1.) schw.weiss - StoneWatch

Part 3:
Broader Ethnic Picture of Eastern and Southern African Rock Art
1. Introduction
Kagga Kamma Camp (South Africa): Tourists who are interested to study how the Bushmen
or San lived since primeval times may do this in the Kagga Kamma Camp in South Africa.
This camp can be reached by car via the route R303 from Ceres to the North and then after
about 50 km another 25 km to the East or by a private plan landing on the airstrip of the camp.
Accommodation is possible at the Kagga Kamma Private Game Reserve (Northern Paarl
7623) in chalets of the camp, in the Bushmen Lodge or even in cave dwellings. 266 267
About 30 - 50 Bushmen or San are living on the area of the Kagga Kamma Farm within the
bizarre sandstone formations of the Cerderberg, part of the Grat Karoo, whereas the name
Kagga Kamma means “where much water is flowing”. Tourist may come here in contact with
these Bushmen who are dressed with a leather loincloth only like in the past. The men are still
hunting with bow and arrow and the women are still gathering fruits, roots and other food the
nature offers. There is the possibility to communicate with the San and to buy handicraft articles
remembering to their tradition. But this is expensive: Tourist have to pay about 300 Rand
(about 50 US$) for this pleasure.
I wonder, if these Bushmen are the early artists of rock art we are searching. The answer is clearly:
No! And I would like to explain the reasons:
The Bushmen living at the Kagga Kamma Farm came from the Kalahari in 1991. It was the
so-called Kruiper Clan leaded by Regopstaan Kuiper, a former bulldozer driver. He and his
clan had never lived under “San conditions of the past”. But they made an agreement with the
owner of the farm and both had advantages. In 1993 representants of the Commission of
Human Rights of the UN were invited to admire this “ecological-touristic” experiment. All
people involved were content, the owner of the Kagga Kamma Farm, the Bushmen and the
tourists, even when there were already voices in South Africa speaking about a “zoo presenting
human beings”. This changed in 1999: As promised already in 1998 the government gave
these Bushmen a piece of land at the southern border of the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park
- and they accepted.
The exodus of the Bushmen drove the farm to despair after having done all the investments to
exhibit “real savages”. As reaction they engaged coloureds, half-breeds from the Cape, then
acting as Bushmen or San. In the presence of tourists they were naked or dressed with loincloth,
they then exchanged against the more comfortable jeans and T-shirts when the tourists
disappeared. This deception went on for some months. And then the tourists got aware it and
were disappointed and annoyed. The experiment was over or - as Claudia Diers-Lienke wrote
in the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung (Heidelberg): “Südafrika sind die echten Buschleute ausgegangen
(South Africa runs out the real Bushmen)”. 268
To understand what real Bushmen or San are we should therefore look in the past and the ethnological
history of southern Africa.
266 Loßkarn, E. und D.: Kapstadt & die Kap-Provinz, Köln 1998. pages 183 - 184.
267 Furler, W.: Wie Menschen vor Urzeiten lebten, Rheinische Post, 16.12.1998.
268 Diers-Lienke, C.: Südafrika sind die echten Buschleute ausgegangen, Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, 06.07.1999.
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