to be painted, but it was also their favorite food. The men would hunt and the women would gather plants and other items to eat. The Bushmen only killed what they could eat or take from nature what they needed. The Bushmen were the guardians of the Drakensberg Wilderness.

It is a proven fact that the Bushmen lived very closely with and in nature. They knew every nuance and mood of nature. With their way of life they did not need anything else and it seems that they were quite the contented people. So they lived in peace for hundreds of years minding their own business and tending nature.

But, something had to happen to destroy their peace and ultimately a race.

At some period of time black tribes moved into the Bushmen territories. These tribes were mostly escaping from war and persecution from other black tribes. There were no conflict between the two races and they lived in harmony in close proximity. The black tribes were cattle owners and spend their time looking after their own animals. They did not end up in conflict with the Bushmen due to their different needs.

Bushmen however did not claim ownership of the wilderness and her animals and plants; they simply lived off what was supplied.

Then one day, the first white people made their appearance. They were similar to the black tribes in that that had their own domesticated animals which they tended to with great care. But, the white man was a very greedy person and viewed himself as lord of nature and of people he thought to be inferior to himself. One of the big problems was that the white man came with guns, something which was not known in the Drakensberg Wilderness. The Bushmen hunted by stalking animals and using a bow and arrow, a process which could take days. The white man could shoot any animal over great distances without much physical effort from himself, in a very short space of time. The animals did not stand a chance.

The white men found themselves in a virtual Garden of Eden. The wilderness was wild and untouched and huge herds of animal ranged her vast grasslands and forests. There were animals of every type and description back then. It was the white man’s want to take what he wanted and there was going to be no argument about it. Instead of using their own cattle and sheep as a meat supply, they mostly hunted. So the full scale slaughter of the animals started and it would carry on for over a hundred years until there were virtually no animals left, not only in the Drakensberg Wilderness, but all over South Africa. Animals were slaughtered by the dozens on every hunting trip and were sometimes shot simply for the fun of it. Instead of shooting one eland, ten or twenty would be shot per day. Not all the meat was used and some animals were simply shot so the hunter could have a pair of horns for a trophy. The settlers would also hunt giraffe and in this case they only cut of the tail of the animal and left the rest of the animal where it fell. The tail of the giraffe was used for making whips. Elephants were absolutely murdered out in great numbers and whole herds would be destroyed in one hunt. At the time there was trading taking place all over the world in elephant tusks and it was quite a sought after commodity. Lots of families and traders became rich on the back of dead elephants. Yet again, only a small part of the animal was used and the rest discarded. Ox wagons heavily laden with elephant tusks would continuously arrive in the ports and main trading towns. Elephants were mercilessly hunted and killed in great numbers.

The peace in the Drakensberg Wilderness has come to an end. The settlers invaded more and more wilderness land. Through all of this the Bushmen sat and watched as their food supply was being eradicated. Life became more difficult for them and finding eland and other animals for food a hard task. From their vantage points the Bushmen could see the white man’s cattle grazing in the grassland in ever greater numbers and they started seeing it as a ready food supply. It was inevitable for conflict to arise. The Bushmen had no sense of ownership and everything was seen to belong to everybody.

It was not long before the Bushmen started raiding the cattle; more in need of meat than to have ownership of cattle! Remember that the Bushmen were never farmers, but hunter/gatherers. Obviously the settler’s view of this raiding of their cattle was seen as the worst offence ever, and parties would be put together to hunt down the Bushmen and claim back their cattle. The settlers never, to this day, admitted it was their actions that started the problem in the first place. Once the settlers caught up with the Bushmen, the men, and his family, if they were around, would be shot and the cattle returned to their owners.

And so started the extermination of a race. The first incident of genocide in Africa. The Bushmen increased their raids on the settlers’ cattle and soon the then government and the settlers declared the Bushmen vermin and actively hunted and killed them. Man, women and child would be hunted down and killed, with no exception. The Bushmen were being destroyed at the same rate as the wild animals around them. In the late 1800’s the Bushmen disappeared from the Drakensberg, never to be seen again. The last seen Bushmen came wandering down a hill on his own one day and was shot on sight by a farmer. Searching him after he was killed they found a pouch filled with painting equipment.

