Granaghan - 2013 - Joseph Millerd Orpen's A Glimpse Into The Mythology of The Maluti Bushmen': A Contextual Introduction and Republished Text

Southern African Humanities 25: 13766
November 2013
KwaZulu-Natal Museum
Joseph Millerd Orpens A Glimpse into the Mythology of the

Maluti Bushmen: a contextual introduction and republished text
Mark McGranaghan, Sam Challis and David Lewis-Williams
Rock Art Research Institute, GAES, University of the Witwatersrand, PO Wits, 2050 South Africa;
mark@rockart.wits.ac.za; sam@rockart.wits.ac.za; david@rockart.wits.ac.za
ABSTRACT
Joseph Millerd Orpens article recounting the ethnographic data he collected from a Bushman informant
(Qing) whilst searching for Langalibalele in the southern Maloti-Drakensberg is a key document for
southern African archaeology, one of the cornerstones in the decipherment of the rock art of the region.
This article publishes a slightly edited version of Orpens article with paragraph breaks and headings to
facilitate the reading of this crucial document, as well as selections from Bleeks Second report concerning
Bushman researches and Lloyds A short account of further Bushman material collected that help situate Orpens
work within the intellectual community of the nineteenth-century Cape Colony. The article also locates
this work within the substantial corpus of Qing- and Orpen-related scholarly material, outlining the major
uses made of the work thus far.
KEY WORDS: Archaeology, history, Melikane, oral history, Orpen, Qing, rock art, Sehonghong.
Joseph Millerd Orpens article, first published in the Cape Monthly Magazine in 1874, is
the main source of information regarding the symbolic and mythological worlds of the
Southern San populations of the Maloti-Drakensberg. Although the article is relatively
brief when compared to the Bleek-Lloyd archive (Skotnes 2007) that documents the
narratives and lifeways of the |Xam San from the central interior plateau, it provides
a crucial link between the San people of these two regions. While there are of course
differences between the material recorded by Orpen and that preserved in the BleekLloyd corpus, this article does illustrate the substantial similarities that existed in the
mythological beliefs and ritual lives of Southern San populations in these two very
different ecological zones.
Orpens article has formed a cornerstone in the ethnographic decipherment of San
rock art (Mitchell 2002: 33). The article is republished here because it is so pivotal to
our collective scholastic endeavour, and we hope that this slightly edited version, as
well as the additional reports from Bleek and Lloyd, will aid researchers in the study
of the rare text. In large part this work has focused on (and been led by) the imagery
of the painted rock shelters of the Maloti-Drakensberg that were familiar to Qing.
Qing was conversant with the practice of painting, although he seems not to have been
a painter himself. By contrast, the |Xam informants interviewed by Bleek and Lloyd
appear not to have been engaged at that time in the production of rock art, or at least
not to have discussed the art with their interviewers, except in response to copies. It is
no surprise, therefore, that Orpens article has long exerted an influence over scholars
interested in elucidating the content of the rock-art imagery of the subcontinent. It
has in consequence been the focus of considerable critical and contextual scrutiny.
Before presenting the edited transcription of Orpens account, we recount the use of
his material in scholarship concerning the San populations of southern Africa. This
connection can be traced right back to the origins of what Bleek called Bushman
researches.
ISSN 2305-2791 (online); 1681-5564 (print)
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SOUTHERN AFRICAN HUMANITIES 25: 13766, 2013
PREVIOUS SCHOLARSHIP
While Orpens article is unique in terms of the testimony that it preserves, at the time
of its publication it was not an isolated endeavour. Orpens family was very much part
of the intellectual network of the Cape Colony (Bank 2006; Lewis-Williams 2008),1
corresponding and working with other scholars interested in Bushman researches.
Most obviously, this is indicated in Wilhelm Bleeks notes appended to the article
itself (for Orpens connections with the Bleek-Lloyd project and details of how this
appendix came to be written, see Bank 2006: 30411, 339), but it can also be seen in
the acknowledgements of Bleeks (1875) Second report concerning Bushman researches and
his co-worker Lloyds (1889) A short account of further Bushman material collected, points
of which are reprinted here. Orpen was also connected with another scholar with an
interest in Bushman material, George William Stow, for whom he (and his brother,
Charles Sirr Orpen) searched for and copied examples of San rock art (see p. 166; for
another example of Stows connection with the Orpen family, see Stow and Rupert
Jones 1874: 581; Stow 1905: x). Since its publication, Orpens work has been situated
in a context that emphasised (and questioned) the relevance of the information it
contains for understanding San beliefs and practices (see below).
From the mid-twentieth century onward, use of the article has focused on the
information in relation to larger questions regarding the mythological worlds and ritual
beliefs and practices of the Southern San, particularly on the part of rock-art researchers
(e.g. Willcox 1963; Woodhouse 1968; Lee & Woodhouse 1970; Rudner & Rudner
1970; Lewis-Williams 1972, 1977, 1980, 1981, 1992, 1995, 1998, 2003; Vinnicombe
1972, 1975, 1976; Smits 1973; Jolly 1986, 1995, 1996, 2006b; Botha & Thackeray
1987; Yates & Manhire 1991; Solomon 1997; Dowson 1998; Parkington 2002; LewisWilliams & Pearce 2004; Challis 2005; Mallen 2005; Lewis-Williams & Challis 2011).
The significance of the article to forming an ethnographically based understanding
of the Maloti-Drakensberg rock art fundamentally relies on contextualisation. Indeed,
the article is important precisely because of the context of its collection: a unique
instance in which San and European individuals stood together in front of specific
rock paintings2 and discussed their significance.
It is undoubtedly true that [b]y modern anthropological standards the manner in
which the Maluti material was collected is unsatisfactory (Lewis-Williams 1980: 480).
Nevertheless, it remains an account that preserves ethnographic information (however
distorted) and, despite Orpens (see p. 151) claim that there must be many gentlemen
who could afford a few hours leisure to make inquiries for [Dr. Bleek], it remains our
only detailed source for the mythology of the San of the Maloti-Drakensberg. So, of
course, scholars have long suggested that we scrutinise every clue the article has left
us (Vinnicombe 1976: 314; Lewis-Williams 1980: 468).
The original article itself notes some of the ongoing difficulties that researchers
face in interpreting the information it contains: Bleek stressed the problematic reliance
on a single informant (one who, furthermore, was young and uninitiated) and
the dangers attendant on the medium of an imperfect interpretation (Bleek, see
p. 163). Clearly, Qing omitted to describe a great deal of his knowledge; unlike the
Bleek-Lloyd material, his account was collected under the aegis of a project that did
not have the recording of San folklore as its primary aim (Mitchell & Challis 2008:
403). In addition, his recounting occurred over a far shorter period than that of the
MCGRANAGHAN ET AL.: J.M. ORPENS 1874 ARTICLE REPUBLISHED
139
Bleek-Lloyd project. Further complications can be found in the differences between

