Bibliography: p. 67-72. / The Cape Thirstland (comprising modern Namaqualand, Bushmanland, the Karoo, Gordonia and Griqualand West) became, from the beginning of the influx of herding and cultivating peoples into South Africa, an area of retreat - not only for San hunters and gatherers but later for disgruntled Khoi/Coloureds and Bantu-speakers. As population pressure grew, so the search for unoccupied land became more urgent, and even the most arid part of the country became coveted. What the first chapter of this essay attempts to show is how the San were caught up in the general competition for land, which seems to have shaped so much of South Africa's history, and how they dealt with the threat to their independence.

Thesis (M.A.)-University KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009. / Full text also available online . Scroll down for electronic version.

In this thesis I describe a toxic protein, diamphotoxin, that is present in the pupae of the beetle Diamphidia nigro-ornata. This insect is used as an arrow poison by the !Kung Bushmen inhabiting the savannah of eastern Namibia and western Botswana. Preliminary investigations showed that the pupae contained a 3,7 S cationic protein which caused haemolysis and, after intramuscular injection, local paralysis followed by death. By intravenous lethality assay, one 200 mg pupa contained 20 000 mouse lethal doses. Assays for the toxin were developed based upon haemolysis in vitro and lethality in vivo. These assays were used to monitor purification of the toxin. Diamphotoxin was purified by acid extraction in 0,1M glycine-HCl pH 3,0 followed by ammonium sulphate fractionation, chromatography on hydroxyl apatite, phosphocellulose and, finally, on DEAE cellulose. A consistent increase in activity after the hydroxyl apatite chromatography pointed to the removal of an inhibitor during this step. A subsequent severe loss of activity after chromatography on phosphocellulose could neither be explained nor overcome. The phosphocellulose chromatography step yielded three peaks of toxic activity. Immunological studies revealed cross-reactivity but not identity between these three toxin species. The toxin in the first peak to elute from the phosphocellulose column was purified to electrophoretic homogeneity by chromatography on DEAE cellulose. Attempts to purify the toxin in the other two phosphocellulose peaks were not successful. The isolated molecule was confirmed to be the toxin by haemolysis in a blood-agarose underlay after SDS-gel electrophoresis. The molecular weight estimate for the toxin by SDS-gel electrophoresis was 60 700 daltons and by analytical ultracentrifugation 62 100 daltons. The molecule appeared to exist as a single polypeptide chain. The amino acid composition showed a high proportion of hydrophobic amino acids. Isoelectric focussing showed an isoelectric point of pH 9,45. Toxin mediated haemolysis was studied in detail. The haemolytic event could be broken down into two stages. In the first stage toxin bound irreversibly to the cell but, provided no divalent cations were present, no damage to the cell could be detected. The second stage required the presence of free calcium (or certain other divalent cations), with an optimum concentration at 1 mM. The interaction of calcium with the cell-bound toxin resulted in the cell membrane becoming highly permeable to Na⁺ and K⁺ ions. Experiments designed to detect phospholipase or protease activity in toxin solutions gave negative results. Erythrocytes incubated with ¹²⁵I-labelled pure toxin in calcium-free medium retained a quantity of bound toxin which could not be removed by repeated washing. Incubation of erythrocytes with calcium-free toxin resulted in depletion of the activity of the toxin solution. The kinetics of the haemolytic action of the toxin were shown to be stoichiometric rather than catalytic. It was estimated that haemolysis by the toxin required a minimum of approximately 100 molecules per cell. Studies using circular dichroism measurements and the fluorescent probe 8-anilino-1-naphthalene sulphonic acid (ANS) indicated that a conformational change occurred in the toxin upon exposure to calcium. The ANS studies indicated that upon the addition of calcium the toxin molecule became more hydrophobic. It was concluded that the toxin functions as a calcium regulated Na⁺ and K⁺ ionophore in that it binds to the cell membrane and, in the presence of calcium or certain other divalent cations, assumes a conformation which mediates the free passage of Na⁺ and K⁺ ions. The resultant disruption of normal transmembranous ionic concentration gradients leads to cell lysis by loss of osmoregulation and, in the case of excitable membranes, disruption of electrophysiological activity.

Indigenous communities, like the Bushmen of the Southern Kalahari, always attract visitors who 'go there' to experience the 'life out there'. Travelling in their 4x4s, these visitors also bring cameras and take pictures of their interactions with subject communities as evidence of 'having been there'. For academics and journalists, these pictures are meant to illustrate their presentations of 'what is actually there'. Both types of photographs are known as ethnographic photography. This study. asks and attempts to answer the question: how do we study ethnographic photography? As much as photographers attempt to portray their subjects realistically, their representations are often contested and criticised as entrenching subjugation, displacement and dehumanisation of indigenous peoples through 'visual metaphors' and other significatory regimes. This discussion reconsiders the concept of imaging others, by offering an analytical semiotic comparison between Paul Weinberg's anchored and published photographic texts of the Bushmen, on the one hand, and Sian Dunn's unpublished, inactive texts of the #tKhomani Bushmen, on the other. The discussion is an attempt to understand documentary photographers, processes of producing of images, the contexts in which they are produced and how the communities that are represented make sense of them. Concerns with the objectivity of representation go beyond the taking and consuming pictures of other cultures. This study is, therefore, grounded in cultural, social and ideological factors that shape the production and consumption ofphotographic representations of and from other cultures. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

