2.3 Bushmen

2.3 Bushmen

By Peter Snyders

Who is the “we” on page 24, Elizabeth Mareshall Thomas is writing about? On page 19, she writes: “ We crossed this desert three times, my family and I, on three expeditions, which usually numbered between ten and fourteen people and included my father, my mother, my brother, and myself, as well as several other Europeans who were linguists, zoologists, botanists, or archaeologists, sent by the universities of the Union of South Africa, England, or the United States, as well as four or five Bantu men – several interpreters, a cook, and a mechanic – who were the staff.”

These are the true experiencers of the truth firsthand by scientists and people who are devoted to their profession. They do not just sit in their studies and get all their information from books, which may be biased, prejudiced, and discriminatory. The white linguist, Labov, also writes that the truth about the black language must come from their own linguists. We are not academics who write without proof.

“We have visited four of the Bushman language groups, two of which we stayed with for long periods of time. In 1951, after a survey expedition to learn where Bushmen could be found, we went into the Nyae Nyae area of South-West Africa, close to the border of Bechuanaland, to look for Kung Bushmen. We found a band living near a waterhole, as it was June, the drought of the year, and we stayed with them for four months. 

“At first, only a few Bushmen were there. But as the news spread that we were friendly, more people came to visit us and receive presents of tobacco and salt, for Bushmen love to smoke but rarely have tobacco, which they get in trade. Also, most of the Bushmen had never seen a European before, none had ever seen a European woman, and they came by dozens to sit together in a cluster at a distance to observe my mother and me. By the end of our stay, we had become friendly with them, and in 1952, we visited them again. 

“We found them waiting confidently for us, living beside the track our trucks had made, as we had told them that we would come back if we were able, and this time we stayed with them for a year. In August 1955, we returned to them again, but before we did so, we spent four months in Bechuanaland. We lived one month with a group of Naron and Kõ Bushmen at a place called Okwa (the two groups were mixed because their territories happened to meet at that place), and almost two months with Gikwe Bushmen in the four-hundred-mile stretch of empty desert between Ghanzi, near the border of South-West Africa, and Molepolole, near the border of the Transvaal.” Elizabeth Marshall Thomas 1959: The Harmless People p.24.

Let us bring in some spirituality, the highest form of Truth. The back cover begins with a very short extract from a review of the book by The New York Times: ‘... the study of a ...people which, for beauty of both style and concept, would be hard to match ...” 

The beautiful style of Marshall is simple, unpretentious, and easy for anyone who can read to relate to. She also has a beautiful concept of the Bushmen, telling everything as it is, which gives the reader access to people living in the Kingdom of Heaven rather than in the hell of savage brutes, in which the ignorant West typifies them.

It is, however, the word beauty that conjures up one of the four trinities Jesus speaks about in the Gospel of the Holy Twelve and The Gospel of the Nazarenes (both freely downloadable). 

The word trinity is made of tri, meaning three, and unity, one, and therefore trinity means that the parts (three) are closely interrelated to each other. The second Trinity, Jesus says, is made up of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. What does this mean? It means that when you tell the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth, it would always be beautiful and filled with goodness. In a trinity, if you mention one, the other two would automatically be linked to it. Here, beauty is used to describe this wonderful book, which calls up the other two parts of the trinity.

Okay, so let us conclude with what the Bushmen call themselves:

“So, the distinction between people was caused by the great god, and the Bushmen, who want only to be left in peace, do not compete in issues which they cannot win. They are only frightened by other people and hope to be spared their attention. Kung Bushmen call all strangers zhu dole, which means ‘stranger’ but, literally, ‘dangerous person’; they call all non-Bushmen zo si, which means ‘animals without hooves,’ because, they say, non-Bushmen are angry and dangerous like lions and hyenas.” 

“But Kung Bushmen call themselves zhu twa si, the harmless people. Twa means ‘just’ or ‘only’ in the sense that you say: ‘It was just the wind’ or ‘It is only me.’

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas 1959: The Harmless People p.34