Chapter Review: Van der
Post, Laurens. The Lost World of the
Kalahari. Great Britain: Hogarth Press. 1958. Print.
"This
is the story of a journey in a great wasteland and a search for some pure
remnant of the unique and almost vanished First People of my native land, the
Bushman of Africa" (van der Post 11).
This is the opening
line to chapter one “The Vanished People” and to the book. Through chapter one
van der Post takes the reader on a journey of the “Bushman of Africa” (11). Van
der Post describes the physique of the Bushman, the sound of the language and
their way of life. The language used to describe the physical appearance of the
Bushman is compared to animals and seems to be a transparent description of
their bodies; a description that makes the Bushman seems as “the other”. Van
der Post describes a man’s figure to that of a “Ruben’s Cupid, protruding in
front and even more behind” (13). He continues to say that the Bushman “had a
behind which served it rather as the hump serves a camel” (13). These are one
of the many ways that van der Post uses to describe the Bushman. The sound of
the language he says is a “joy to hear, and the click of the complex consonants
flashes on his tongue” (15).
Van der Post also uses
stories told to him by his grandfather, aunt and a cattle-herder to tell the
stories of the Bushman and their ways of life. One story that is beautiful of
the way the Bushmen hunt is that they “use the lion as his hunting dog” (19).
Van der Post explains that the Bushman would follow the lion and allow the lion
to kill and eat his prey to feed on only enough to satisfy his hunger. The
Bushman would then scare the lion away with smoke and fire to eat the rest.
This story shows how the Bushman lived within nature and used what nature gave
them to survive. Van der Post says that the Bushman never killed for fun but
only for survival. This is shown on the rock art, as Van der Post writes that
it is “there in his paintings on his beloved rock for those who can see with
their hearts as well as their eyes” (22).
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| Images from Jonathan Stedall |
Reading this chapter of
van der Post made me think of other researchers and writers of Africa, those
like Eugene Marais, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Francois Levaillant. All experts in
their fields of study, they observed and wrote about human life and behaviour
in Africa. Van der Post’s writing is describing the life of the Bushman and
Hottentots and not necessarily comparing them to apes but in all contexts the
Bushman or Hottentots are seen as “the other”. Sometimes through van der Post’s
writing he seems to describe people other than the Bushman as the other in
Africa. He describes the Bushman as decorating the rocks with paintings and
says that “other races went through Africa like locusts, devouring and
stripping the land” but the Bushman is there because he belongs there (32). Van
der Post shows a contrasting view of the Bushman who uses nature to survive and
“other races” that use Africa to get what they want out of it (32). This also
in a way compliments J.M. Coetzee’s chapter in White Writings about the idleness of the Hottentots in Africa. Both
show that the way of life for the Bushman and Hottentots is not one of laziness
but respecting nature and living as part of nature and not superior to nature.
 |
| Image from Tara/David Coulson |
Van der Post has a
beautiful writing style, which is in between a narrative style and that of a
study of the people. He adds in stories from family and other people and this
gives the chapter a human aspect with human experiences. Van der Post has a
rich descriptive way of writing which allows the reader to visualize what he is
writing about.
Works Cited:
Stedall, Jonathan. “Free
to Love”. Jonathan Stedall. Web. 22
April 2016.
The British Museum. "Rock Art in North Africa". Khanacademy. Web. 22 April 2016.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-africa/north-a/algeria-and-libya/a/rock-art-in-north-africa
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