The Lost World of the Kalahari

by Laurens Van Der Post

  As we filmed and recorded all these activities I might easily have been trapped into a sense of satisfaction by the seeming ease with which we were accepted and the trust upon which we appeared to be taken. But I had one major setback which made me aware of how delicately we had to proceed with the Bushman. Whenever I tried to ask Nxou and his people about their beliefs I came up against a blank wall of resistance. They not only pretended to be unaware of what I was talking about, but refused resolutely to discuss my question, and became quickly so restless and uneasy that I desisted. Although Nxou, in my presence, had suggested to the little boy that he could bribe his grandmother with his tortoise into telling him a bed-time story, when I asked him or the others to tell me their stories they said they did not know what I meant by ‘stories’. When I explained what I meant they said they knew no stories. One evening I surprised an old lady in the act of telling stories to the three children. But the moment she saw me she stopped. When I asked her to continue and to allow me to listen as well, she pretended to be too deaf to hear what I said.

  ‘It’s perfectly true! She’s too deaf to hear,’ the others cried, crowding around and instinctively supporting her.

  ‘There!’ the old lady told me, a look of relief on her wrinkled face. ‘You see? It’s as they say, I’m too deaf to hear.’

  Of course, they, she, and I all laughed loud and long at the manner in which she had given herself away. I was moved at the essential innocence of minds that could behave like that when they felt themselves at bay. My childhood, and long years in the company of primitive people, had taught me, too, that this fear could show me where their real treasure lay. Their food, the secrets of their water, the daily round could be shared, but the contents of their spirit were different. Also I remembered that Stow reported a Bushman, when pressed for details of a story, as saying: ‘It is forbidden to talk of these things except by men who have been initiated in the mysteries of the dance.’

  So instantly I stopped all questioning and forbade the practice among my companions as well. I thought I would leave it until we had danced together. However, when I suggested dancing, I felt the same uncompromising reserve in them and had to drop that subject as well. I suspected there was a deeper trust they had to discover in us and themselves before these things would be possible, and I was certain that could only come with time and patient living. Unfortunately my time was limited. I never regretted more our wasted weeks in the north than I did then. All I could do, however, was to identify myself as deeply as possible with the life of the Bushman and hope for the best. I thought I could do this most effectively by joining their hunters and helping to provide the food they needed. So as soon as we seemed to be accepted on this level by the little community, we began going out with the hunters.

  That immediately produced its own exciting set of revelations. The historical picture of the Bushman as a hunter was quickly verified and surpassed. Day after day we saw how easily and truly Nxou and his companions read the marks left by the animals, birds, and insects, as well as weather and time, in the sands of the desert. I myself had just enough insight into the ancient science to appreciate what masters they were. They could tell very quickly how long it was since the buck, lion, leopard, bird, reptile, or insect had signed his time-sheet in the sand. No two hoof-prints were alike to them for all spoor, like finger-prints to a Scotland Yard sleuth, were distinct and individual. They would pick out one from fifty, and deduce accurately the size, sex, build, and mood of the great antelope that had just made it. They knew their world as much by this subtle script in the sand as by its more imposing physical appearances. When they met a new person their minds instinctively recorded not only the look on his face but also his footprint in the sand. On our first morning at the sip-wells I drew Nxou’s attention to what I thought was a strange footprint nearby. He laughed and teased me, asking if I really was so stupid as not to know my own cook’s spoor, for it indeed was Jeremiah’s footmark in the sand. Another time, when many miles from home and separated from the rest, Nxou and I, on the track of a wounded buck, suddenly found another set of prints and spoor joining our own. He gave a deep grunt of satisfaction and said it was Bauxhau’s footmarks made not many minutes before. He declared Bauxhau was running fast and that we would soon see him and the animal. We topped the dune in front of us and there was Bauxhau, already skinning the animal.

