Synopses & Reviews
Just over a century ago, Specimens of Bushman Folklore first appeared in print. A project of Wilhelm Bleek, Lucy Lloyd, ||kabbo, Dia!kwain, and several of their kin, that book first brought the oral traditions of the |xam to the attention of the public. The Courage of ||kabbo is a collective testimony to the enduring value of the Bleek and Lloyd archive to research in the fields of rock art studies, linguistics, literature and folklore. The spirit of ||kabbo and the |xam, as well as the dedication of Lucy Lloyd and Wilhelm Bleek, live on in this publication which adds to the archive of knowledge and reveals the power of voices from the past to evoke intellectual and creative responses in the present.
Review
“A comprehensive overview of a rich vein of southern African history and culture, honoring the memory of the /Xam people and their 19th-century interlocutors. It also showcases the breadth and depth of 20th- and 21st-century South African scholarship in semiotics, folklore, museology, rock art research, and colonial historiography.” —Professor Richard B. Lee, department of anthropology, University of Toronto
About the Author
Janette Deacon is honorary professor in the department of anthropology and archaeology at the University of South Africa (Unisa), and a leading expert on rock art in South Africa. She has written more than 130 academic papers and six books. She manages the Rock Art Research Initiative, a program of the Getty Conservation Institute, at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Pippa Skotnes is Michaelis Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town. She is the author and coauthor of several books on the writings of the linguists Bleek and Lloyd, most recently From Landscape to Literature and Rock Art Made in Translation, and has curated several exhibitions around the theme of the San Bushmen.