Structure, Meaning and Ritual in the Narratives of the Southern San. Roger Hewitt
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have been formal in any respect and not one example of a proverb or similarly structured discourse was recorded by either Bleek or Lloyd.
The great majority of kukummi are concerned with animal characters, although set in a time when the animals were human. These narratives may be simple fables or very complex and semantically dense – more suggestive of myth than fable. The characters in these narratives were the !Xwe-||na-s'o !kʔe,2 ‘people of the first or early race’ – a term similar to that used by the Zu|wa of today who refer to their stories of people long ago as Nǂwasi o n!osimasi, ‘stories of the old people’ (Biesele, op. cit., 96). The term was not exclusively applied to animal characters however: some kukummi which we might classify as legends – featuring human beings and often appearing to be set in an immediate historical past – were also said to refer to the !Xwe-||na-s'o !kʔe, as were those portraying the stars, the sun and the moon as people. These !Xwe-||na-s'o !kʔe were not regarded with any special reverence. Indeed they were said to be often stupid and lacking in understanding – hence their actions in the narratives are generally extraordinary and rarely correspond to what the |Xam would have regarded as normal or proper behaviour. This fictive early period seems to have been thought of as a formative one for the San race, where the raw materials of life – both cosmological and social – were constantly interacting, rearranging themselves, revealing social truths and the natural order of things. How the sun, moon and stars came into being; how death came into the world; how correct marriages were to be made; how the sharing of food resources was to be conducted; how young people should behave; where the sources of danger lay in social life, these and many other things are laid bare by the activities of the !Xwe-||na-s'o !kʔe.
Perhaps for this reason there is often a strong educational strain in many of the narratives. Lessons were drawn from them and explanations for customs and beliefs were to be found there too. The instruction of the young was very important to the |Xam and many narratives involving disasters, particularly to young people, conclude with the assertion that the characters who acted foolishly, and thus brought about disaster, had not received proper instruction from their parents. The importance of the education of young children is also frequently to be seen in the texts outside of the narratives or in the occasional asides of the narrators. Apart from their function as entertainments, therefore, kukummi were also regarded as the residuum of the social and practical knowledge which constituted an essential code of |Xam life – something to be learned by all. Through the naiveté and foolishness, as well, on very rare occasions, as the bravery and competence of the !Xwe-||na-s'o !kʔe, this knowledge was revealed.
There is no record of any specialised or socially recognised group of story-tellers in |Xam society, professional or otherwise. Story-telling seems to have been something which anyone might do, although Bleek wrote of |Ak!ungta, the youngest of his |Xam informants, that he could ‘relate hardly any of the numerous tales and fables which are met with in the traditionary literature of this nation’ (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 443), and it may have been the case that younger people lacked the knowledge of their elders and did not engage in narration very often.
The informants frequently attributed their knowledge of narratives to members of their family. Thus, for example, |Hangǂkass'o would tell a story that he said he had heard from his mother, |Xabbi-ang, perhaps adding that she in turn had heard it from her mother or some other relative. Informants attributed the great majority of their narratives to their mothers, although, as one would expect, no original authorship was ever indicated by this. However, several of Bleek’s male informants were not only familiar with a large number of kukummi but were clearly themselves also very used to performing. It cannot be construed from the predominance of mothers in the attributing of sources, therefore, that story-telling was primarily the province of women. While it was undoubtedly the women who usually told stories to children, when kukummi were performed to adult audiences the evidence is that this might be by any mature man or woman. No doubt some narrators were more skilled than others – although no mention is made in the texts of any narrator well known for his excellence – but it would seem that most people could perform if called upon to do so.
There is very little evidence relating to when kukummi were performed. |Hangǂkass'o speaks only of two separate occasions on which his mother comforted him as a child by telling him stories (ibid., 317ff; L. VIII, (17) 7519). The only account of story-telling by and to adults comes from ||Kabbo. In a well-known passage in Specimens of Bushman Folklore, ||Kabbo, speaking of his release from captivity, has this to say:
You know I sit waiting for the moon to change for me so that I can go back to my own place. I will listen to everyone’s stories when I visit them. I will listen to the stories that they tell. They listen to the stories of the Flat people3 from the other side of the place and re-tell the stories with their own – when the sun gets a little warm. I will sit listening to the stories that come from far away. And I will have their story when the sun feels a little bit warm and I feel that I must go on visiting. I must be talking with my men friends, for I work here at women’s work. My men friends listen to stories which travel from a long way away. They listen to stories from other places. But I am here. I don’t get stories because I don’t do any visiting to let me get the stories which come along … The Flat people go to each other’s huts to sit smoking in front of them. So they get stories because they often visit. They are smoking people (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 298ff).
Story-telling appears from this to have been part of sociability. As well as spending their leisure time in their own camps, |Xam frequently visited friends and relatives and so an occasion for story-telling was never far away.
Amongst !Kung speakers today the same kind of emphasis on story-telling as an adult pastime is also found. Megan Biesele (op. cit., 97) writes:
It has been my pleasure to discover not only that the number of (non-farm) Bushmen who tell stories competently is quite large but that virtually every old person (among the ju|wasi every man or woman who carries the appellation ‘n!a’ after his or her name – perhaps 45 and older) is able and usually willing to tell stories. In fact of the many old people from whom I requested stories there were only a scant handful who could not tell stories of the old time with confidence and vigor.
So much is this the case that the telling of stories specifically to children is of little concern to the Zu|wasi.
The story-telling groups I observed consisted much more frequently of a small group of old people getting together for some real grown-up enjoyment. The telling of stories among Bushmen is no watered-down pastime but the substantial adult pleasure of old cronies over a bawdy or horrific or ridiculous tale (ibid., 97f).
This seems to be very much the sort of thing which ||Kabbo has in mind when he speaks of sitting during the day, talking and telling stories with his friends.
It is, inevitably, very difficult to discover much about story-telling as live performance. Because the narratives were collected outside of their native context everything is lost to us in the way of dramatic presentation, gesture, facial expression, narrator/audience interaction – indeed most of what characterises narrative in performance. However, a little is known of the |Xam which can give an indication of how narratives were performed. It may be seen from many of the texts – both narrative and non-narrative – what keen powers of observation the |Xam had for their natural environment. Not only are the habits and physical characteristics of animals observed in great detail but many pages of close description of plants and insects were collected, which bear witness to an attention to detail far beyond that needed for daily survival. Furthermore some |Xam at least also felt an attunement to their environment which reached almost mystical proportions. ||Kabbo, for example, speaks of powerful premonitions which he had while out hunting and which created in him actual physical sensations connected with his quarry. He reports that such sensations were common for people who understood them. A man may feel
a tapping at his ribs; he says to his children, the Springbok seem to be coming for I feel the black hair (on the sides of the Springbok). Climb the Brinkkop over there and look around because I feel the Springbok sensation (Bleek & Lloyd 1911: 332).
Or again he reports that
We have a sensation in our feet as the Springbok come rustling