the recording processes in each instance. Unlike the Bleek-Lloyd project, which was
initiated as a linguistic programme, Orpen did not record the verbatim remarks of his
informant, let alone the original language in which they were spoken. Thus, difficulties
of reading this dense text are compounded by historiographical questions regarding
the faithfulness of Orpens portrayal of Qings comments: even before considering
any deliberate biases or omissions, researchers are faced with the possibility that the
unrecorded convolutions of translation have distorted the original sentiments. Orpen,
for example, was reluctant to discuss what he saw as obscene depictions and practices,
preferring along with Gibbon to leave all licentious passages in the obscurity of
a learned language (Gibbon 1994: 211).3
ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTEXTUALISATION
Such obvious concerns have long preoccupied scholars concerned with the text (e.g.
Lewis-Williams 1981: 312), and intensive scrutiny of its reliability as an ethnographic
source have remained central to the many detailed analyses of the material. It is worth
remembering that contextualisation is an active process: there is no pre-existing setting
in which the article can be situated that will somehow produce a correct reading.
Rather, contexts are themselves constructions, devices used to coax information from
recalcitrant materials; researchers should therefore ask about the kinds of context that
have previously been investigated and the aims of these investigations when returning
to the material anew.
For the most part, scholarship directed at the article has been concerned with the
construction of an anthropological understanding of the beliefs and practices of
Maloti-Drakensberg hunter-gatherers, and the paucity of direct ethnographic data4 from
this region has necessitated the construction of appropriate analogues. The primary
source for wider ethnographic contextualisation has been the Bleek-Lloyd archive,
though data from San societies farther north in Botswana have also been deployed
(e.g. Lewis-Williams 1992). The evidently similar general character (Bleek, see
p. 162) of the information recorded from Qing and that recounted by the Bleek-Lloyd
informants forms the basis of attempts to contextualise his remarks.
Placing Qings narratives in the context of the Bleek-Lloyd archive allows us in some
measure to overcome the limitations that we have outlined by giving some indication of
what Qing did not talk about and clarifying that which he did. Although it is obviously
impossible to argue with certainty regarding many elements, the striking parallels of
narrative theme, such as those occurring in |kaggn/Cagns5 creation of and relationship
with the eland (Lewis-Williams 1997: 202), allow one to pick apart the specifics of
Qings mythology; the secluded kloof into which Cagn stashes his young eland, for
example, probably represents a montane localisation of |kaggns eland-in-the-reeds
(Lewis-Williams 1981: 32). Comparative approaches even reveal similarities in the original
phraseology employed: Qings account of how Cagn went about getting trouble from
his fights, strikingly recalls the ways in which |kaggns family (especially his grandson
|ni, the ichneumon mongoose) would chastise him for going about fighting foolishly
(LL.II.9.974).6 In more general anthropological terms, Mitchell and Hudson (2004)
propose that the canna plant mentioned in the article is an analogue for the o-oa plant
charms mentioned in the Bleek-Lloyd archive (Hollmann 2004: 2778; de Prada-Samper
140
2007). In addition to these larger-scale or thematic comparisons, insights can be also

achieved by examining the few San language words provided by Orpen, comparing
them with what we know of the |Xam language (Bleek 1956). The fact that some of
these apparently have cognates in |Xam suggests not only that the two languages were
related,7 but also lends further credence to the identification of Qing as a competent
San informant, possessing a San identity associated with a distinctive language: qouka
(see p. 156) probably represents !kaukn!kaukn, or Drymoica flavida (a species of warbler,
McGranaghan 2012: 464). Other analyses combine these two elements, embedding the
individual names from Orpens report in their wider Southern San context, as well as
attempting to translate them (Lewis-Williams 2013). The success of these above strategies
in throwing light on Qings often seemingly obscure remarks has been considerable, and
an obvious lacuna to address in the use of the article would be the extension of these
detailed case studies to an in-depth analysis of the narratives as a whole.
This form of analogical argumentation is also a form of contextualisation, for it
cannot take place without some construction of the (at least two) entities being placed
in a relationship: in this case, the article is situated with respect to information about
other San populations (or other hunter-gatherer groups, Bantu-speaking populations,
etc.). Although there is some contention regarding the suitability of the particular
inductive conclusions drawn, this practice is well established in academic discussions of
the article. Qing was a San man in a Bantu-speaker world, employed by the BaPhuthi
chief Nqasha as a hunter and residing (with his wives) at Nqashas kraal. His testimony
represents the culmination of a series of translations between Southern San and Bantu
(SePhuthi, SeSotho) languageseven before it was translated into English. As with
any translation, issues arise regarding the potential for miscommunication and shifts in
meaning, either because one or more parties lacks the requisite linguistic competence
or because the precise ranges of meaning do not translate literally from one context to
the other. A good example of this can be found in Orpens use of the word initiated,
which can be used as an English gloss for a wide range of rites de passage.
For a Bantu context, initiation can refer to both the formalised transition to
adulthood, as well as the more individuated experiences that catalyse the adoption of
ritual-specialist roles (Berglund 1976; Hammond-Tooke 1981). Both of these contexts
might be considered as providing secret knowledge, but refer to quite different sociocultural phenomena. Individuated forms of initiation seem to have been the norm for
Southern San populations: there is little evidence in the Bleek-Lloyd archive for formal
corpuses of restricted knowledge being passed on en masse, whether in the inculcation
of skills based on individual aptitudes in particular domains (e.g. the o-oas men skilled
in the use of range of plant medicines; de Prada-Semper 2007) or in a girls adoption
of the New Maiden role at menarche (Hewitt 2008: 20511). Qings discussions of
men who were initiated in that dance8 and who knew the secret things (that had
injured people) appear congruent with these Southern San forms of specialisation,
denoting skills and knowledge acquired from particular experiences. Bearing this in
mind, Qings admission that he was not initiated in that dance (Orpen, see p. 154)
should not be taken as a statement of his having missed out on acquiring restricted
information because he was too young to have been initiated (Bleek, see p. 163), but
instead might be viewed as the consequence of the general lack of opportunities he had
had for experiencing these dances (Challs et al. 2013: 910). By attending to ethnographic
141
contexts, then, we can attempt to clarify the kinds of phenomena to which Qing was
referring, despite the multiple meanings of the English translation initiation.
Discussions of Qings position as a San man in a Bantu-speaking world extends
the relevance of Orpens article from the realm of rock-art interpretation to issues
regarding the interaction of San hunter-gatherers with Bantu-speaking agriculturists
over the past 1500 years. The nature of this relationship, particularly as it may have
obtained in terms of influences on beliefs and ritual practices, has formed the locus
of considerable debate (see Jolly 1986, 1995, 1997, 2005, 2006a; Botha & Thackeray
1987; Thackeray 1987; Hammond-Tooke 1998, 1999, 2002), a debate that has ensured
that issues surrounding potential influences on the ideas that most deeply moved
Qings mind have never been far from the forefront in the uses made of his testimony.
HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE SOUTHERN MALOTI-DRAKENSBERG
In addition to ethnographic contextualisation, there are a number of relevant historical