Because the settlers and their government classified the Bushmen as vermin and to be shot on sight, or enslaved, nobody put in an effort to research them; where did they come from, who are they, what is their culture and beliefs, what is the meaning of their paintings? Nobody was interested except in the number killed.

As the raids and killings escalated, the government came up with a plan; they were going to create townships for the black tribes, and these would act as a buffer between the Bushmen and the farmers. This slowed down the raids. Obviously once the last Bushmen disappeared from the Drakensberg, the townships were no longer required, but had to stay, and they are still there to this day.

It is also thought that a number of Bushmen fled over the escarpment into Lesotho and intermarried and mingled with the local population.

The settlers during all of this got themselves ever increasing vast tracts of land to farm, and they considered everything on it to be owned by them and to do with as they wish. So, the slaughter of animals continued, the forests were being destroyed at an alarming rate as they cut down every yellowwood tree and other forest trees they could lay their hands on. The then Free State Province had a shortage of wood, and farmers from there would trek into the Drakensberg and clear out the forests. Soon a pristine wilderness became an empty, plundered land. The settlers also brought in foreign trees which they planted in huge plantations, and it seems that all of them and the government of the time had no brain cells to appreciate the negative effect of what they were doing. But then, if you live in a land of abundance, why would you be concerned; concern only comes when it is too late. The grasslands of the Drakensberg were flooded with sheep and cattle, and even today I will find the remnants of kraals and dipping tanks very deep inside of the wilderness.

All of this was done with a Bible in the one hand and a rifle in the other hand.

Today, all that remains of the Bushmen are their paintings in the caves and shelters they used. And, today, in this modern age, still the destruction continues as the paintings get vandalized with no thought or regard. Even the fact that these paintings are now protected by law; their destruction continues.

Fortunately, today, the Kwa-Zulu-Natal Drakensberg Mountains and Wilderness area is a protected wilderness. It has also been declared a World Heritage Site because of its diversity and beauty. Close to the end of the 1800’s, some people realized the extent of the animal slaughter, specifically the Drakensberg Eland, and after a very long time of arguments for and against, a small area in the Drakensberg at Giant’s Castle was declared a protected reserve, but, with the sole purpose of protecting the eland. What happened then is also a long story in itself. Over the following years neighboring farms were bought and added to the reserve. Today the Drakensberg Wilderness is a vast protected area. One of the main reasons for its protection today is because of the fact that this wilderness area is the cradle of South Africa’s water supply. A number of big rivers start off in this wilderness and all of the wilderness acts like a sponge, continuously giving water. Somebody who did have some working brain cells realized at one stage that the plantations in the wilderness area is detrimental to the water supply and will eventually destroy it. All the plantations were destroyed and the wilderness allowed re-establishing itself. Remember that in the later years all of the plantations were government owned and planted. At one stage prior to the removal of the plantations, there used to be great arguments between the forestry (Government plantation) and reserve staff as to who should control the wilderness area.

However, one of the main reasons why it stayed a wilderness area is due to the inaccessible terrain and the mighty escarpment on the one side which bears no arguments from humans and only allows access to the top of her crown via a few passes which can only be navigated on foot. Being on foot is about the only way in which access to most of the terrain can be obtained.

So, today, all that remains of the People of the Eland are their shelters and paintings.

It is quite obvious that the Bushmen preferred certain areas in the wilderness, even though their art can be found all over the Drakensberg. In an area such as the Didima Gorge in the Giant’s Castle area, a number of caves in and around the gorge are found, some caves with hundreds of paintings. In the Kamberg area you will also find a number of painted caves in close proximity to each other. The famous Game Pass shelter is located at Kamberg. At Injasuthi you will find the same scenario, and here the famous Battle Cave is the main attraction.

For the rest of the wilderness, caves with paintings can be located all over. Most of the caves are located close to a source, or right at a source of water, and most of the times the entrance to the cave will be hidden from view by trees and plant life in front of the cave. Some caves will be in forests. Finding caves are quite easy if you get to know the terrain. There are certain indications which would lead a person to a cave. There also hundreds of caves which have no paintings at all. At Lotheni in one narrow, beautiful valley is a complex of caves very close to each other which was used and painted by the Bushmen.

