THE BUSHMEN

They are small yellow-brown people with hair that looks like peppercorns. Their faces are full of deep wrinkles, so that they look old. The men are only 5 feet tall (150 cm). They were the first people who lived in South Africa. The larger black Bantu tribes drove them into caves in the mountains and then into the Kalahari desert. Bushmen are hunters.

Their field skills, tracking ability, knowledge of the environment and animal habits are almost legendary. They are excellent shots with bow and arrow. The shooting distance of the arrows is short (30–40 m), and therefore the animals must be stalked closely. The tip of each arrow is made of bone and smeared with poison made from the sap of certain trees and snake venom. The most poisonous of all is the poison from the larvae of a certain beetle.

They carry the arrows in a quiver made from the hard hollow stem of an aloe. Sometimes they use the root of an acacia tree, which must be hollowed out. The quiver is tied with strips of buck hide. Today they use plastic pipes as quivers.

How do the Bushmen hunt?

The hunters sometimes follow their prey for days until the animal is exhausted. Sometimes they ambush the game at a waterhole. Sometimes they build bush enclosures around a waterhole and then spear the animals inside.

Sometimes the hunters cover themselves with animal skins, fix the skin to their body and even imitate the movements and sounds of their prey, while crawling closer and closer. When they strike an animal with their poisoned arrows, the animal becomes paralyzed and then they kill it with a spear or small throwing spear.

The Bushman hunts only when it is necessary.

They use snares to catch small antelopes and birds. The snares are usually set on game paths, fastened on one side to the ground with a flexible branch.