and archaeological approaches that have either commented directly on the Orpen
material or helped to set the scene into which Orpens 1873 expedition entered. Orpen
himself has been the focus of a considerable amount of historical attention (Eldredge
1988), as he eventually rose to some prominence in the Cape Colony government
(Lewis-Williams 2003: 19). There also obviously exists a large body of literature
examining the nineteenth-century situation in the Maloti-Drakensberg that forms an
essential prerequisite for attempts to read Orpens document as a product of its time,
though as most of this does not touch upon the Orpen encounter directly or in any
detail, it is beyond the scope of this introduction (for the more general history of the
Maloti-Drakensberg in the nineteenth century, see Wright 1971, 2007; Vinnicombe
1976; Wright & Mazel 2007).
Of more specific importance, the recent publication of James Murray Grants9
expedition journal (Mitchell & Challis 2008) provides an invaluable resource for
examining the specifics of their journey into the mountains. In the absence of Orpens
field diary (Lewis-Williams 1981: 32), it represents the only contemporaneous detailed
account of the expedition and provides another lens through which to view Orpens
project (see Fig. 1). Mitchell and Challiss (2008) article tracks the day-by-day course of
the Orpen/Grant expedition as it progressed through the Maloti mountains. It provides
information about when Qing joined the party, and the motives and impressions of
one of the key members of the sortie, as well as detailed annotations that situate the
party in the wider context of the later nineteenth-century Maloti mountains. The recent
publication of oral histories recorded in the 1970s from residents of the Sehonghong
region (Vinnicombe 2009) record information regarding the last San inhabitants of the
region, and their interactions with the incoming Basotho farmers, in particular with the
demise of the last Bushman chief , a man named Soai. This event is further explored
by Mitchell (2010), who places this oral documentation in the context of archaeological
and written historical sources, highlighting the fact that the events of the nineteenth
century represented not a totally novel incursion but rather a modification of a long
trajectory of interaction between San and Bantu speakers in this area.
In terms of our understanding of Qings commentary on rock paintings, one of
the major contributions of archaeological research over the twentieth century lies in
the vast increase in the number of known rock-art sites (documented primarily since
142
Fig.1. Orpen and Grants route through the Maloti (Mitchell & Challis 2008: fig 2). A: Mgwalis Drift,
Figure
1: Orpen
and Grantsbegan,
route through
the Maloti (after
and Challis
fig.2,
410)B: Melikane
where
the expedition
on 23 November
1873,Mitchell
and ended,
on 122008:
January
1874.
Shelter,drift,
where
Qing
thebegan,
expedition
December
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The on
main
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th
where
the joined
expedition
on theon
23rd12November
1873,
and C:
ended,
the 12
A: Mgwalis
the Senqu and Senqunyane, the point at which Qings knowledge of the country ended; Qing
January 1874 (Mitchell and Challis 2008: 453-454).
is last mentioned in Grants diary (19 December 1873) in this region. The route in white thus
Decemberaccompanying
1873 (Mitchell and
Shelter,
Qing joined
on the
12 thdefinitely
B: Melikane
represents
the where
seven-day
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the expedition.
D:
Location
of
Avoca,
Orpens
farm,
which
still
belongs
to the family today.
Challis 2008: 429)
C: The main ridge between the Senqu and Senqunyane, the point at which Qings knowledge of the
in this region
country ended;
Qing is lasttime,
mentioned
in Grants familiarity
diary (19th December
the 1960s).
In Orpens
European
with 1873)
the rock
art of(Mitchell
the Malotiand Challis was
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429,course
436-438)limited. Today, researchers can place the sites discussed
Drakensberg
The route
white thusarepresents
the 7 day
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Qing was
by Qing
and marked
Orpenin within
much larger
corpus
ofwhich
imagery
indefinitely
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not only
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theexpedition
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of Avoca,
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(still belonging
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family today)
D: Location
also firmly
locates
them
within
surviving
material
cultural record: the relationship
between the article and the rock-art imagery is recursive, and while the former has
primarily been used in attempts to understand the latter, the reverse is also true. For
example, Qings puzzling insistence that the quadrupedal creature being dragged by the
nose represented a snake (Fig. 4) is thrown into new light when one realises that only a
couple of kilometres downstream there exists an image of a large snake being similarly
led by a line to the nose (Fig. 2; Lewis-Williams & Challis 2011: 11617; Challis et al.
2013). If we consider that these images reflect a manipulation of water resources, these
two panels are further contextualised by other nearby sites that include a preponderance
of piscine imagery: Likoaeng (Challis et al. 2008) and Pitsaneng (Hobart 2003), both sites
within a few kilometres of Sehonghong. Another example of this informative imagistic
web (Lewis-Williams 2010) can be found in Smits (1973: fig. 4), who documented the
143
Fig. 2. Tracing of the paintings at Rain Snake Shelter.
Fig. 3 (a) Sehonghong (Orpens Mangolong) behind the large sandstone outcrop on the bend in the river. Excavated by Carter and traced by Vinnicombe in 1971;
excavated by Mitchell in 1992, and currently by Stewart and Dewar. (b) Peter Mitchell and Jayson Orton viewing the rain animal scene at Sehonghong.
(c) Mitchell and Orton at Pitsaneng shelter, probably Orpens Upper Mangolong. Excavated by Hobart in 2001. (d) Melikane shelter. Probably the site
referred to by Qing as depicting the dances of which you have seen paintings, when asked who the rhebok-headed men were. Photos: Challis, 2006.
144
145
Fig. 3e. Melikane Shelter. Excavated by Carter and traced by Vinnicombe (1974); excavated by Stewart
and Dewar (2009). Photo: Challis, 2006.
therianthropic figures at Libesoaneng. These are remarkably similar to the more famous
eland therianthropes found at Melikane, and form a plausible candidate for one of the
additional dances of which [they had] seen paintings (Orpen, see p. 153).
The caves that Orpen visited have themselves been subject to a considerable amount
of archaeological documentation. Beginning with Patrick Carters (1978) excavations,
the Sehonghong and Melikane (Fig. 3) sites have attracted interest for their earlier
Middle Stone Age occupations; this interest continues with the AMEMSA10 project
(see Stewart et al. 2012). Although obviously not speaking directly to the Orpen article,
these investigations have produced a considerable body of relevant data arising from the
detailed mapping of the sites themselves, the investigation of the formation processes
that have shaped the local landscape, as well as surveys of this landscape for lithic
resources.11 Of more relevance is work on the Later Stone Age material, at the site of
Sehonghong itself (Mitchell 1996a, b, c, d), or in other projects that have expanded
our knowledge of sites in the immediate vicinity of this shelter. Particularly important
among these is the site of Likoaeng, a late Holocene Later Stone Age open-air huntergatherer site focused on the aquatic resources of the Senqu (Mitchell et al. 2006; Mitchell
& Charles 2000; Mitchell 2004; Mitchell 2009a; Plug et al. 2010) as well as the small
rock shelter of Pitsaneng (Fig. 3e; Hobart 2003, 2004), a possible candidate for Orpens
Upper Mangolong site (see p. 163), which preserves ceramics and (potentially intrusive)
livestock remains. Summaries of archaeological work pertaining to the highlands of
Lesotho can be found in Mitchell (1992) and more recently in Mitchell (2009b), but of
146
significance here is his observation that this work points to quite close relationships
between hunter-gatherers and farmers (or at least their material culture) from at least
the beginning of the first millennium AD (Mitchell 2009b: 129).
Outside of the Senqu valley, in the Maloti-Drakensberg more generally, there has
been an increasing appreciation that the historiography of colonised, non-literate
groups can at least in part be recovered through the combination of detailed historical
contextualisation (using both written and oral documentation) and archaeological
material in the form of rock paintings (Campbell 1987; Dowson 1994; Blundell 2004).
Researchers now know that the Maloti-Drakensberg frontier incorporated a number
of groups with diverse origins: Bantu-speaking agriculturists, mixed-descent raiders
and herders, hunter-gatherers, and marginalised Europeans (Wright 2007; Challis 2008).
Some of these groupsthose including people of San descentcontinued to employ
practices associated with Southern San communities, adapted and modified to the new
socio-political circumstances of the nineteenth century (Challis 2009, 2012).
In other cases, San groups that remained (relatively) removed from these creolised
formations manipulated their pre-existing rock-art traditions in attempts to deal with
these same circumstances (Campbell 1987; Blundell 2004). Their images emphasise
that San-ness as a socio-cultural construct was fundamentally historical, changing over
time and space, but also that it retained a cohesion (or rather, that certain practices
retained their significance) despite dramatic socio-political events; as a result, the painters
highlighted particular types of images. In light of these points, concerns that Qings
close relationships with Bantu-speaking agriculturalists somehow invalidate his San
credentials are mitigated. Although researchers may wish to stress that Qings San
identity was not timeless and identical to San identities elsewhere on the subcontinent,
ethnographic contextualisation suggests that much of his discourse would have been
comprehensible to other San individuals, even those who spoke another San language.
Whether one wishes to focus on such similarities or to explore the differences will of
course depend on the overall research questions being asked.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
The Orpen article remains a crucial document for our understanding of the MalotiDrakensberg and the populations that lived there during the later decades of the
nineteenth century. This importance has long been underlined by the frequent references
scholars have made to the material it contains. The original article, published in a
nineteenth-century colonial magazine, remains difficult to obtain and its formatting
is daunting. Although the reprint in Folklore (Orpen 1919) increased its availability, it
omitted the images, thus rendering the rock-art section essentially meaningless, and
retained the dense formatting of the original. We therefore offer a republished version
of the article that introduces paragraphs and section breaks to facilitate easy reading
and the extraction of pertinent information. We include some footnotes to address
some of Orpens more obscure references. In so doing, we hope to shift the spotlight
back to the richness of the original narrative, to emphasise the impact that Orpens
article has had on Bushman researches, and to facilitate the use of his work in future
discussions of the Maloti-Drakensberg San, their beliefs and mythologies, and their
interactions with other nineteenth-century communities.
147
NOTES
Orpen had himself already contributed to this network through his involvement in the publication of
the History of Basutus of South Africa in 1857 (Eldredge 1988).
2
There are of course examples of Bushman commentary on rock-art imagery in the Bleek-Lloyd archive,
but none of these took place in situ.
3
Greek, in this case, was Orpens language of choice (see p. 153, 156).
4
At least in terms of historical data. The archaeological material remains are rather more abundant,
though also require ethnographic contextualisation.
5
This represents the same word in Bleeks (|kaggn) and Orpens (Cagn) orthographies; it refers to the
Mantis, a key figure in the mythologies of the Southern San (cf. Hewitt 2008 (1986)).
6
Reference to original notebook material (available online at http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za).
7
Though it is difficult to ascertain the closeness of this relationship given the limits of our knowledge
of the Maloti-Drakensberg San language (cf. Traill 1995, 2002).
8
The dance here referred toa circular dance in which people fell down, bled from the nose and ate
charm medicinewas danced to cure sickness, paralleling the trance dances of the Kalahari San
(Lewis-Williams 1992; Guenther 1996).
9
An officer of the Frontier Armed and Mounted Police, one of the leaders of the mission to apprehend
Langalibalele.
10
Adaptations to Marginal Environments in the Middle Stone Age, http://www.amemsa.com.
11
Various rock-art survey projects that have incorporated the Orpen sitesthe ARAL project (Smits
1973), Vinnicombes surveys in the 1960s and 1970s (Vinnicombe 1976), and Challiss more recent
PhD research (Challis 2008)have also contributed significantly to our understanding of the highland
cultural landscape.
1
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Daniel King for translating Orpens Greek footnotes; David Pearce for comments on a draft;
Justine Wintjes for Figure 4; the Department of Culture (Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Culture)
and the Protection and Preservation Commission, Kingdom of Lesotho, and the South African Heritage
Resources Agency for support of our research. A National Research Foundations African Origins Platform
grant enabled the ongoing research of the Matatiele Archaeology Rock Art (MARA) programme (www.
marasurvey.com).
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151
A Glimpse into the Mythology of the Maluti Bushmen