Due to the extermination of the Bushmen, firsthand knowledge as to the meaning of their paintings was never obtained. Some knowledge was learned from other groups of Bushmen elsewhere in South-Africa, but in certain respects their lifestyles and habits do not appear similar. One thing they do have in common is their superb understanding of nature and their capability to live in peace as hunter/gatherers with nature. No one else but the Bushmen have such superb skills applicable to nature. Their tracking skills for instance are second to none in the world.

I have found many caves far from the established routes and trails, deep in the wilderness areas, which had some stunning paintings in them. I like to sit facing those pictures and try and imagine what it was all about.

There are a number of thoughts today by the learned people as to the meaning of the paintings. Most of the meanings as explained are in direct conflict with each other. Scientists have had some serious arguments regarding these paintings over a long period of time. A painting was found in the Game Pass Shelter in Kamberg and was promptly declared the ‘Rosetta Stone’. This stone was according to the scientist involved with the discovery the key to unlocking the meaning of all Bushman paintings in the Drakensberg.

There are quite a number of books available on the subject, and by reading these books it is quite clear how vastly different the views being held is. What is a fact, and also established through carbon dating, is the age of the paintings. Some of them are hundreds of years old and some thousands of years. The Drakensberg paintings are also the most prolific rock art in the world. Some of the paintings can be dated by eye quite accurately, specifically those depicting the arrival of the white man in the Drakensberg.

The interest in the Bushmen paintings started growing towards the end of the 1800’s and the beginning of the 1900’s. Numerous recordings of the paintings were made and in some instances slabs of sandstone with paintings on them were removed. There are a lot of books available on the rock art for those interested in the subject.

How long the majority of the paintings will still last is a question nobody can answer. It is already well over a 100 years since they have been seen by white people for the first time. That they have lasted this long is a sign of the ingenuity of the Bushmen artists. The sandstone they painted on is not and everlasting material, and wind, water, erosion and other forces of nature took its toll over the years. In quite a few caves the wall and roofs have collapsed and in the process destroyed the paintings. In other instances erosion simply took its toll. Then we also have those paintings degraded, destroyed, and vandalized by modern man, something which is continuing to this day.

Finding a cave with paintings is a magical experience for me and I appreciate them for what they are. It transports me back thousands of years and my mind works hard trying to establish what the artist had in mind. For me it is not about the so-called scientific facts, rather what my mind sees unbiased and uninfluenced by theory. Maybe that is what the artist had in mind! Furthermore, sitting in one of their caves, I try to imagine them being there, how did they live, what were they doing every day? What did their children do? How was life in a pristine, untouched wilderness with you and your kind being the only people around?

Pictures of their paintings I have by the hundreds. I am still looking for hundreds more.

How differently could we have treated the Bushmen, and how much more, instead of guessing, could we have known today. But alas, it is not to be. I enjoy the paintings, I feel hurt by what happened to them and the wilderness. And all I can do is to appreciate their way of life and their paintings they left behind.

I do not make the locations of caves with paintings I come across in remote areas known to any person. Part of the allure of the Drakensberg Wilderness is to explore and find things on your own. Walking straight to a cave because you have the GPS coordinates is no fun at all. Discovering a cave unexpectedly is way more fun and adds to the sense of achievement.

There is hoping that most of these paintings will last hundreds of years more. When we do find the paintings, we are under an obligation to protect and preserve them. Don’t touch them, take photos only, and enjoy the ambiance of a cave where little people lived hundreds of years ago in paradise.

“A long time ago, we, the Bushmen, roamed these mountains, masters of the unpredictable ways of nature. We were nomads then, moving with the great herds of game and the changing of seasons. When the animals migrated, we followed, leaving no houses or roads to mark our presence here. All we left behind was our story painted on the rock, in the shelters, the story of sacred animals and our journeys to the spirit world. These mountains gave us shelter and the herds of antelope gave sustenance and meaning to our lives”.

UNKNOWN

The End.

Safe Hiking.