More about the Day's Heart star: what he says to his daughter
Metadata
Title
More about the Day's Heart star: what he says to his daughter
Collection
Lucy Lloyd |xam notebooks
Contributor
||kabbo (Jantje) (II)
Summary
The Day's Heart star continues his discourse to his daughter, the Day's Heart child. He tells her about her mother (who resembles a Cat) and the doings, hunting and appearance of other animals. Also about the things of the sky, times of the day, the Sun and Moon, the stars and the people; what the 'Flat Bushmen' eat and all their doings such as hunting and making weapons and talking and making fire, as well as the doings of various animals such as who kills and eats what and who talks and does not: the doings of things. <i>The Stars are divided into night stars and dawn stars. The latter are the subjects of some very fine and complicated mythological conceptions, of which we evidently possess, as yet, only fragments. The 'Dawn's Heart' (the star Jupiter) has a daughter, who is identified with some neighbouring star preceding Jupiter (at the time when we asked, it was Regulus or Alpha Leonis)...Besides a short statement of the nature of the Dawn's-Heart, and of his child (L II.-2. 292 and 293), we have two long pieces. The first of these begins with a short narrative of only eleven columns, and then gives a very long discourse from the Dawn's-Heart to his daughter, which treats not only of their own history and that of the Lynx-Mother, but also of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, and of the habits of different animals. More than one hundred columns (1548-1652) of his discourse treat only of lions and Bushmen, and it runs at last into a description of the doings of the jackals, which, however, has been brought under a separate heading (L II.-15. 1432-1499, 16. 1500-1553, 17. 1554-1622, 18. 1623-1691, 19. 1692-1710).</i>
Comments
1) Date on p.1655: 19 July; p.1708: 26 July, 2) p.1702v: the making of arrow-heads, 3) p.1704v: 'Flat Bushmen' are 'real' Bushmen because they talk, 4) p.1707v: a crow with a white neck and breast and a black back (<i>!ka ka-ken</i>) and another bird who takes a piece of the springbok's stomach fat, hangs it around its neck and flies away (see also <i>The Crow's story</i>), 5) p.1708v: |xam names for other crow-like birds and comments as to their appearance, 6) The Day's Heart star is also known as the Dawn's-Heart star (in <i>Specimens of Bushman Folklore</i>), 7) See also <i>The Day's Heart star</i> and <i>The story of !ko'-g !nuin-tara </i>or<i> !ko'-g !nuin-tara and the Day's Heart star </i>and <i>Day's Heart </i>and <i>The Day's Heart star child</i>, 8) This story is found in Books II-18 and II-19
Contributions