Cape Monthly Magazine 9 (49), July 1874
J. M. Orpen, Esq.
Chief Magistrate, St. Johns Territory.
[The Maloti mountains]1
[p. 1] The rugged mountain chains called Maluti by the Basutos and Amalundi by the
Kafirs (plural of luti or lundi, a ridge) extend from the Wodehouse and Aliwal districts
to near Harrismith and Maritzburg. They are the highest mountains in South Africa,
reaching in some parts eleven thousand feet in altitude, and are formed of peculiar
brown rock overlying the great beds of sandstone forming those edges of the great
central plateaucalled in parts the Stormberg and Drakensberg. This sandstone
when it crops out among and about the Malutis and elsewhere, forms here and there
overhanging rocks, sometimes so hollowed as to be caves.
[People and paintings]
Under such rocks Bushman paintings are frequently found. Mr. George Stowe [sic]
collected a number of copies of these in the Queens Town district, and at his request
I copied such as I found during surveying trips in the outskirts of the Malutis in the
Wodehouse district. Many of the paintings of animals and men are surprisingly well
done; and I may here suggest inquiry how far these paintings extend in South Africa, and
whether any differences exist between the traditions, mythology, and religion of those
Bushman tribes who do not paint and of those who possess a talent so remarkable in
a savage tribe, and whether its development or loss may be attributed to cave facilities
and their want, or to some other cause? (There are also Bushmen tribes in some parts
who make no bows.)
Dr. Bleek could probably suggest the direction of inquiries supplementing his
researches, and there are yet many Bushmen in every part of South Africa who must
retain their traditions, and many gentlemen who could afford a few hours leisure
to make inquiries for him. Mr. Stowe and I both found paintings with apparently
a mythological meaning, or representing certain quasi-religious rites. These are not
always fit for publicationthey coincided curiously with representations from ancient
mythologies. We could not obtain a clue, and one old Bushman questioned by Mr.
Stowe was obstinately mysterious and silent.
[A military expedition]
At last I chanced upon at least a partial clue, which may perhaps lead to others.
The rebellion [p. 2] of Langalibaleles tribe led me to pass through a part of the
Malutis generally unknown, and which had been exclusively the haunt Bushmen.
The Natal Government informed me that the rebels were moving through the
Malutis, intending to enter the territory under my charge, and I was desired to act
against them.
Additions by editors in bold and square brackets. Original punctuation is retained throughout,
though the text is divided into paragraphs for ease of consultation.
Fig. 4. Orpens copies of

