The Ethno-Biology of the !Xo Bushmen: Knowledge Concerning Medium and Smaller Mammals

1. What they did

This paper follows an earlier one by the same author on what the !Xo Bushmen of Botswana know about antelopes and the warthog. This one covers predators and all the other medium and smaller mammals the !Xo know. The author’s aim was not a full biological inventory. He wanted to show how far the !Xo take an interest in animals, down to shrews, mice and mole rats, most of which they never eat.

Many of the smaller animals are nocturnal and rarely seen, so the author used coloured pictures from Roberts’ “Mammals of South Africa” to identify species. He worked in daily sessions with four or five informants who, he believed, knew somewhat more about animals than average, through his interpreter, Fred Morris. He avoided leading questions. Two informants and the interpreter also spoke Nharo, so the paper gives a checklist of 50 mammals with their common, scientific, !Xo and Nharo names.

For each animal he then wrote down what the !Xo said about their habits and life cycle, adding his own comments where he thought the !Xo were wrong. He invites zoologists and field biologists to send in their views on how accurate the information is.

2. What they found

Species and names

• The !Xo were sure there were only two species of hare in their area, which Smithers’ “The Mammals of Botswana” (1971) later confirmed.
• Similar species often share one !Xo name (all bats have the same name, for example), but the !Xo still knew how many species of each group live in their area and mostly picked out the ones recorded there.
• They had no trouble identifying the civet from the pictures, although Smithers records it mainly in northern Botswana.

What spoor revealed

• Lion: too dangerous to watch closely, so the !Xo only read their spoor and say they know nothing about when lions reach sexual maturity.
• Leopard: courtship has never been seen, but was read from tracks in the sand: the female jumps into a tree and the male follows and coaxes her down, again and again, before mating. Leopards mark the areas they cover by digging holes and defecating and urinating in them.
• Caracal: the !Xo had not seen courtship but had found the places where it happened, and read from spoor that it lasts about four days and that the male leaves until the kittens are born.
• Antbear (aardvark): mating happens at night and was never seen, but mating places had been found.
• Spotted hyena: the !Xo saw evidence of a fight with a leopard, and judged from blood and tracks that both were badly injured.
• Brown hyena: said to follow a car track for miles, drawn only by the unfamiliar smell.

Behaviour reported by the !Xo (a few examples)

• Brown hyenas were watched waking in their lairs and checking which way vultures were flying before trotting off the same way. They are also drawn to kills by the calls of jackals.
• The spotted hyena was described as a hunter, not a scavenger. The author notes this was recorded several years before Hans Kruuk (1968) surprised naturalists by showing spotted hyenas as predators.
• Wild dogs hunt in relays: when the lead dog tires, they say, it gives a high gurgling call and the next takes over the chase. Two informants who lived miles apart, and did not know each other’s stories, each described a leopard trapped in a tree after a wild dog was impaled on a branch below it.
• The black-backed jackal is praised as clever: they play dead when attacked, or lead an angry lion past a waiting hyena.
• Porcupines are said to take over antbear burrows by soaking them in urine until the antbear leaves.
• Honey badgers were seen dragging a duiker two miles to their lair.
• Gerbils were plentiful in 1967 and many died while well fed, probably from disease.
• Many animals are described with their calls, latrines and scent marking, runs and paths, burrow structure (with a drawing of a springhare warren), diet and enemies.

Where the !Xo were wrong

• The !Xo were often wrong about timing: the onset of heat, gestation periods and age at sexual maturity. For example, a note by M. Mills says the brown hyena’s gestation of eight months is almost certainly too long and that the young mature at about two years, not five months.
• They described “fruit bats” that eat moths and berries, which the author thinks confuses insect-eating bats with fruit bats.
• They knew of three shrew species, but Smithers lists only two likely in the area.

How knowledge is shared

• Men said that children learn by playing in the bush, watching and asking older children, not from adults, and that women know little more than children. The author disagreed: women often added valid points or corrected the men, for example when men imitated snake spoor.
• Boys gain most of their knowledge when they join older men on long hunts.

3. What they concluded

• The Bushmen are unique observers of life around them, even of animals that are of no economic use to them. Much of this knowledge is gathered for its own sake (“science for science’s sake”).
• Their special skill is reading spoor: linking a spoor to an animal, and above all judging which of several tracks lying side by side was made first, second and so on. They learn this in early childhood by following their own mother’s spoor. They must also spend hours sitting and watching.
• Where observation and deduction fail, the !Xo say God (Gu/e) made things that way.
• Mistakes about timing do not trouble the author. More important, in his view, is their mental record of how their ecosystem changes: population ups and downs, climate, and changes in plants.
• He partly disagrees with Silberbauer’s view that Bushmen care less about, and use broader names for, animals that matter less to them. The !Xo are concerned with all creatures; group names are used where species look alike.
• The !Xo approach animals in human terms (anthropomorphically) but have no superstitions about these mammals. Only the gemsbok and the eland have ceremonial meaning.

4. How tracking was or was not used

Tracking is central to the knowledge described. The author did not track himself; he recorded what the !Xo said they had learned from direct observation and from reading spoor. Spoor reading was especially important for nocturnal and dangerous animals: leopard courtship, caracal courtship and birth, antbear mating places and a hyena and leopard fight were all read from tracks, blood and other signs. The paper also describes judging the relative age of tracks lying side by side, and children learning to follow their mother’s spoor. Burrows, latrines, scent and urine marking, runs and paths are described for many species.

5. Tracker or observer certification

Reported but not validated. The four or five informants were chosen because the author believed they knew more than average, but their skill was not tested. The author checked some statements against the books of Roberts (1951) and Smithers (1971) and against other observers (Mills, Kruuk, van Lawick-Goodall), and points out mistakes. Informants named in the text include Xamn!ua, Midum, Dausa, Gocholu and Grucha.

6. Other technologies, skills or innovations

• Identifying species with coloured pictures from a field guide (Roberts’ “Mammals of South Africa”). The author notes the limits of this “picture book method”.
• Recording animal names in two San languages, !Xo and Nharo.