The /Xam bushmen once occupied the whole central interior of South Africa. Their paintings are dated to 10,000 years and maybe back as far as 50,000 years. The tribe itself died out around 1920 and since then ancestral lands south of the Orange River have been taken and those few remaining elderly members have been denied the right to speak. Their cultural memories would have been lost were it not for Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd, 150 years ago. He learned their language from a handful of men who were being held prisoner in the city jail and he invited them to stay in his house. When Wilhelm died in 1875, Lucy continued with a task for the next 39 years until her own death in 1914. The /Xam were considered to be the lowest form of humanity and were looked upon as vermin. They were exterminated and many were shot. In some places, the massacre of several hundred was recorded and they suffered with starvation from civil punishments, such as theft and murder. They were accused of cattle rustling and the punishment was imprisonment for two years of hard labour Their lives were overcrowded and brutal tand they supplied the labour for new roads and railway lines in Cape Province. They were sent out every day in chain gangs. They were left with the poorest areas and found the lowest paid work in farming.
from The Karoo by Julia Blackburn
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