Many other men and women were interviewed by Bleek and Lloyd. Some stayed with them at their home in Mowbray, others were met on visits that Lloyd made to the Breakwater or the prison hospital. Most of these were ǀxam speakers, but there are also three notebooks written in Korana by Lucy Lloyd and one by Jemima Bleek. Much of the material collected from these people included personal histories, genealogies, words and sentences and, in the case of prisoners, some information as to the reasons for their conviction and imprisonment.
Adam Kleinhardt was one of the first ǀxam speakers to be interviewed by Bleek. He was from the area of Bushmanland east of Calvinia called the ’Achterveldt’, which had its own ǀxam dialect. According to a note on Kleinhardt’s genealogy in Bleek’s first notebook, his father was Korana, his maternal grandfather a ’Flat Bushman’ and maternal grandmother an ’Afrikander woman with long hair’. Kleinhardt provided words and sentences recorded at the Breakwater Convict Station in 1866. This contribution was entered into a separate English–ǀxam vocabulary of 48 folio pages (in WB1).
In the early 1870s Bleek and Lloyd recorded the genealogies of several ǀxam at the Breakwater, and some of these men were photographed. The photographs appear in Specimens of Bushman Folklore and are now part of the collection of the National Library of South Africa. Two men, Daoud Moos from ’Stuurman’s Fontein’ and Blaitje Snell from ’Thier Fontein’ (near the Kareeberg), contributed words, sentences and some personal information in September 1873 (LL41: 3160–4).
Lloyd appears to have made several visits to the Breakwater and the Breakwater hospital. Three ǀxam convicts were interviewed there by her in late October 1875. ǂgerri-sse, or Jan Ronebout (Rondebout) (prisoner number 7879), was first interviewed at the Breakwater in October 1875 and also contributed one short book in November 1875 in Mowbray (see LL68: 5445-56 for details of his personal history). ǂgerri–sse’s companions at the Breakwater were Jan Plat (who was married to Diaǃkwain’s niece) and ǂenn (or Klaas Paai). They had all been imprisoned for stock theft. Jan Plat, of both Nama (ǃOra) and ǀxam descent, had killed a sheep, in their words ’for hunger’, and ǂenn (prisoner number 7884) had eaten part of a stolen sheep, though had not killed it himself. ǂenn was interviewed at the Breakwater in October 1875. Jan Plat was also one of Diaǃkwain’s travelling companions: they left Calvinia together in 1876 (Diaǃkwain eventually parted company with him and apparently went on to the Free State). Jan Plat provided some information as well as words and sentences to Lloyd at the Breakwater in October 1875 and again at Charlton House in January 1884. In the later contribution Plat referred to his son as being in service, whom he and his wife wanted back ’badly’. Jan Plat left Mowbray in the company of Friedrich Hortnoop (prisoner number 7061) on 10 January 1884 to return to Bushmanland. Hortnoop had been interviewed by Lloyd in January 1883 and was a relation of Diaǃkwain’s (his grandfather was Diaǃkwain’s uncle).
ǁxou ǁku’a, or Daki or Hendrik Ronebout (patient convict number 7910), contributed some personal information (LL68: 5453) and words and sentences when he was interviewed by Lloyd at the Breakwater hospital in October 1875. He was Jan Ronebout’s brother and had been imprisoned for stock theft with ǂenn and Jan Plat.
Hendrick Beren, in the service of Mr Willmott, provided Lloyd with some personal details and words and sentences in March 1876. Beren said he originally came from ’Griqua Stadt’ in the Free State but grew up in Swellendam. His father was Griqua and his mother was the daughter of a ’Makatees’ man and (possibly) an ǃora woman.
Two young men identified as ‘Hottentot’ who spoke a dialect from the Lake Ngami region (in Botswana) were interviewed and contributed words and sentences in their language. They were a Phillip (or Auma or Jaco’bama) who was interviewed in 1877 (LL108: 8879–948) and a young woman or girl (name unknown) of mixed descent who was interviewed in 1878. The Rev. JG Krönlein assisted Lloyd with the translation of the young woman’s contributions, which were in the same language. The young woman was in the service of Mrs Van Zyl and Phillip was in the service of Mr Conrath.
ǀkabbeten (or Mkuan), a ’North-Eastern Bushman’, and his companions ǀnu’xa (or Hans), Mosunyan, and Molef (from the Aliwal North area, where they were all tried in 1879 and 1880) were interviewed at the Breakwater in April 1880 (LL123: 10293 and insert). ǀkabbeten (prisoner number 3416) was imprisoned at the Breakwater for a year, apparently for killing a sheep. He and his people were from the Dordrecht area. The other three men were tried for sedition (along with some ’BaPhuti’ men) in 1880. The Rev. George Fisk provided Lloyd with further information about these men.
A ’Koranna-Hottentot’ (perhaps ǃOra speaker) called Piet Links (transcribed by Lloyd as Lynx) and his family stayed in Mowbray from January 1879 until January 1880. They were sent by mistake to the Bleek–Lloyd household after Lucy Lloyd requested a ǀxam family from the Diamond Fields to provide companionship for ǀhanǂkass’o. The authorities there had mistakenly believed them to be ǀxam. The Links family was unable to return on account of the weakened state they had arrived in and the sickly condition of Links wife. On 13 January 1880, almost a year later, they were successfully relocated to Kimberley. Lloyd did collect some information from them, and this was recorded in three notebooks (now located in the Maingard Library at the University of South Africa) and one compiled by Jemima Bleek.
ǃnauxa (or Willem) and his companion ǃkhannumup (or Petros Willems) were interviewed at the South African Museum in Cape Town on 24 September 1880 after their release from prison. Lloyd called ǃkhannumup a ‘colonial Hottentot’ and ǃnauxa described himself as a ǀnussa or ’Grass Bushman’. ǃkhannumup had been wrongfully imprisoned at Robben Island (LL124: 10318–9). The two men were photographed by studio photographer W Hermann, apparently on the same day as the interview. xu-gwai (or Jantje George) provided words and sentences at a meeting at the Amsterdam Battery in July 1879 (LL75: 6046g).
In addition, various other ǀxam prisoners at the Breakwater in 1881 and Cape Town Prison in 1883 made minor contributions to the project. A man called Man-tonno contributed a few words and sentences to do with parts of the body, as did another prisoner called xum-ǀna, but it is not known when these interviews took place. xum-ǀna was from the Langeberg area near the Orange River and provided information about his relatives and other details of personal history. (The notebook containing these contributions is missing, but they are referred to in Lloyd’s Report.)
In 1884 several ǀxam families were brought to Cape Town by the Cape government and were housed at Salt River. They appear to have come from the Kenhardt and Prieska areas of Bushmanland. One of them, an old woman called ǀxaken-an (or Mikki Streep), stayed in the Bleek and Lloyd household for a short time in 1884. ǀxaken-an contributed one short piece but wanted to return home so that when the time came she would be buried with her forefathers. The notebook containing her contributions is missing. The entire camp of ǀxam in Salt River suddenly disappeared overnight, presumably to return to their own country.
A number of photographs survive of ǀxam and others who were not, apparently, interviewed. In many cases the names of the individuals were inscribed on the photographs, most often in Lloyd’s hand. These are now to be found in several collections in South Africa, notably the National Library, and in the British Museum in London and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.