  On another occasion Vyan wounded a springbuck. He immediately set out after it with Bauxhau and myself. At first we ourselves had no difficulty in following the spoor because of the occasional smear of blood on the grass beside it. Soon, however, the wounded animal joined his herd, also fleeing from us. The spoor became one of hundreds, the grass too trampled and dusty for any show of blood. But Bauxhau never wavered. His eyes picked out the one spoor in the maze of hundreds and held fast to it. Two miles further on he turned aside from the mainstream of hoof-prints to show us again the solitary spoor, and before long great splashes of blood led us to where the animal lay in the shade of a thorn tree, where Vyan quickly put it out of pain.

  Always at the beginning of any particular hunt there was one solemn ceremony to perform: an earnest consultation between all hunters as to which spoor was most worthwhile following. The Bushmen would sit on their heels like elder statesmen discussing the size, mood, sex, and direction of the animals, study the wind, the sun, the hour, and the weather generally. When they had picked out one particular spoor they revealed their decision by flicking their hands over it loosely from their wrists and making a sound like the wind between their teeth. They would do that, too, whenever a spoor was fresh and promising, and the gesture came so clearly from a background of meaning that we never saw it without an immediate quickening of our own pulses. The decision made, they would set out at a steady trot, until the spoor told them the quarry was near. Sometimes they would stalk it, first on their knees and finally flat on the stomach, until the animal came within range of their bows. Frequently, if seen, they would make no effort to hide themselves but go slowly, hands behind their backs, imitating the movements of ostriches pecking casually at food in the veld. When hunting in a group they seemed to prefer shooting in pairs, coming up together to their knees like shadows within a bush. Without a word being spoken but by some process of wordless intercommunion of purpose, simultaneously they would let fly their arrows at the animal, the bowstrings resounding with a wild harp-like twang. That done they would stand up at leisure. They never expected the animal to drop dead at once, knowing they would have to wait until the poison began to do its deadly work. But the first thing to establish was that the arrows had found their mark. The arrows were made in three sections for this very reason. First, the poisoned head was made in one short hollowed piece which fitted into another slightly larger one which was joined to the main shaft, notched at the far end to take the bow-string without slipping or fumbling. This made certain that the wounded animal would be unable to rid itself of the arrow by rubbing its wounded place against a tree, for in this way the arrow-shaft either parted from the arrow-head on impact, or else when the animal started rubbing itself against trunks and thorn bushes. If the hunters recovered the arrows intact, of course, they made no attempt to follow the alerted quarry. But if they found only the shaft they would take up the spoor at once and the real business of the hunt began. How long it took before they closed in for the kill with their spears on an animal already half-paralysed by poison, depended on the sort of poison used, the size of the animal, and the nature and place of the wound. Sometimes the chase would last only an hour or two, but with the greatest of all quarries, the eland, it sometimes took a whole day. Indeed, Nxou told me he had once followed an eland for two and a half days from the time he hit it to the moment he killed it with his spear.

  I have never seen a killing which seemed more innocent. It was killing in order to live. On their faces there was always an expression of profound relief and gratitude when the hunter’s quest had been fulfilled. There was also a desire to compl
ete the killing as quickly as possible. Invariably Nxou when he caught up with his quarry would stab straight into its heart and work his spear-head vigorously round in order to help the animal as quickly as possible to its end. I have watched their faces many times while performing this deed and I could see only the strain of the hunt, the signs of the fatigue from running all day under a cloudless sky in a high temperature, together with a kind of dedicated expression; but no gloating, or killing for the sake of killing. In the whole process they seemed able to call on unbelievable reserves of spirit and energy. We had a breath-taking illustration of it in the greatest of all our hunts which brought about a fundamental change in our relationship with the whole community: that was the day we killed the great eland bull.

  CHAPTER 10

  The Song of the Rain

  UP to this moment we had kept ourselves and our hosts well supplied with game. We had helped them to kill steenbuck, duiker, an ostrich, hartebeest, springbuck, a wart-hog, and guinea fowl. Physically the Bushmen now looked less spare, and stronger than when we had first met. But no hunt seemed to end without the nostalgic wish, expressed aloud, that the quarry had been an eland.