paintings from the MalotiDrakensberg. Clockwise from
top left: rhebok-headed
therianthropes with dancing
sticks from Melikane;
the rain animal scene at
Sehonghong; the tailed men
at Upper Mangolong
likely Pitsaneng shelter;
therianthropic figures with
dog on the Kraai River
in the Barkly East region.
Photographed by Justine
Wintjes from the journal
in the William Cullen
Library, University of the
Witwatersrand. Scale bar =
approx. 20 cm.
152
153
While forces were moving up, well provisioned scouts had to be sent many days
journey into the Maluti to look up the rebels. They found the rebels were not within
a weeks march, and this made it evident that they had, as some Natal reports then
stated, turned to the right and crossed several branches of the Orange towards Molapo.
Meantime all these branches filled, and became impassable.
[Qing]
In inquiring for efficient scouts I had heard that one Bushman, named Qing, a
couple years ago escaped from the extermination of their remnant of a tribe in
the Malutis, that he was the son of their chief, and was now a hunter in the employ
of Nqasha, son of Morosi, on the Orange River. I had sent to obtain his services,
without success, and now heard that he was hunting in the mountains beyond the
main branch of the Orange, which was full, and that it would be difficult to get
him to come, as he had never seen a white man but in fighting, and that it would
be difficult to get Nqasha to produce him, as he would fear his hunter would be
decoyed from his service.
It was so important to secure Qing as a guide that I rode off myself to Nqasha
while the police and other forces were preparing to enter the mountain region.
Nqasha consented after my assurances and promises to produce Qing, and sent
one messenger after the other for him. I succeeded in impressing Qings wives
favourablyhis own wife and his brothers widowwhom I found at Nqashas
kraal, diminutive young creatures and fair-complexioned. I gave them a liberal
supply of tobacco.
Nqasha overtook our expedition with Qing when we had almost given him up, and
he proved a diligent and useful guide, and became a favourite, he and his clever little
mare, with which he dashed and doubled among the stones like a rabbit when his
passion for hunting occasionally led him astray.
[Paintings of men with rheboks heads: spoilt by the dances]
When happy and at ease smoking over camp-fires, I got from him the following
stories and explanations of paintings, some of which he showed and I copied on
our route. I commenced by asking him what the pictures of men with rheboks
heads meant. He said, They were men who had died and now lived in rivers, and
were spoilt at the same time as the elands and by the dances of which you have seen
paintings.2
[Cagn: he who calls the eland ]
I asked when were the elands spoilt, and how. He began to explain, and mentioned
Cagn.3 He said, Cagn made all things, and we pray to him.
I asked was he good or malicious. He said, At first he was very very good and nice,
but he got spoilt through fighting so many things.
I said, How do you pray to him. Answer, in a low imploring tone: O Cagn! O
Cagn! Are we not your children, do you not see our hunger? Give us food, and he
gives us both hands full.
. [choros priepon. Here Orpen refers to priapic dances in Greek; it was a
commonplace practice in nineteenth-century scholarly writing to obscure references of a
sexual nature with Classical languages]
3
I used Kafir orthography. One might write the word ctkaggn.
2
154
I said, [p. 3] Where is Cagn? He answered, We dont know, but the elands do.
Have you not hunted and heard his cry, when the elands suddenly start and run to his
call? Where he is, elands are in droves like cattle.4
He had mentioned Coti, the wife of Cagn, and that Cagn was the first being. I asked,
Where then did Coti come from? He said, I dont know, perhaps with those who
brought the Sun; but you are now asking the secrets that are not spoken of.
I asked, Do you know the secrets? He said, No, only the initiated men of that
dance know these things.
[Recording Qings stories]
I shall string together Qings fragmentary stories as nearly as I can as he told them to
me. I noted them down from him then and since; I only make them consecutive. They
either varied a little, or I failed to understand him accurately when speaking through
different translators. The language he spoke best besides his own was that of the
Baputi, a hybrid dialect between the Basuto and Amazizi languages.
Qing is a young man, and the stories seem in parts imperfect, perhaps owing to his
not having learnt them well, or imperfect translation; perhaps they may be corrected
if heard from other Bushmen of the same race in Basutoland, Kafirland, &c., or they
may be different from those of other Bushman tribes.
These Bushmen were formerly very numerous, and the Basutos say they lived on
good terms with them and among them before the game country became occupied.
Nqashas father, Morosi, and his people were succoured by them through their skill in
hunting, when the Basutos were impoverished and nearly starved by Chakas wars, and
Morosi allied himself to them by marriage. They have been gradually exterminated by
wars with all other tribes (even with Bushman tribes) and Europeans, and their remnant
was long living secluded in the Maloti, hunting game and occasionally making raids.
Qings stories are as follows:
[Cagn the creator]
Cagn was the first being; he gave orders and caused all things to appear, and to be
made, the sun, the moon, stars, wind, mountains, and animals. His wifes name was Coti.
He had two sons, and the eldest was chief, and his name was Cogaz; the name of the
second son was Gcwi. There were three great chiefs, Cagn, Cogaz, and Qwanciqutshaa
(of all three legends are here given), who had great power, but it was Cagn who gave
orders through the other two.
[The creation and death of the first eland]
Cagns wife, Coti, took her husbands knife and used it to sharpen a digging stick (Cibi,
on which a perforated stone is put), and she dug roots to eat. When Cagn found she
had spoiled his knife, he scolded her and said evil should come to her.
Upon this she conceived and brought forth a little elands calf in the fields, and
she told her husband, and said she did not know what sort of child it was, and he
ran to see it, and came back and told Coti to grind cann, so that he might inquire
what it was.
It will seem, however, as if beside this worship of a beneficient maker, they have, in case of sickness,
something which seems like pythonic and phallic worship in dances conducted by men initiated in
certain mysteries.
155
She did so, and he went and [p. 4] sprinkled these charms on the animal, and asked
it, Are you this animal? Are you that animal? But it remained silent till he asked it,
Are you an eland (Tsha)?, when it said, Aaaa.
Then he took it and folded it in his arms, and went and got a gourd, in which he
put it, and took it to a secluded kloof enclosed by hills and precipices, and left it to
grow there.
He was at that time making all animals and things, and making them fit for the use
of men, and making snares and weapons. He made then the partridge and the striped
mouse, and he made the wind in order that the game should smell up the windso
they run up the wind still.
Cagn took three sticks and sharpened them, and he threw one at the eland and it
ran away, and he called it back, and he missed with each of them, and each time called
it back, and then he went to his nephew to get arrow-poison, and he was away three
days.
While he was away his sons Cogaz and Gcwi went out with young men to hunt,
and they came upon the eland their father had hidden, and they did not know about
it. It was a new animal. Its horns had just grown, and they tried to encircle it and
stab it, and it always broke through the circle and afterwards came back and laid
down at the same place. At last, while it was asleep, Gcwi, who could throw well,
pierced it, and they cut it up and took the meat and blood home; but after they
had cut it up they saw the snares and traps of Cagn, and knew it was his, and they
were afraid.
And Cagn came back the third day and saw the blood on the ground where it had
been killed, and he was very angry, and he came home and told Gcwi he would punish
him for his presumption and disobedience, and he pulled his nose off and flung it
into the fire. But he said, No! I shall not do that. So he put his nose on again, and
he said, Now begin to try to undo the mischief you have done, for you have spoilt
the elands when I was making them fit for use,
So he told him to take of the elands blood and put it in a pot and churn it with a
little native churn-stick, which he made to spin in the blood by rubbing the upright stick
between the palms of his hands, and he scattered the blood and it turned into snakes,
and they went abroad, and Cagn told him not to make frightful things, and he churned
again and scattered the blood and it turned into hartebeests, and they ran away,
And his father said, I am not satisfied; this is not yet what I want; you cant do
anything. Throw the blood out! Coti, my wife! Cleanse this pot and bring more blood
from the little paunch, where they put it, and churn it, and she did so, and they added
the fat from the heart, and she churned it, and he sprinkled it, and the drops became
bull elands, and these surrounded them and pushed them with their horns,
And he said, You see how you have spoilt the elands, and he drove these elands
away; and then they churned and produced eland cows, and then they churned and
produced multitudes of elands, and the earth was covered with them, and he told
Gcwi, Go and hunt them and try to kill one, that is now your work, for it was you
who spoilt them,
And Gcwi ran and did his best, but came back panting and footsore and worn out;
and he [p. 5] hunted again next day, and was unable to kill any. They were able to run
away because Cagn was in their bones.
156
Then Cagn sent Cogaz to turn the elands towards him, and Cagn shouted and the
elands came running close past him, and he threw assegais and killed three bulls, and
then he sent Cogaz to hunt, and he gave him a blessing, and he killed two, and then
he sent Gcwi, and he killed one.
That day game were given to men to eat, and this is the way they were spoilt and
became wild. Cagn said he must punish them for trying to kill the thing he made which
they did not know, and he must make them feel sore.
[Cagns daughter and the snakes]
A daughter of Cagn became cross because her father had scolded her, and she ran away
to destroy herself by throwing herself among the snakes (qabu). The snakes were also
men, and their chief married her; and they eat snakes meat, but they gave her elands
meat to eat, because the child of Cagn must eat no evil thing.
Cagn used to know things that were far off, and he sent his son Cogaz to bring her
back, so Cogaz went with his young men, and Cagn lent him his tooth to make him
strong.
When the snakes saw Cogaz approaching with his party, they became angry and
began to hide their heads, but their chief said, You must not get angry, they are coming
to their child. So the snakes went away to hunt, and his sister gave him meat, and
they told her to tell her husband they were come [to] fetch her, and she prepared food
for the road, and they went with her next morning, and they prepared themselves by
binding rushes round their limbs and bodies,
And three snakes followed them. These tried to bite them, but they only bit the
rushes; they tried to beat them with reims, but they only beat rushes, and they tried
throwing sand at them to cause wind to drive them into the water,5 not knowing he
had the tooth of Cagn, and they failed.
The children at home, the young men with the chief of the snakes, knew that when
those snakes came back they would fill the country with water. So they commenced
to build a high stage with willow poles, and the female snakes took their husbands on
their return and threw them into the water, and it rose up above the mountains, but
the chief and his young men were saved on the high stage;
And Cagn sent Cogaz for them to come and turn from being snakes, and he told
them to lie down, and he struck them with his stick, and as he struck each the body of
a person came out, and the skin of a snake was left on the ground, and he sprinkled the
skins with cann, and the snakes turned from being snakes, and became his people.
[The fearful Qob]
The big people you have seen painted with deformities are the Qob, they carried
battle-axes, and are so drawn.6 They were cannibals, they cut peoples heads off, they
killed women and drew the blood out of their noses.
Cagn sent Cogaz to their residence to deliver a woman from them, and he lent him
his tooth. His tooth [p. 6] ache had told him to send Cogaz. Cogaz went, and when
he was coming back Cagn saw the dust, and sent the little bird that flies up and says
tee-tee, called moti in Sesuto, and qouka in Bushman language, but it told nothing;
I have formerly seen Bushmen throw sand in the air and shout out on seeing the crescent moon when
it first appeared. J. M. O
6
[priepoi]
5
157
then he sent another bird, the tinktinki, or tintinyane,qinqininya in Bushman,and

