'A glimpse into Bushman mythology': interpretation, power and knowledge
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Date
2017
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Routledge
Abstract
In 1873, Qing, a young man of Bushman background, recounted a cycle of stories and
commented on some of the rock paintings he and the magistrate Joseph Orpen saw on a
journey through the Maloti mountains. A year later Qing's narratives and comments on rock
art, as recorded by Orpen, were published along with Orpen's account of the journey in an
article in The Cape Monthly Magazine. The article is a blend of European and indigenous
discourses and forms of knowledge, the latter mediated by the processes of recording,
translation, writing and publication. This essay explores the different sorts of knowledge that
are represented in the text, in Orpen's statements about his research and in Qing's stories
in particular. It uses the literary technique of close reading in order to open the text up to
different possibilities of reading and interpretation.
Description
Keywords
Bushman, Colonialism, Indigeneity, Interpretation, Knowledge, Narrative, Rock art
Citation
Wessels, M. A. (2016). 'A glimpse into Bushman mythology': interpretation, power and knowledge. Critical Arts, 30(6): 898-914