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Mental Imagery
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indeed few wild Bushmen, now exist. Fortunately a large and valuable
collection of facsimiles of Bushman art was made before it became too
late by Mr. Stow, of the Cape Colony, who has very lately sent some
specimens of them to this country, in the hope that means might be found
for the publication of the entire series. Among the many pictures of
animals in each of the large sheets full of them, I was particularly struck
with one of an eland as giving a just idea of the precision and purity of
their best work. Others, again, were exhibited last summer at the
Anthropological Institute by Mr. Hutchinson.
The method by which the Bushmen draw is described in the following
extract from a letter written to me by Dr. Mann, the well-known authority
on South African matters of science. The boy to whom he refers belonged
to a wild tribe living in caves in the Drakenberg, who plundered outlying
farms, and were pursued by the neighbouring colonists. He was wounded
and captured, then sent to hospital, and subsequently taken into service.
He was under Dr. Mann’s observation in the year 1860, and has recently
died, to the great regret of his employer, Mr. Proudfoot, to whom he
became a valuable servant.
Dr. Mann writes as follows
“This lad was very skilful in the proverbial Bushman art of drawing animal figures,
and upon several occasions I induced him to show me how this was managed among his
people. He invariably began by jotting down upon paper or on a slate a number of isolated
dots which presented no connection or trace of outline of any kind to the uninitiated eye,
but looked like the stars scattered promiscuously in the sky. Having with much
deliberation satisfied himself of the sufficiency of these dots, he forthwith began to run a
free bold line from one to the other, and as he did so the form of an animal— horse,
buffalo, elephant, or some kind of antelope—gradually developed itself. This was
invariably done with a free hand, and with such unerring accuracy of touch, that no
correction of a line was at any time attempted. I understood from the lad that this was the
plan which was invariably pursued by his kindred in making their clever pictures.”
It is impossible, I think, for a drawing to be made on this method
unless the artist had a clear image in his
