The Story of “!Khwe // na ssho !kui who Brought Home a Young Lion to Use as a Dog”: Character, Identity and Knowledge in a /Xam Narrative

Abstract

This paper discusses several aspects of a /Xam Bushman story in which a man brings home a lion cub and insists that it is a dog. The paper seeks to demonstrate that the text is capable of eliciting a range of important critical questions. It argues that the call to exegesis is inherent in most forms of literature, including those that are often treated as folklore or mythology. The paper suggests that there are several aspects of the story that accord with current critical concerns. It concentrates on just two of these: the tension between character and identity in the text and the different modes of knowledge that are present in it. The paper does not attempt to provide an exhaustive or authoritative analysis of the story. Instead it contends that the interpretative possibilities in /Xam literature are more extensive than some of the ways in which it is read would suggest.

‘Hunters-With-Sheep’: The |Xam Bushmen of South Africa Between Pastoralism and Foraging

“…In particular, these images allow researchers to explore ǀXam terminology recorded by Bleek and Lloyd as they learned the language and refined their understandings of ǀXam society: this element is crucial when considering the impact of the translation processes applied by researchers on contemporary readings of the archive. While the Bleek–Lloyd Archive remains a colonial project, and issues of misrepresentation are ever present (Wessels 2010: 25–46; 2011; cf. Spivak 1988), by revisiting the original terminology we may be able to gain some sense of the emic structure of the narratives (McGranaghan 2014a; 2014b).…”

Michael Wessels 1958–2018

“…During his voyage of discovery in this almost uncharted ocean of wonder tales, personal narratives of joy and loss, dreams, and so much more, Michael realized this crucial fact and this is one of the keys to the depth found in his book and in the articles published afterwards (Wessels 2011(Wessels , 2013. What he wrote in Bushman Letters about the connections of the |kaggen stories with hunting practices could be applied to the whole of the corpus: "it is virtually impossible to determine in this kaleidoscoping interpenetration of shifting perspectives what is outside what" (Wessels 2010a, 116).…”