University of Johannesburg History 2A 2023

In this paper, following current research, I make a distinction between San and ‘Bushman’ (cf. Challis 2012, 2014, 2017; King 2018, 124). These terms have often been accepted by scholars to refer to the same people; autochthonous hunter-gatherers. Yet when the term ‘Bushman’ was first used by colonists it was to refer to an economic, not racial, category of people who lived beyond Figure 3. RSA CYP005. Figure on horse with a firearm over shoulder, riding behind a sheep Aliwal North. (Photograph: author). TIME AND MIND the confines of the colony and subsisted by hunting, gathering and, most importantly, raiding for livestock (Gordon 1986; Ross 1996; Challis 2012). Those whom we may think of as ‘ethnic’ San today were typically, in the late eighteenth century, referred to as ‘Chinese Hottentots’ (Le Vaillant 1972, 80; Raper and Boucher 1988) as opposed to ‘Bushman’ or ‘Bushman Hottentot’.

Khoe-San beliefs held that it was possible to influence the trajectory of projectile weapons by magical means involving ritual observances and the supernatural powers of medicinal substances

The Korana were said to have a war-medicine which they put into their pockets and into their ammunition pouches with their bullets. This medicine was believed to make their ammunition hit their enemies while the enemies’ bullets would not hit them (Schapera 1930,3 5 5–356). Another form of Khoekhoe war-magic involves burning a crow’s heart, loading the ashes into a gun and then firing the gun. It is believed that their enemies would flee like crows (Hahn 1881, 90). It is interesting to note that in this example the gun takes on the role of being a ritual tool, thereby further reinforcing the argument that

indigenous southern Africans did not share the same understanding of firearms as Europeans. Rather, they had a spiritual, as well as a practical, relationship with these weapons that was foreign to the Europeans who introduced them.

Kagara eventually kills !haunu by using black lightning, which is said to be very powerful and ‘resembles a gun

It could be argued that these bear a strong resemblance to musket balls and may further entrench the link between ‘Herain’ and firearms

Raiding would have increased in danger when coming up against foes with guns, and so ‘Bushman’ groups likely relied on spiritual assistance to increase their odds of success in raids.

Firearms gave raiders a marked advantage over those without guns.

While they adopted guns, they did not necessarily adopt European understandings of guns. Instead, they worked this new material culture into their own ontology.

After the war the Sotho were permitted to retain their arms, though they were to pay an annual tax on each gun. By 1882, however, the Sotho were refusing to register their fi rearms and thus evaded the tax.

1812, after commenting on the extraordinary animals of the South African interior, the famous English traveler William J. Burchell wished that guns would spread more extensively to help people kill off the unwanted beasts. This in turn would result in the extension of modern, productive agriculture. 3 Animals died and agriculture spread.

Africans and settlers saw

guns as hallmarks of modernity,

“Colonialism held out the promise of equality, but essentialized inequality in such a way as to make it impossible to erase; held out the promise of universal rights, but made it impossible for people of color to claim them; held out the promise of individual advancement, but submerged it within the final constraints of ethnic subjection.”

racially discriminatory legislation began to be passed in the guise of laws that were intended to

disarm Africans and to arm settlers

The new gun control measures of the 1870s pushed legal discrimination further: the Cape took a step in the direction of the Boer republics, which denied Africans all rights of citizenship, including the right to own a weapon. Africans could not be citizens of the republics, nor could they own weapons, although the intricate relations of paternalism included the idea that servants helped masters to bear arms.

The historians of technology once focused almost exclusively on Europe and the United States, believing that the countries outside of the West that adopted Western technologies did not modify or change them in interesting ways