The Friend', Bloemfontein: Bushmen. Their language and their art

The Friend', Bloemfontein: Bushmen. Their language and their art

Newspaper Clippings

These newspaper clippings report on a lecture given by DF Bleek at the posthumous George Stow exhibition at Bloemfontein Museum in the summer of 1920.

Ink on paper

28/09/1920

A folded vertical strip of typewritten newsprint two columns wide, accompanied by several scraps. An inscription above the horizontal rule line reads '28.9.1920' and 'Friend - Bloemfontein' in brown (oxidised) ink.

Bloemfontein Museum, George Stow (his copies), Native Races of South Africa (George Stow's book), Miss Doris Bleek (her lecture in Bloemfontein), Mr R van Reenen (Reenen van Reenen), Bushman (their nature), Wilhelm Bleek (his 'pet murderer'), pet murderer (Wilhelm Bleek's)

The newspaper column, from an unacknowledged periodical, reports on the main points of Dorothea Bleek's lecture entitled 'The Bushmen Tribes of South Africa', given four days prior (September 28th) in the Museum Hall at Bloemfontein during an exhibition of George Stow's work. The identity of 'Friend' is unclear. Dorothea ironically calls good-natured Dia!kwain, a core language instructor who co-dictated the |xam corpus, her father's 'pet murderer' (Watson, 1991: XI; Deacon, 1992: 3; Deacon & Dowson, 1996: 71). This perhaps shows what the family thought of the charges brought against (many) Breakwater 'convicts'. The epithet arose from Dia!kwain and ≠kasin's murder (in self-defence?) of Jakob Kruger of Gifvlei farm (whose acquaintances likely murdered Dia!kwain after his homeward departure from Mowbray in 1876, six months after Bleek's death) (Penn, 2005: 62-63, 78; Wessels, 2010; Deacon, 1997: 103; de Kock, Bethlehem, & Laden, 2021: 39; Bank, 2006: 273-274).