  I have mentioned before the extraordinary meaning of the eland in the Bushman’s life and imagination; indeed I propose dealing with its significance more fully in another volume. All I need say here is that among our little hosts it was clear that the consummation we sought in our hunting could only be achieved by killing an eland. There were plenty around. We found their spoor over and over again. We caught lovely glimpses of their superb shapes moving with a flicker of purple flame through the diamond glitter of desert distances, or swiftly crowning with glory a crest of red sand. Sometimes, briefly, they would even stand still at the end of a natural avenue of storm-trees in serenely royal pose. But they had held the little hunter’s imagination so fruitfully throughout the ages just because they were too observant, intelligent, and well-organized to allow us ever to get really near them. When it became clear that we had to provide our Bushman with the eland for which their spirits even more than bodies yearned so strongly, we were forced to devote our days to nothing else.

  One morning, soon after sunrise, we came on the fresh spoor of a herd of about fifty eland. When I saw Nxou’s wrists flicking over it as he found it, I had a feeling that our hunter’s day had really come. We followed the spoor resolutely all morning into the climax of the day without catching up with the herd. Nxou, Bauxhau, and Tsaxchi kept hard at it, trotting silently beside the spoor in the scarlet sand. From time to time I joined them, but could not have kept up except for repeated rests in my Land-Rover. About three in the afternoon they drew near enough to have a shot at the herd. I happened to have dropped back at the time to try and persuade a ten-foot mamba with the biggest eyes I had ever seen to pose for the camera, and when I caught up again I found that the herd had gone off so fast into the east that there had been no time to find out whether they had been hit. But from that moment the hunters raced after the great antelope.

  I had seen them run many times before, yet never with this reserve of power nor with such length and ease of stride. I am certain they ran as only the Greek who brought the news of Marathon to Athens could have run. Their minds were entirely enclosed in the chase and impervious to fatigue or other claims on their senses. With Ben driving at his best through bush, scrub, and over hyaena and ant-bear holes, with the Land-Rover momentarily airborne and going over each obstacle like a steeplechaser over a hurdle, we only just managed to keep close to Nxou who was in the lead. At one point I was horrified to see a bright yellow and deadly Kalahari cobra uncoiling like a twist of saffron rope from behind a bush and, hood extended, rise swiftly to strike at Nxou. Without a hesitation or swerve he rose like a hurdler high into the air and sailed over the angry head from which a forked tongue, shining with spittle, flickered like lightning. He didn’t even look back at the snake but held on straight to the freshening spoor.

  From the point where the final chase began to where we caught a glimpse of the full herd again, they ran thus, without pause for twenty miles according to Ben’s speedometer. And the final mile was an all-out sprint. So fast did they go on this stretch that they passed momentarily out of our straining vision. We were climbing up a steep dune through a thick matted bush of thorn and the finest and deepest of blood-red sand underneath. Large ant-bear and spring-hare holes pitted the dune like shell-holes on a ridge of modern battle. Superbly as Ben led us in his Land-Rover, we were inevitably slowed down. For the first time I feared the chase would fail. From the smoking tracks of the eland in the sensitive sand, and the clearly defined length of stride they recorded on it, it was obvious that the herd was thoroughly alarmed and running full out. Yet they were not over-far ahead: the spoor was so fresh that it glistened darkly in the crumbling sand. That, and the fact that our Bushman hunters had suddenly spurted ahead, alone checked my fears.

