Their bows are small and their arrows are hardly more than a foot in
length; the points of bone, stone, or iron are poisoned, and are so
attached to the shaft that they separate and remain in the wound. The
spear and darts which they use are also small and have poisoned tips. In
the quivers with their arrows they carry a little sharpening stone for
grinding the points and a brush for applying the poison. For digging
roots the Bushmen use a pointed stick, which is weighted with a stone
ring. These few simple weapons and tools are all that these poor people
possess, except a few wooden dishes and a smoking pipe, which is said to
be owned by a whole family or band.
Livingstone says that their arrow poison comes from a sort of
caterpillar or grub, which they crush and dip the arrow tip into. They
always clean their nails carefully after handling the poison, as it
causes damage if it comes into contact with any scratch or cut. The pain
caused by the poison is so great as almost to make the man who has been
wounded crazy. When a lion has been struck with one of these poisoned
arrows he roars terribly and bites and tears the ground and trees. To
cure a person who has been bitten they use an ointment made of the
crushed caterpillar mixed with grease. They believe that the caterpillar
is hungry for grease; when it does not find fat in a person it kills
him; when they supply it the fat it wants, it does no harm. It is said
that this caterpillar is sacred and that they pray to it, asking it to
give them plenty of game when they are hunting.
[Illustration: GORA-PLAYER: BUSHMAN (RATZEL).]
These little people are fond of music and drawing. Their finest musical
instrument is a _gora_. This is a hunter’s bow, with a ring on the bow
string. By sliding this ring they change the note which it gives when
twanged. The twang of a bowstring is not a very loud sound; to increase
it a gourd is hung to the lower end of the bow. All over the country of
the Bushmen cliffs and the walls of caves are covered with their
pictures, which represent animals, birds, and men; hunting scenes and
battles are also represented. These pictures are sometimes just pecked
out in the rock; sometimes they are painted; sometimes they are first
pecked out and then filled with color. The colors most used in these
pictures are red, yellow, and black.
The negroid Kaffirs and the Hottentots who live near the poor Bushmen
hate them and harm them. Meeting them on the road, they sometimes kill
them without pity. In 1804 a Kaffir who went to Cape Town on business
found a Bushman boy eleven years old working as a servant in the
government building. He killed the little fellow with a spear. This, of
course, was long ago, but it shows how the Kaffirs despise the Bushmen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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