it brought no news. Then he sent a third, the qeiv, a black and white bird that sings in
the early morning, called tswanafike in Sesuto. And he rubbed cann on its beak, and
it flew to the dust and brought back word that the giants were coming.
The giants attacked Cogaz several times, but he used to get upon the tooth of Cagn
and it grew up to a great height, and they could not reach him. He used to cook his
food up there, and then he used to play on his reed flute, and this put them to sleep;
and he would go on, and they would wake up, follow him, and he would get up on the
tooth again. At last, when they continued attacking him, he killed some of them with
poisoned arrows, and Cagn said he would not have these people, but drive them far off
and kill them as they were cannibals; and he cut up his kaross and sandals and turned
them into dogs and wild dogs, and set them at the Qob giants and destroyed them.
[Qwanciqutshaa]
Qwanciqutshaa, the chief, used to live alone. He had no wife, for the women would
not have him. A man sent a number of little boys to get sticks for the women to dig
ants eggs. One of the women grumbled, saying the stick she received was crooked
and those of the others were straight.
That night she dreamt that a baboon came to take for his wife a young girl who had
refused Qwanciqutshaa. Next day, as she was digging alone, the baboon came to her in
a rage (it had been present and heard her observation about the stick, and thought she
was mocking at the crookedness of its tail), and it said, Why did you curse me?
And it threw stones at her, and she ran home and told the girl of her dream and
that it was coming true, and told her to escape to Qwanciqutshaa. The girl sunk into
the ground, and came up at another place, and sunk again. She sank three times and
then came up and went to Qwanciqutshaas place.
Qwanciqutshaa had killed a red rhebok and was skinning it when he saw his elands
running about, and wondered what had startled them. He left the meat and took the
skin and went home, and found the young girl there, and asked why she came. She
said she was frightened of the baboon. He told her to fetch water to wash the blood
off his hand, and she went, and came running back in a fright, and spilt some on
Qwanciqutshaa.
He said, What is the reason of this?
She said, It is fright at the baboon.
He said, Why are you frightened; he is your husband, and comes from your
place?
She said, No, I have run to you for fear of him.
Then he put her up on his head and hid her in his hair. The baboon had in the
meantime come to the people she had left, and asked for her, and they said they did not
know where she was; but he smelt where she had gone down into the ground, and he
pursued, scenting her at each place, and when he came towards [p. 7] Qwanciqutshaa
the elands started and ran about and gazed at him.
He came up to Qwanciqutshaa with his keeries, saying, Where is my wife?
Qwanciqutshaa said, I have no wife of yours!
It flew at Qwanciqutshaa, and fought him, but Qwanciqutshaa got it down and stuck
it through with his own keerie, and Qwanciqutshaa banished it to the mountains, saying,
158
Go, eat scorpions and roots as a baboon should, and it went screaming away; and
the screams were heard by the women at the place it came from, and all the baboons
were banished.
And Qwanciqutshaa killed an eland, purified himself as the baboon had defiled him,
and he told the girl to go home and tell the people he was alive. But the young men
wanted to marry this girl, and she said, No, I love none but Qwanciqutshaa, who
saved me from the baboon.
[Qwanciqutshaa kills a rhebuck]
So they hated Qwanciqutshaa; and when he had killed a red rhebok and put meat on
the fire to roast, those young men took fat from a snake they had killed and dropped
it on the meat, and when he cut a piece and put it in his mouth, it fell out; and he cut
another, and it fell out; and the third time it fell out, and the blood gushed from his
nose.
So he took all his things, his weapons, and clothes, and threw them into the sky,
and he threw himself into the river. And there were villages down there and young
women, and they wanted to catch Qwanciqutshaa. But he turned into a snake, and he
said, No, it is through women I was killed, and he eluded and threatened them, and
they all ran away.
The only girl that remained was the girl he had saved, and she made a hut and went
and picked things and made cann, and put pieces in a row from the river bank to the
hut. And the snake came out and ate up the charms, and went back into the water, and
the next day she did the same; and that night he came and went to the hut and took a
mat and went up to the sky and got his kaross and came down and slept on the mat.
And when the girl saw he had been there she placed charms again, and lay in wait;
and the snake came out of the water and raised his head, and looked warily and
suspiciously round, and then he glided out of the snakes skin and walked, picking
up the charm food, to the hut, and when he was asleep she went in and seized him
and quickly forced more charms in his mouth, and he struggled to escape, but she
held him fast,
And he was exhausted and trembled, and said, Why do you hold me, you who
caused my death?
And she said, Though I was the cause, it was not my fault, for I loved you, and
none but you! And she smothered him in the kaross, and ran to the skin and sprinkled
it with cann and burnt it, and they remained there three days.
And Qwanciqutshaa killed an eland and purified himself and his wife, and told her
to grind cann, and she did so, and he sprinkled it on the ground, and all the elands
that had died became alive again, and some came in with assegais sticking in them,
which had been struck by those people who had wanted to kill him. And he took out
the assegais, a whole bundle, and they remained in his place; and it was a place enclosed
with hills and precipices, and there was [p. 8] one pass, and it was constantly filled with
a freezingly cold mist, so that none could pass through it, and those men all remained
outside, and they ate sticks at last, and died of hunger.
But his brother (or her brother), in chasing an eland he had wounded, pursued it
closely through that mist, and Qwanciqutshaa saw the elands running about, frightened
at that wounded eland and the assegaai that was sticking in it,
159
And he came out and saw his brother, and he said, Oh! my brother, I have been
injured; you see now where I am. And the next morning he killed an eland for his
brother, and he told him to go back and call his mother and his friends, and he did so,
and when they came they told him how the other people had died of hunger outside;
and they stayed with him, and the place smelt of meat.
[Cogaz and the baboons]
Cagn sent Cogaz to cut sticks to make bows. When Cogaz came to the bush, the
baboons (con) caught him. They called all the other baboons together to hear him,
and they asked him who sent him there. He said his father sent him to cut sticks to
make bows.
So they said, Your father thinks himself more clever than we are; he wants those
bows to kill us, so well kill you, and they killed Cogaz, and tied him up in the top of
a tree, and they danced round the tree, singing (an intranscribable baboon song), with
a chorus saying, Cagn thinks he is clever.
Cagn was asleep when Cogaz was killed, but when he awoke he told Coti to give
him his charms, and he put some on his nose, and said the baboons have hung Cogaz.
So he went to where the baboons were, and when they saw him coming close by, they
changed their song so as to omit the words about Cagn, but a little baboon girl said,
Dont sing that way, sing the way you were singing before.
And Cagn said Sing as the little girl wishes, and they sang and danced away as
before. And Cagn said, That is the song I heard, that is what I wanted, go on dancing
till I return;[]
And he went and fetched a bag full of pegs, and he went behind each of them as
they were dancing and making a great dust, and he drove a peg into each ones back,
and gave it a crack, and sent them off to the mountains to live on roots, beetles, and
scorpions, as a punishment. Before that baboons were men, but since that they have
tails and their tails hang crooked. Then Cagn took Cogaz down, and gave him cann,
and made him alive again.
[Cagn and the eagle]
Cagn found an eagle getting honey from a precipice, and said, My friend, give me
some too;
And it said Wait a bit, and it took a comb and put it down, and went back and
took more, and told Cagn to take the rest,
And he climbed up and licked only what remained on the rock, and when he tried
to come down he found he could not. Presently, he thought of his charms, and took
some from his belt, and caused them to go to Cogaz to ask advice; and Cogaz sent
word back by means of the charms that he was to make water to run down the rock,
and he would find himself able to come down;
And he did so, and when he got down, he descended into the ground and came
up again, and he did this three times, and the third time he came up near the eagle, in
the form of a large bull eland; and the eagle said, [p. 9] What a big eland, and went
to kill it, and it threw an assegai, which passed it on the right side, and then another,
which missed it, to the left, and a third, which passed between its legs, and the eagle
trampled on it, and immediately hail fell and stunned the eagle, and Cagn killed it, and
took some of the honey home to Cogaz, and told him he had killed the eagle which
160
had acted treacherously to him, and Cogaz said You will get harm some day by these
fightings.
[Cagn and the Cgoriinsi]
And Cagn found a woman named Cgoriinsi, who eats men, and she had made a big
fire, and was dancing round it, and she used to seize men and throw them into the fire,
and Cagn began to roast roots at the fire, and at last she came and pitched him in, but
he slipped through at the other side, and went on roasting and eating his roots, and
she pitched him in again and again, and he only said Wait a bit till I have finished my
roots, and Ill show you what I am.
And when he had done he threw her in the fire as a punishment for killing
people.
[Cagn, Quisi and the honey]
Then Cagn went back to the mountain, where he had left some of the honey he took
from the eagle, and he left his sticks there, and went down to the river, and there was a
person in the river named Quisi, who had been standing there a long time, something
having caught him by the foot, and held him there since the winter, and he called to
Cagn to come and help him,
And Cagn went to help him, and put his hand down into the water to loosen his leg,
and the thing let go the mans leg, and seized Cagns arm. And the man ran stumbling
out of the water, for his leg was stiffened by his being so long held fast, and he called
out, Now you will be held there till the winter,
And he went to the honey, and threw Cagns sticks away; and Cagn began to bethink
him of his charms, and he sent to ask Cogaz for advice through his charms, and Cogaz
sent word and told him to let down a piece of his garment into the water alongside
his hand, and he did so, and the thing let go his hand and seized his garment, and he
cut off the end of his garment and ran and collected his sticks, and pursued the man
and killed him, and took the honey to Cogaz.
[Cagn and the thorns]
The thorns (dobbletjes) were peoplethey are called Cagncagn. They were dwarfs, and
Cagn found them fighting together, and he went to separate them, and they all turned
upon him and killed him, and the biting ants helped them, and they eat Cagn up.
But after a time they and the dwarfs collected his bones, and put them together, and
tied his head on, and these went stumbling home, and Cogaz cured him, and made him
all right again, and asked what had happened to him, and he told him; and Cogaz gave
him advice and power, telling him how to fight them, that he was to make feints and
strike as if at their legs, and then hit them on the head, and he went and killed many,
and drove the rest into the mountains.
[Cagn and the woman of wax]
Cagn found a woman, who had been left behind by people, and he thought he would
take her home and make her his wife, so he picked her up and put her on his back, and
she stuck on his back like wax, and he went to a tree to scrape her off, and she stuck
to the tree too [p. 10] like wax.
At last he got home to his wife Coti, and she scolded him for his conducthe
who was so great a king, picking up any woman he met with, and she boiled water,
161
and melted the woman off him, and when he got loose, Cagn gave her a tremendous
thrashing for sticking to him like wax, and he drove her away.
[More on rock paintings]
The men with rheboks heads, Haqw and Canat, and the tailed men, Qweqwet live
mostly under water; they tame elands and snakes.
That animal which the men are catching is a snake (!) They are holding out charms
to it, and catching it with a long reim(see picture). They are all under water, and
those strokes are things growing under water. They are people spoilt by thedance7,
because their noses bleed.
[The dance]
Cagn gave us the song of this dance, and told us to dance it, and people would die
from it, and he would give charms to raise them again. It is a circular dance of men
and women, following each other, and it is danced all night. Some fall down; some
become as if mad and sick; blood runs from the of noses of others whose charms
are weak, and they eat charm medicine, in which there is burnt snake powder. When
a man is sick, this dance is danced round him, and the dancers put both hands under
their arm-pits, and press their hands on him, and when he coughs the initiated put out
their hands and receive what has injured himsecret things. The initiated who know
secret things are Qognq; the sick person is hang ci.
[Lost skills and mythical beings]
Bushmen have lost different arts. They formerly knew how to make things of stone
over rivers, on which they crossed; and knew how to spear fishes. It was formerly said
when men died they went to Cagn, but it has been denied. There is a thing with one
fiery eye, which flies by night; creeps on the ground, holding one arm up; it crushes
the breath out of people, and leaves the bodies dead. It is cannibal. Cagn forbade its
name being often mentioned. Its name is Cadintaa.
Qing did not know any story about the moon and a hare; but I asked him did
they eat all parts of a hare, and he pointed me out the back part of the thigh, and
said Cagn had forbidden them eating that because it was human flesh. I asked this
after the expedition, as I then heard of some of the stories Dr. Bleek had collected.
I asked what caused the milky way, and he said Cagn placed it there to support the
snow.
Remarks by Dr. Bleek

[It is well-known that Dr. Bleek has been engaged in research into the Bushman language
and traditions for some time past, and the latest of his official reports on the subject
is now in the hands of the [p. 11] Government. We have requested him to make what
comments he might deem fit on the preceding paper by Mr. Orpen, and he has been
kind enough to favour us with the following.Ed. C.M.M.]
We must be greatly obliged to Mr. Orpen for this very interesting paper of original
research which throws a good deal of new light upon the subject of Bushman
I have not noted the name of this Bushman dance Basutos call it Moqoma. In some pictures the
dancers have their heads painted white. J. M. O.
162
mythology, and upon the vastness of the legendary lore of this highly curious people.
The principal figure in the Bushman myths given by !king or !ing (as in our orthography
the name of Mr. Orpens informant would have to be written) is not only the same
as the chief mythological personage in the mythology of the Bushmen living in
the Bushmanland of the Western Province, but his name has evidently the same
pronunciation. Mr. Orpens Cagn or Ctkan (c the dental click of Kafir orthography
=| of Lepsiuss alphabet) must have exactly the same sound as |kggen, the Mantis,
the most prominent subject of the mythological tales collected by us. His wifes
name also, Coti, according to Mr. Orpen, may be identical with the beginning of one
of the names for the Mantis wife |hnntu !(k)att !(k)atten, the first syllable of which
word |hnn indicates a dasse (hyrax); but this is not certain, and it is little more than
guesswork if we compare the names of the elder son, as given by Mr. Orpen, Cogaz
to |kwammanga, the husband of the porcupine (!) who is the adopted daughter of the
Mantis; and if we identified the younger son, Gcwi, with the |ni or the Ichneumon (the
son of |kwammanga and the porcupine) who is the constant adviser and admonisher
of his grandfather, the Mantis.
Although the general character of the myths recorded by Mr. Orpen is mainly the
same as that of those collected by us, yet there is not one of his myths which is exactly
identical with any one of ours. Of course, it is possible that this is a proof of an
especially fertile genius for myth formation, inherent in the Bushman mind, which had
given rise to different circles of myths round the same central figure among different
Bushman tribes. Yet it would be rash to say that none of the myths related by |(k)ing
[sic] were known to our Bushman informants or their tribe. On the contrary, it may
well be that even most of these myths are the common property of the Bushmen of
Western Bushmanland, as well as of those of the Malutis. In fact, though our collection
of Bushman folklore is far more extensive than our most sanguine expectations at the
beginning might have led us to hope for,yet, from their own internal evidence and
from glimpses which they allow us to get of myths and legends still untold, we had
already become convinced that we have to look upon them as containing, as yet, only
a very small portion of the wealth of native traditionary literature actually existing
among the Bushmen.
But whether the stories given by !(k)ing are only tribal compositions, or form part
of the common national property of the Bushmen, a slightly different character is
attributed in them to the Mantis (Cagn = |kggen) who, according to the myths told
by our Bushman informants, is very far from being represented as a beneficient
being; but, on the contrary, is a fellow full of tricks, and continually getting into
scrapes, and even doing purely mischievous things, so that, in fact, it was no wonder
that his name has sometimes been translated by that of the Devil. I must refer here
to my second Bushman report, sent in to the Honourable the Secretary for Native
Affairs, in which I give a short outline of the Bush [p. 12] man literature collected
by us. But even the myths told by !(k)ing bear out, to a certain extent, this character
of the Mantis (Cagn): for example, in the story of the woman sticking to Cagns back,
which reminds us of the eggs of a magic bird sticking to |kggens mouth and back.
(Second Report, 9.)
Further, our Bushmen seem to know nothing of any worship of the Mantis, so
that the prayer recited by !(k)ing was quite new to me. But they have given us prayers
163
addressed to the Sun, to the Moon, and to Stars, besides a number of myths referring
to these celestial objects. These latter were, as !(k)ing states, unknown to him, because,
being a young man, he had not been initiated. Our best Bushman informant was nearly
sixty years of age, and was picked out from among twenty-eight grown-up Bushmen
as one of the best narrators. But, if a young man like !(k)ing could give, and that
through the medium of an imperfect interpretation, so much important information
regarding the mythology of the Maluti Bushmen,what may not be expected if
Mr. Orpen should succeed in discovering, among the sources of the Orange River,
some old Bushman or Bushwoman, and if the traditionary lore, of which they are
the repositories, could be noted down from their lips in their own language, which
we conclude to be essentially the same as, although dialectically differing from, that
of the more Western Bushmen.
But if Mr. Orpens contributions to our knowledge of the Bushman folklore and
mythology are important,the Bushman paintings copied by him are not less valuable.
They are in fact the most interesting Bushman paintings I remember to have seen, and
they fill us with great longing to see that splendid collection of Bushman paintings
which Mr. C. G. Stowe [sic] is said to have made. They are evidently either of a
mythological character, or illustrative of Bushman customs and superstitions. Before
I saw Mr. Orpens paper, I laid his copy of these paintings before the Bushmen who
are now staying with me, and who come from the Katkop Bergen, north-north-west
of Calvinia. Their explanations (differing somewhat from those of !(k)ing), as far as
they understand the pictures, are as follows:
[Sehonghong: rain-making]
The paintings from the cave Mangolong represent rainmaking. We see here a water
thing, or water cow, which, in the lower part, is discovered by a Bushman, behind
whom a Bushwoman stands. This Bushman then beckons to others to come and
help him. They then charm the animal, and attach a rope to its nose,and in the
upper part of the picture it is shown as led by the Bushmen, who desire to lead it
over as large a tract of country as they can, in order that the rain should extend as
far as possible, their superstition being that wherever this animal goes, rain will
fall. The strokes indicate rain. Of the Bushmen who drag the water cow, two are
men (sorcerers), of whom the chief one is nearest to the animal. In their hands
are boxes made of tortoise (!kh) shell (containing charmed boochoo) from which
strings, perhaps ornamented with beads, are dangling down. These are said to be of
Kafir manufacture. The two men are preceded by two Bushman women, of whom
one wears a cap on her head.
[Upper cave at Mangolong: Bantu-speakers assisting the sorcerers]
The Kafirs in the other picture (which is from the upper cave at Mangolong) are said
to assist in the ceremony, and to stand at the side. These Kafirs are three men with
knobkerries in their hands and bundles of assegais on their backs. Between them are
two women. The spotted appearance of one of the men [p. 13] could not be explained
by my informant. The caricatured style in which these Kafirs are drawn, with their
tail-like dresses made so long as to give them quite an amphibious appearance, is very
remarkable. On the whole the red Bushman looks down upon the black man quite as
much as any orthodox white skin does.
164
[Melikane: sorcerers of the Early Race]