  Then suddenly we broke out of the thorn on the crest of the dune, to see Ben and Vyan, guns in hand, tumbling out of their Land-Rover, abruptly halted. I drew up sharply, snatched my rifle from Dabe, and jumped out to run over to join them. The sun was low and its full light flowing like a broad flashing stream down an immense dried-up watercourse coming out of the west and going due east. The watercourse was bare of trees and covered with long yellow grass. Immediately below us, running full out as if the race had only just begun, were our hunters, their sweating shoulders copper and gold above the erect grass. And most wonderful of all, half way up the bank opposite us, was the whole herd of eland, purple and silver in the sun, and drawn by their fear into one tight motionless ring, staring out of their wide eyes in our direction. Though they were five hundred yards or more from us, it was impossible for people who knew them as well as we did not to read in the angle of their heads and the close formation into which they were formed, their dismay that after so long a chase they should still be pursued.

  ‘They’ll be off in a second,’ Ben cried out in alarm. ‘Far as it is, we’ll have to shoot at once if we’re to get our Bushmen their meat.’

  As he spoke, a great bull broke out of the paralytic ring of the herd with an enormous bound high into the air. For the ease with which he did it he might have been a lithe spring-buck instead of a creature weighing nearly a ton. A spurt of red dust rose in the yellow grass as his feet found the earth and immediately he led off, with the speed of a race-horse, straight up the side of the dune. So fast did the rest of the herd come out of their huddle and follow on one another’s heels in single file, that the herd went over the grass-gold dune on the far side like a single twist of silk.

  Fastidious hunters that they were, fearful of hitting the eland women and their young, Vyan and Ben fired almost simultaneously at the flying bull. But the distance was great and the target erratic, and though they tried again and again he vanished unscathed over the dune.

  I very nearly joined in to fire at the same target, but something in me had already marked the fact that our Bushman hunters were not making for the main herd. Excited as I was by seeing the magnificent bull leading his herd out of their trance, and the noise of Ben and Vyan opening up on him, I checked my impulse long enough to have another look at our hunters. Then I saw it all: another great bull, nearly two hundred yards behind the main herd, was coming out of the bed of the watercourse on the farthest side. He, too, the moment the firing started, bounded forward, but much more slowly than the rest of the herd. In one so great and massive as he it could only mean that he was wounded and that despite the length and speed of the chase Nxou and Bauxhau had read his condition accurately from the spoor in the sand and made him their special quarry. None the less the bull was still going strongly enough to prolong the chase for an hour or more. Since the sun was dangerously low I shot at him immediately and managed to hit him in the hind-quarters. He faltered, walked on holding his head all the higher in the instinctive pride of a noble breed that makes the male scorn all sense of physical injury. But suddenly he san
k back on to his hindquarters into the grass. Even then he went on holding his head up to look steadily at the little hunters closing in on him with their spears.

  Gun in hand, running towards them as fast I could go, I still had time to notice how small they looked beside him as they went in, spear in hand, for the kill. They drove their spears straight at his heart, and when I came up to them Nxou was working his round in the heart of the bull to help him as quickly as possible over the end. But it is a law of life observed devoutly by the great animal kingdom of Africa, that one does not die unless one must. Great as was his pain and hopeless as the cause of life was for him, this lone bull still observed the royal law and would not accept the release of death. So I motioned our Bushmen away and put a bullet in his head.

  Hardly was he dead than Nxou and Bauxhau started skinning the bull. That was the amazing part of the chase: without pause or break for rest they were fresh enough at the end to plunge straight away into the formidable task of skinning and cutting up the heavy animal.

  As we watched them do it in the closing hour of the day, we noticed an expression on their faces that we had not seen before. Suddenly a deep laugh broke from Nxou. His arms covered with blood, he stood up from his work and said something to Bauxhau, who giggled like an excited girl. Dabe, hearing them, threw the round shabby little European hat he insisted on wearing high into the air and, in the grip of the same excitement called out in wild approval, ‘Oh, you child of a Bushman, you!’

  I asked him what it all meant.

  ‘Master,’ he said, almost beside himself, ‘now we are going to dance!’

  I turned to Nxou and asked, ‘Why now?’

  Because, he said with a freedom I had not experienced before, always, ever since the days of the first Bushman, no hunter had ever killed an eland without thanking it with a dance.