This thesis uses aspects of the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) to investigate how global trends and national eco-political factors in Botswana impact the livelihood strategies or actions of a group of individuals who identify as !Kung Group Basarwa in a small village called Ngwatle, located in the south western Kalahari. These global and national forces produce and reproduce institutions, structures and processes that constitute the particular vulnerability context in which Ngwatle is couched. The Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, a key component of SLAs, is used here as a tool of analysis to identify barriers and constraints to livelihood aspirations. Basarwa, known as Bushmen or San people more generally, have a history of strained relationships with more powerful majority groups including the Setswana (or Tswana) who account for 79% of the population as well as wealthy cattle owning minority groups. This history, understood in a wider global context, makes livelihood construction extremely difficult for people living in Ngwatle. The research is exploratory in nature and seeks to contextualize a problem or a set of problems given a particular set of circumstances rather than establish categorical causality between variables. The approach of this research has been methodologically investigated by answering three primary research questions. The first question seeks to establish the major activities undertaken in Ngwatle households that help people in the community to make a living. In this regard, the research clearly establishes that several specific livelihood actions, such as making crafts and conducting cash-generating entrepreneurial activities are performed on a daily basis in Ngwatle. The second research question asks whether resources (assets) are constrained by institutions, structures and processes and if so, how. In fact, resources are constrained by these factors and are informed by historical precedence. The third research question focuses on how institutions, structures and processes impact livelihood strategies in Ngwatle in more detail. Links are established between the macro (global), meso (national) and micro (community) economic and political environments. The suggestion is that aspects of capitalism and neo-liberalism at the global and State levels have informed and strengthened various mechanism of control designed to manipulate and direct the movement of individuals (bio-politics). In essence prejudices and discriminatory practices have served to radically alter Basarwa social systems and seriously undermine livelihood strategies. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005.

Bibliography: pages 131-146. / There is presently considerable debate as to the forms of relationships established between hunter-gatherers and their non-forager neighbours and whether relationships which are documented as having been established significantly affected these hunter-gatherer societies. In southern Africa, particular attention has been paid to the effects of such contact on hunter- gatherer communities of the south-western Cape and the Kalahari. The aim of this thesis has been to assess the nature and extent of relationships established between the south-eastern San and southern Nguni and Sotho communities and to identify the extent to which the establishment of these relationships may have brought about changes in the political, social and religious systems of south- eastern hunter-gatherers. General patterns characterising interaction between a number of San and non-San hunter-gatherer societies and farming communities outside the study area are identified and are combined with archaeological and historiographical information to model relationships between the south-eastern San and southern Nguni and Sotho communities. The established and possible effects of these relationships on some south-eastern San groups are presented as well as some of the possible forms in which changes in San religious ideology and ritual practice resultant upon contact were expressed in the rock art. It is suggested that the ideologies of many south-eastern San communities, rather than being characterised by continuity throughout the contact period, were significantly influenced by the ideological systems of the southern Nguni and Sotho and that paintings at the caves of Melikane and upper Mangolong, as well as comments made upon these paintings by the 19th century San informant, Qing, should be interpreted with reference to the religious ideologies and ritual practices of the southern Nguni and Sotho as well as those of the San. Other rock paintings in areas where contact between the south-eastern San and black farming communities was prolonged and symbiotic may need to be similarly interpreted.

Thesis (MMus (Music))--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / This study was undertaken to determine the present state of the musical practices of the youth of the !Xun and Khwe San. The study formed part of the NRF project, Mother’s Milk Mother’s Muse, of which the objective was to document and preserve the music of South Africa’s indigenous cultures. This was done by recording the music of children during a series of mini-festivals. A further aim was to develop a renewed interest in their own traditional musical culture. The writer was chosen in 2003 as the project coordinator of the San people of Platfontein in Kimberley. That project has thus formed the basis of the present study of the current musical practices of the youth of the !Xun and Khwe San. Research was done through literature study and participatory action research. General information on these research methodologies is given in the second and third chapters. The ways in which these methodologies were put into practice in the writer’s own study are discussed in the last chapter. Teachers of the !Xunkhwesa school on Platfontein were asked to give their help with the project. These teachers, who teach the Arts and Culture learning area to various grades at the school, were responsible for completing forms with information on musical items. The children were then asked to bring traditional songs to class in the period before the mini-festival. These items were recorded during the mini-festival in September 2005. Descriptions and analyses of the songs are given in chapter five. Similarities with the characteristics of traditional San music as well as general characteristics of African music are also discussed. The conclusions and proposals are discussed in the last chapter.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2001.

The advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994 coincided with International Legislation where the International Labour Organisation ILO Convention 1969 – Indigenous & Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 was prominent in their ‘rights to roots’ campaign, closely followed by the 1994 United Nations Draft - Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These international debates filtered through to local communities in South Africa, who was still in the infant stages of democracy. The newly installed government glanced off ethnic loyalty in favour of the spirit of nationalism as the building blocks to unity in the new State. Under leadership of the African National Congress (ANC), resurgent voices of Khoisan revivalist groups appeared to reassert an identity linked to particularity. This was done in the wake of a colonial and apartheid past, where these institutions destabilised identities hence the formation and mobilization of new political structures amongst neo-Khoisan Revivalist groups. Many of these neo-Khoisan groups are spearheaded by self-appointed leaders to mobilize support on the basis of ethnic loyalty to foster notions of ‘belonging’ to an ethnic society and the scramble for resources. This thesis looked at the contemporary view of those who are in the process of identity reclamation. It has done so by using the Korana Royal House as a vignette to look at the broader Khoisan movement. The thesis looked at the evolution of naming rules and customs and how these interrelate in different contexts and the international discourse about concepts like indigenous and traditional groups.

Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2008. / Full text also available online. Scroll down for electronic link.