The paintings from the cave of Medikane are thought to represent sorcerers, wearing
gemsboks horns, and two of them having sticks in their hands. They are said to belong
to the ancient Bushmen, or to the race preceding the present Bushmen, and who it is
believed killed people.
[Cave at the source of the Kraai]
The white figures also, with steenbok horns, from the cave of the source of the Kraai
River, are believed to belong to these same people. There is something reminding
one much of the Egyptian mode of mythological representation in these animal heads
on human bodies; but, of course, the reason for this combination of the animal and
human may in each case be quite different; but this is a point which only a thorough
insight into the mythology of both nations can decide.
[Rock paintings and mythology]
The fact of Bushman paintings, illustrating Bushman mythology, has first been
publicly demonstrated by this paper of Mr. Orpens; and to me, at all events, it
was previously quite unknown, although I had hoped that such paintings might be
found. This fact can hardly be valued sufficiently. It gives at once to Bushman art a
higher character, and teaches us to look upon its products not as the mere daubing
of figures for idle pastime, but as an attempt, however imperfect, at a truly artistic
conception of the ideas which most deeply moved the Bushman mind, and filled it
with religious feelings.
A collection of faithful copies of Bushman paintings is, therefore, only second
in importance to a collection of their folklore in their own language. Both such
collections will serve to illustrate each other, and to contribute jointly towards
showing us in its true light the curious mental development of a most remarkable
race. A Bushman painting will frequently help us to unearth a myth, legend, or fable,
which otherwise would have been forgotten, and might have remained unrecorded,
although of importance perhaps for the explanation of the nature and origin of
Bushman mythology.
At the end of these remarks, hastily drawn up (as the paper was only submitted to me
when already going through the press), I wish to express the earnest hope that Mr. Orpen
will continue to take the active interest in these researches which has already given us
this valuable paper,and that many others may be found to tread in his footsteps; and
especially that those who have it easily within their reach to copy Bushman paintings,
will furnish us with faithful copies. Where photography is available, its help would be
very desirable, as the general public is sceptical, and not infrequently believes that the
drawings are too good not to have been vastly improved in copying, thereby doing
scant justice to Bushman art. It would also be desirable to have, besides an indication
and description of the locality, a statement of the actual size of the figures, &c. That
the copies should give the true colour of the originals (as essential to their value) is
of course understood.
165
Extract from:
Second Report concerning Bushman Researches, with a Short

Account of the Bushman Native Literature collected.
Second Report concerning Bushman Researches presented to both Houses of Parliament of the
Cape of Good Hope. Cape Town: Juta, 1875.
Dr. Bleek
[Page 20:]
Bushman drawings and paintings have kindly been copied for me by Mr. Walter R. Piers,
and by Mr. C. H. Schunke. The latter, in the first instance, sent me a fine collection
of copies of pictures scratched on rocks, in the country of my principal Bushman
informants; and, latterly, he forwarded a still more important collection of copies of
paintings, discovered above the narrow entrance of a formerly-inhabited cave, near the
Kammanassie Waggon-drift, and also upon some rocks in Ezeljagdspoort. Among the
paintings from the latter locality, is one already pourtrayed [sic] by Captain (now Sir
James) Alexander. The subject of it (watermaidens), was explained in a fine old legend
to Mr. D. Ballot (who kindly copied it for Mr. Schunke), by a very old Bushman still
surviving in those parts. These pictures have all been deposited in the Grey Library, as
well as those copied by Mr. J. M. Orpen, and chromo-lithographed in the Cape Monthly
Magazine for July, 1874. The latter pictures, kindly presented through the Honble the
secretary for Native Affairs, are of especial interest, on account of their mythological
bearings. It is to be regretted that the rain-strokes in one of them, were omitted in the
chromo-lithograph.
[The magnificent collection of forty-two Bushman paintings, copied from rocks
and caves in the districts of Cradock, Albert, Queens Town, Kaffraria, etc., by Mr.
W. G. Stow, F.G S., accompanied by nineteen of his drawings of Bushman pictures
chipped into rocks in Griqualand West, has been most generously sent by him to us for
inspection, from the Diamond Fields, by the kind aid of Lieut.-Governor R, Southey,
and Governor Sir Henry Barkly. They are of the greatest possible interest, and evince
an infinitely higher taste, and a far greater artistic faculty, than our liveliest imagination
could have anticipated, even after having heard several glowing descriptions of them
from eye-witnesses. Their publication, which we hope and trust will be possible to Mr
Stow ere long, cannot but effect a radical change in the ideas generally entertained with
regard to the Bushmen and their mental condition. An inspection of these pictures,
and their explanation by Bushmen has only commenced; but it promises some valuable
results, and throws light upon many things hitherto unintelligible.]
166
Extract from:
A Short Account of further Bushman Material collected.
Third Report concerning Bushman Researches, presented to both Houses of the Parliament of the
Cape of Good Hope, by command of his Excellency the Governor.
London: David Nutt, 1889.
L.C. Lloyd
[Page 28:]
It is impossible adequately to acknowledge the enormous help in the Bushman
researches which has been afforded by the copies of Bushman drawings and paintings,
particularly by the very large collection made by the late Mr. G. W. Stow: for which it is
hoped that means of publication may eventually be found. To Messrs. H. C. Schunke,
Thomas Bain, and Richard Orpen, very grateful thanks are also due for the collections
made, or contributed, by themselves, now deposited in the Grey library; likewise to
Mr. E. J. Dunn, for his kind assistance with regard to Bushman pictures and other
Native matters, and to the Hon. Dr. W. G. Atherstone, M.L.C., and the late Mr. C. S.
Orpen, for information concerning Bushman paintings kindly supplied by them. A
very interesting set of copies of Bushman paintings, presented to His Excellency the
late Sir Bartle Frre in Natal by the late Colonel Durnford, most kindly lent to us for
a time, threw some additional light on the subject of Bushman art. Not only has the
work of each collector materially helped in elucidating that of the rest, but, some very
curious ideas, possessed by the Bushmen, which would probably otherwise not have
come to light at all, have become known to us in the course of their endeavours to
explain some of the pictures submitted to them.

Granaghan - 2013 - Joseph Millerd Orpen's A Glimpse Into The Mythology of The Maluti Bushmen': A Contextual Introduction and Republished Text

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Granaghan - 2013 - Joseph Millerd Orpen's A Glimpse Into The Mythology of The Maluti Bushmen': A Contextual Introduction and Republished Text

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Southern African Humanities 25: 13766

Joseph Millerd Orpens A Glimpse into the Mythology of the

SOUTHERN AFRICAN HUMANITIES 25: 13766, 2013

MCGRANAGHAN ET AL.: J.M. ORPENS 1874 ARTICLE REPUBLISHED

Bleek-Lloyd project. Further complications can be found in the differences between

SOUTHERN AFRICAN HUMANITIES 25: 13766, 2013

2007). In addition to these larger-scale or thematic comparisons, insights can be also

MCGRANAGHAN ET AL.: J.M. ORPENS 1874 ARTICLE REPUBLISHED

In addition to ethnographic contextualisation, there are a number of relevant historical

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Fig. 2. Tracing of the paintings at Rain Snake Shelter.

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MCGRANAGHAN ET AL.: J.M. ORPENS 1874 ARTICLE REPUBLISHED

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A Glimpse into the Mythology of the Maluti Bushmen

Fig. 4. Orpens copies of

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then he sent another bird, the tinktinki, or tintinyane,qinqininya in Bushman,and

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Remarks by Dr. Bleek

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[Melikane: sorcerers of the Early Race]

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Second Report concerning Bushman Researches, with a Short

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A Short Account of further Bushman Material collected.

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