THE BUSHMEN AND THEIR STORIES

by Elizabeth S. Helfman ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 4, 1971

A likely idea, an accomplished author, an engaging and very good looking presentation; and yet it is all wrong. The stories themselves were mostly collected by Dr. Wilhelm Bleek, a German scholar, in the latter part of the 19th century, as Elizabeth Helfman acknowledges in her terminal note on sources; their narrators were Cape Colony Bushmen few of whom ""survived the slaughter of their people""; whether or not the stories 'are still told among the Bushmen of the Kalahari we do not know.' But she has explicitly, at the outset and throughout, conveyed the impression that these are the stories of the Bushmen today. The way they are ordered -- under ""Rain,"" ""Stars,"" ""Moon and Sun,"" ""Wind"" -- is obfuscatory too: mostly these are myths of beginnings (an aspect which is not pointed up insofar as no distinction is made here between the sacred and the profane) but many are not about the rain or the wind; some are unintelligible as stories (""Rain and the Young Woman""), others like ""The Moon and the Hare"" whose meanings are manifest are diminished by the author's interpretation (this is a myth of the origin of death, not of the hare's split lip). In general, the author's remarks, albeit sensitive and evocative, do nothing to dispel the strangeness -- of the Sun's armpits as the source of daylight, for instance (might it not matter that a Bushman's otherwise dark skin is yellow there?); or of the Mantis' readiness to kill his unoffending son the Eland -- in a story which quite confounds a child's experience and moral expectations. Some of the other Mantis stories are true tales, and effective as such; but the bulk of the book is neither viable nor, unfortunately, valid.

Pub Date: March 4, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Seabury

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION