Bushmen, Botany and Baking Bread

Description

Bushmen, Botany and Baking Bread: Mary Pocock's record of a journey with Dorothea Bleek across Angola in 1925 presents the record of a remarkable overland journey documented by the botanist Mary Agard Pocock and illustrated, in colour, with her photographs, sketches and paintings of southern Angola, its people and its plants. The purpose of the six-month-long expedition, by boat, on foot and by machila, was primarily for the renowned ethnologist Dorothea Bleek to collect ethnographic information of the last remaining Bushmen of the region. Besides her role as aide-de-camp, Mary Pocock's intention was to study the flora. She collected almost 1000 plant specimens from this virtually unexplored region, several of which proved to be new to science. A talented artist and photographer, Pocock also described, painted and photographed Bushmen in their villages. These are unique and rare representations of daily activities such as spinning cotton, preparing food, forging metal, playing musical instruments and dancing. Her meticulous daily travel account, glass plate slides, negatives, sketches and paintings have now been rescued from oblivion and collated, edited and presented here for the first time. Bushmen, Botany and Baking Bread will appeal to those interested in Bushmen ethnology, African botany, early 20th century African travel, and not least the significance of gender in scientific exploration of that era.

Informations

• Publié par: NISC (Pty) Ltd
• Date de parution: 26 février 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781920033750
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 121 Mo

Extrait

Bushmen, Botany and Baking BreadFirst edition 2018
Text and the work copyright © the editors 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including any information storage
or retrieval system, without the prior permission in writing of the copyright holder.
The editors and the publisher have made every efort to obtain permission for and
acknowledge use of copyright material. Should an inadvertent infringement of
copyright have occurred, please contact the publisher and we will rectify omissions
or errors in any subsequent reprint or edition.
Published in South Africa on behalf of the editors by
NISC (Pty) Ltd, PO Box 377, Grahamstown, 6140, South Africa
ISBN 978-1-920033-30-9 (print)
ISBN 978-1-920033-75-0 (pdf)
Design, typesetting and layout: NISC (Pty) Ltd
Cover design: Advanced Design Group
Printed by Digital Action (Pty) Ltd
Cover photograph: Kuyella playing the bow, Kaiongo, 2nd September 1925.
‘This is not a special musical instrument, but the singer’s own hunting bow with
the string pulled in and tied back at about a third of its length. By slightly altering
the position of the left hand and calabash, he can vary the note a little. The
performer sings as he plays; the time kept is good, the melody very slight, merely
anaccompaniment to the voice’. Bleek, D.F. 1928. Bushmen of Central Angola.
Bantu Studies 3, 2: 105–125.
Cover map: Gossweiler, J. & Mendonça, F.A. 1939. Carta Fitogeográfca de Angola.
República Portuguesa Ministério das Colónias.Bushmen, Botany and Baking Bread
Mary Pocock's record of a journey
with Dorothea Bleek across Angola in 1925
compiled and edited
by
Tony Dold and Jean KellyAcknowledgements
We thank David Goyder, Duncan Greaves, Eric Kelly, Estelle Brink, Margaret and
Edward Cock, Peter Loudon and Sarah Gess for their kind help in the preparation of
this book.
Thanks to Clive Kirkwood (Special Collections and Archives, University of Cape
Town Library) for permission to use the portrait of Dorothea Bleek. Thanks also to
Erica Henderson, Allen Press, for permission to reproduce Mary Pocock’s obituary from
Phycologia 17,4 (1978).
Special thanks to Mike Schramm at NISC for his patience and kindness in designing
and producing this book.
We are grateful to Rhodes University and the Albany Museum for institutional
support.
– iv –Contents
INTRODUCTION ....................................................................... 1
THE DIARIES: Volume One
Rondebosch, Cape to Ninda ..................................................17
THE DIARIES:Volume Two
Angola, Ninda to Kutsi ..........................................................71
THE DIARIES: Volume Three
Kutsi Camp to Kunzumbia Camp .........................................117olume Four
Kunzumbia to Cwelei Mission Station ..................................163
THE DIARIES: Volume Five
Cwelei Mission Station to Cape Town255
APPENDIX ONE
Newspaper Articles ..............................................................A.1
APPENDIX TWO
Career of Mary Agard Pocock – Synopsis ............................A.31
APPENDIX THREE
Award of Honorary Doctorate ............................................A.33
APPENDIX FOUR
Obituary ............................................................................ A.36
APPENDIX FIVE
Vernacular Plant Names and Ethnobotany ........................... A.44
APPENDIX SIX
Glossary ............................................................................. A.48
BB BB#
– v –INTRODUCTION
The Selmar Schonland Herbarium in Grahamstown is the repository of a unique treasure
– a collection of glass plate lantern slides, photographs and negatives, water colour
paintings and a number of herbarium specimens, as well as fve precious, dilapidated
exercise books – the record of a remarkable journey across Angola in 1925 documented
by Mary Agard Pocock, the renowned botanist and world-famous algologist.
The material documenting this journey has been in the safe-keeping of Rhodes
University Botany Department for decades, during which time there have been several
suggestions that the written account along with the illustrations and photographs should
be shared with a wider readership. Perhaps now, after nearly a hundred years, is the time
to share this treasure trove as a ftting memorial to a remarkable woman and as a reminder
of a virtually pristine part of Africa which has gone forever.
Mary labelled her account in the fve exercise books a ‘diary’ but what she wrote is
far more than a prosaic record of humdrum activities. She possessed remarkable powers
of observation and a wonderful facility in the use of words to bring what she saw to
vivid life. She had an artistic fair which enables the reader to visualise the splendours of
the scenery, the sunsets and the vegetation which she describes in precise and colourful
detail. Her enjoyment of life and acuity of observation permeate her writing, so that
her personality shines through on every page. She kept this record not only for her own
purposes but to inform and entertain her family and friends to whom it was sent. Each
volume, as it was completed, was entrusted to the vagaries of whatever postal service
Mary's diaries relating to her expedition through Angola with Dorothea Bleek in 1925
– 1 –Bushmen, Botany and Baking Bread
existed in Angola at that time. Amazingly, they all reached their destination! She put her
drawing skills to good efect and added quirky feld-sketches to the pages to illustrate
what she was writing about.
Mary was a highly intelligent and very well educated woman. She was most articulate
and presumably enjoyed writing, as her efortless daily chronicles fow like a masterly
narrative. During the frst part of the journey by train (from Cape Town to Livingstone)
and then by river boat from Kazungula to Kama, she whiled away hours of travel by
describing the passing scene. So, from nearly a century ago, we have a vivid example
of what today would be described as ‘live-streaming.’ Once the cross-country journey
started, she spent much of the evening writing up the events of the day. Even on days
which she records as ‘uneventful’ she manages to produce several pages of descriptions of
the surroundings, or of ‘goings-on’ in the camp or in nearby villages, often enlivened by
her subtly humorous comments.
Mary wrote in a ‘diaristic’ style, often omitting the subject of her sentences and
showing little concern for punctuation, frequently employing a dash, rather than more
conventional marks. The reader is left with an impression of an almost breathless furry
of words as her fountain pen races over the pages. It has been necessary to prune some
of the rambling sentences in the interests of clarity and to insert a few punctuation marks
where necessary, but the use of dashes has been retained where it adds to the character of
her writing. Mary grew up at the height of the era of British imperialism and in a climate
of colonial expansionism. She was a woman of her time, as revealed occasionally in the
opinions she expresses and the terminology she uses. How could she be otherwise?
The fve exercise books in which this journey is recorded were not bought new
for the occasion. One visualises Mary, as she prepared for this expedition, ransacking
a cupboard in the family home and fnding relics of the children’s school days. One
book has the name of her sister Florence Edith Pocock laboriously inscribed in childish
script. Another belonged to her brother John Pocock and has some pages of technical
drawings done by him. Another bears evidence of pages having been torn out so that the
remainder of the book could be utilised for her present purpose.
What makes this epic journey particularly unusual is that it was undertaken by two
women on their own, assisted by relays of porters they engaged to carry their equipment
and luggage and set up camp for them. Mary was the junior member of this formidable
party, the leader being Miss Dorothea Bleek, daughter of the world-famous authority
on the Bushmen, Wilhelm Bleek. Miss Bleek’s objective in crossing Angola was to make
contact with the elusive remnants of the Bushmen and document their language and
customs. Some years later she published the frst dictionary of Bushman Languages.
Mary’s role was to oversee the commissariat and ensure a supply of freshly baked bread
each day. Her botanical collecting was ftted in alongside her domestic duties.
It is astonishing to discover that they had only the most rudimentary frst aid supplies
with them, treating minor ailments with permanganate of potash or hydrogen peroxide,
quinine and occasionally, very daringly, with a tablespoonful of brandy (carried purely for
medicinal purposes!). When they left the mission stations at which they stayed in several
– 2 –Introduction
places and set up their camp in the bush, they were virtually cut of from communication
with the outside world. They were dependent on messages being sent to, and received
from, the nearest mission station, and it was through the missionaries that they received
their longed-for post from home which, surprisingly, reached them on a fairly regular basis.
We