A Bushman, commenting irritably on the Remote Area Dwellers Programme set up
by the Botswana government in the capital Gaborone, said: 鈥淲ho鈥檚 remote from
whom? If we鈥檙e remote from Gaborone, Gaborone is also remote from us.鈥�
Throughout history these Aboriginal people have been treated as objects to be
managed and described in terms that reveal more about the observer than the
observed. Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of the Bushmen edited by
Pippa Skotness (University of Cape Town Press, Tel + 27 21 244 519, R268.00,
ISBN 0 7992 1652 6) is a fascinating exploration of this phenomenon.
In 32 essays, academics from anthropologists to linguists trace the
simultaneous and contradictory depictions of the Bushmen鈥攏oble savages,
base savages, primitive beings studied by scientists, thieves hunted as vermin,
highly spiritual people, bag people living on the fringe of modern society.
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However, the most powerful material in this book, published in conjunction
with a travelling exhibition, is the wealth of original documents which appear
alongside the essays as a parallel text. London posters in 1847 advertised the
live exhibition of a Bushman family. Newspapers described them as 鈥減robably the
very lowest in the scale of creation鈥� and 鈥渋n appearance little above the
monkey鈥�. Photographs and detailed descriptions of Bushman genitalia also
demonstrate a pornographic exploitation which masqueraded as scientific inquiry.
However, positive relationships such as the one established in the 1880s between
a Bushman family and the philologists Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd also appear
in this wide-ranging book.
A few of the essays in Miscast are badly and inaccessibly written.
But its main weakness is the extremely limited testimony from Bushmen. This
illustrates the fact that, even today, these people remain trapped by the
perceptions of others. Bushmen are not represented in parliament in either
Botswana, Namibia or South Africa.