Short description
In the 1870s, facing cultural extinction and the death of their language, several xam men and women told their stories to two pioneering colonial scholars at the Cape, Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd.
Long description
In the 1870s, facing cultural extinction and the death of their language, several xam men and women told their stories to two pioneering colonial scholars at the Cape, Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd. The narratives of these San (or Bushmen) were of the land, the rain, the history of the first people, the origin of the moon and stars. They told stories of their beliefs and their individual lives; how stories floated on the wind, and how they had come to Cape Town as prisoners of the British Crown. All these narratives were faithfully recorded and translated by Bleek and Lloyd, creating an archive of over 13 000 pages which includes drawings, notebooks, maps and photographs. Now residing in three main institutions - the University of Cape Town, the South African Museum and the National Library of South Africa - this archive has recently been entered into UNESCO's memory of the World Register.