New directions in/Xam studies: some of the implications of Andrew Bank's<i>Bushmen in a Victorian world: the remarkable story of the Bleek-Lloyd collection of Bushman folklore</i>

Wessels, Michael

doi:10.1080/02560040802166250

Cited by 3 publications

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“…In the indigenous rock-art archive of the Maloti-Drakensberg, we view these experiences from the mind's eye of these insurgent societies, subverting the erstwhile dominant colonial account (Paterson 2012, 70). The testimonies of San informants-such as the Bleek-Lloyd Archive (Bleek & Lloyd 1911;Hollmann 2004)-are artefacts of trauma themselves, recorded from prisoners and displaced refugees of the colonial frontier, under an ethnological paradigm built on primordialist underpinnings (Dubow 1995, 79;Wessels 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in San Forager Theories of Disease, and Its Implications for Understanding Images of Conflict in Southern African Rock Art

Skinner¹,

Challis²

2023

CAJ

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San forager populations in nineteenth-century southern Africa were forced to adapt to greatly destructive aspects of the colonial project. Forging new societies from heterogeneous sources, they engaged in prolonged armed insurgency, recording their exploits, presence and beliefs in the rock-art archive of the Maloti-Drakensberg. These images reference conflict and trauma, conventionally interpreted as visions of spiritual warfare. However, viewed through the lens of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), deeper dimensions emerge. PTSD is the culturally subjective experience of generalizable neuropathologies which develop following a traumatic event. Diagnosable in diverse communities worldwide, it nonetheless requires insider idioms to understand its local expressions. We explore how PTSD manifested in this historic and cultural context; how its symptomatic social dysfunctions would have been understood in forager aetiology, and how its intrusive flashbacks would have intruded on altered-state experiences induced to heal the consequences of violence. We find that the artists were not passive victims of trauma, but rather used art symbolically to reconsolidate individual and collective understandings of traumatic events.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in San Forager Theories of Disease, and Its Implications for Understanding Images of Conflict in Southern African Rock Art

Skinner¹,

Challis²

2023

CAJ

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Smoking Around the Campfire: A San Encounter with the Colonial

Wessels

2016

African Studies

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Voorgevoelens, vertolkings en verklarings: resepsie van ’n 19de-eeuse ǀxam-kum

Staphorst

2021

Tydskr Letterkd

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Although the field of Bushman studies has seen a number of different disciplines being drawn upon to address key questions, the textual material of the Bleek and Lloyd archive is still relatively understudied. Studies which do approach this material, however, tend to do so through an anthropological and/or archaeological lens, with literary analysis often marginalized. This article, through taking account of considerations of the reception theories developed in literary studies, criticises the various interpretations of a 19th century ǀxam language kum, or narrative. Originally published in Specimens of Bushman Folklore (1911), the kum “Bushman presentiments”, concerning an enigmatic experience narrated by ||kabbo, has led to six distinct interpretations—some of which are in conversation with one another in various ways, but they nevertheless offer differing views. Through a critical review grounded in literary folkloristics and reception theory, the article argues for renewed interest in and study of the kum “Bushman presentiments”. It is argued that future studies need to be based on three factors: disciplinary foregrounding, linguistic analysis, and comparative reading. These three factors, the article concludes, are the most glaring limitations of the existing interpretations, and if taken into consideration they could lead to a proliferation of insight into the kum.

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New directions in/Xam studies: some of the implications of Andrew Bank'sBushmen in a Victorian world: the remarkable story of the Bleek-Lloyd collection of Bushman folklore

Cited by 3 publications

References 4 publications

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in San Forager Theories of Disease, and Its Implications for Understanding Images of Conflict in Southern African Rock Art

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in San Forager Theories of Disease, and Its Implications for Understanding Images of Conflict in Southern African Rock Art

Smoking Around the Campfire: A San Encounter with the Colonial

Voorgevoelens, vertolkings en verklarings: resepsie van ’n 19de-eeuse ǀxam-kum

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