The Ethno-biology of the !Xo Bushmen. Knowledge on the Behaviour of Cloven-hoofed Animals (Antelopes and Warthog)

1. What they did

Hunter-gatherers depend on a close knowledge of the animals they hunt. H.J. Heinz set out to record what the !Xo Bushmen of the South-Central Kalahari know about the behaviour of the eight antelopes found there and the warthog. He wanted to show how much they know, how carefully they observe and how they reason from what they see.

He collected the information in three ways:

• Questioning the !Xo on chosen subjects.
• Asking them to explain observations made when he was in the field with them.
• Asking them to explain the conclusions they drew from animal tracks seen in the sand.

Discussions took place during the day and around the fire at night, with everyone free to join in. The !Xo often talked among themselves as well, and these lively side discussions sometimes brought out facts he might otherwise have missed. He included none of his own observations and wrote the results in scientific language rather than as word-for-word translations.

2. What they found

Brief biologies of each species

• A table gives the !Xo figures for each species: age at sexual maturity, heats per year, gestation, age at first young, number of young, and whether males keep one female or several.
• Each species has its own birth habits and a call used by the mother to bring the young out of hiding: “pst, pst, pst” for steenbok, “peh, peh, peh” (through the nose) for duiker, “gah, gah, gah” for springbok, “hoch, hoch, hoch” for kudu, “shew, shew, shew” for hartebeest and “hah, hah, hah” for gemsbok.
• Young steenbok, duiker, kudu and gemsbok are hidden, while wildebeest calves follow the mother within moments of birth. A duiker or eland mother moves her young away from the birth place.
• Animals mark territories in different ways: steenbok and duiker with their nose glands, springbok by digging, dung, urine and horn rubbing, kudu males by uprooting trees, hartebeest males by digging holes. Hartebeest and gemsbok keep their own sand holes where they roll and defecate.
• The !Xo know the parasites of each species, including the tumbu fly on steenbok and duiker and a fly whose larvae live in the noses of hartebeest and wildebeest.

Social behaviour

• Steenbok and duiker are solitary. Herd species have lead cows and sentinels, and gemsbok and eland bulls form age groups that stay together for life.
• Each herd has its own smell. A wildebeest, eland or hartebeest that has left its herd, for example after being wounded, can never join another. Split herds find each other again by following each other’s spoor and scent.
• Wildebeest, eland and gemsbok fetch wounded herd members and wait for them; hartebeest do not. A gemsbok mother stays with her dead calf and tries to chase vultures away.
• Calves play games much like children’s: hartebeest play “owner of the hill” and wildebeest “owner of the hole”.
• Solitary bulls behave as if “mentally abnormal”: they lose interest in others, forget what alarmed them and are easy to shoot.
• Ostriches are welcome among antelopes as good sentinels, and species have warning calls for their own kind and for others. Fleeing springbok raise a white tail flag; gemsbok and hartebeest flatten their ears.

Sex and conflict

• Four old, reliable informants from four areas insisted that a male duiker or steenbok that has lost his mate may mate with a female of the other species, and that the young can be recognised as hybrids.
• The !Xo describe how each species fights, how to recognise an antelope about to attack a person, and how each defends itself against lions. One gemsbok was known to have killed a man, and Bushmen never eat a buck that has killed a person.

Daily life and senses

• Activity is greatest from late afternoon to about eight or nine at night. Hunting is best in the afternoon in winter and early morning in summer.
• Sleep and slumber are different: when an animal sleeps, flies cover its head and its ears hang down; when it slumbers, its ears move slowly back and forth.
• Springbok and hartebeest see best and wildebeest worst; kudu hear best. Smell is keener in winter, in the morning and evening, and on wet ground. The !Xo believe a fly can carry a person’s smell to an antelope.
• They knew of albino springbok and duiker, and of a near-white cheetah and a very dark cheetah and leopard.

Concepts and attitudes

The !Xo see animals as acting rationally. When an animal behaves in a way they cannot explain, they say “Gu/e (God) made it that way”. Their words for young animals are the same as for their own children. While hunting they use silent hand signs for each animal and for what it is doing, and words such as running, standing, alert, resting in the shade or sleeping.

3. What they concluded

• The !Xo know far more about these animals than they need for survival. They name and classify them, follow every part of their life cycles, recognise normal and abnormal behaviour for each species, and avoid easy generalisations.
• They do not fall back on the supernatural to explain what they see. They either reason it out or admit they cannot explain it.
• They have no concept of instinct: every animal is thought to act rationally, and their accounts should be read with this in mind.
• A hunter can short-cut a winding trail because he reads where the animal intends to go, projecting himself into the thoughts of his quarry.
• Understanding the !Xo world view first needs a full picture of their knowledge of plants, animals and weather.

4. How tracking was or was not used

Tracking was one of the sources of the knowledge recorded. One of the three methods was asking the !Xo to explain the conclusions they drew from animal tracks seen in the sand. The paper also describes trailing: !Xo hunters following wounded animals, and short-cutting a winding trail by reading where the animal is heading. It reports that split herds rejoin and wounded antelopes catch up by following the spoor of their herd.

5. Tracker or observer certification

Reported but not validated. The informants are described as “generally with an impressive knowledge of field lore”, and the four who described duiker and steenbok hybrids as “old, reliable informants”. The author writes that the !Xo do not lie or exaggerate about animals, but notes that months may be wrong because the !Xo count by moons and have no calendar. No test of the informants’ knowledge is reported, and their accounts were not checked against the author’s own observations.

6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

• Group discussions in which informants corrected and added to one another’s accounts.
• Photographs of !Xo hunters’ silent hand signs for gemsbok and hartebeest, and of small game folded into a compact bundle for carrying.
• A table setting the !Xo breeding figures beside reference gestation figures from the Commonwealth Bureau of Animal Breeding and Genetics, Edinburgh.