Sounds and sound thinking in |xam-ka !au: “These are those to which I am listening with all my ears”

Abstract

This paper questions preconceptions that situate the |xam in a Stone Age past where they can be objectified by a timeless gaze. From such appropriations and (miss)-representation, the |xam emerge either as shamans or victims or as the quintessential proto-scientists. We explore instead the expressive culture of the |xam and describe its significance as “applied history” for people’s lives in the present. Our investigation follows two routes; firstly, via notions of vibration, sound and rock engravings as they remain available for intermedial comparison in the archaeological and ethnographic records. Secondly, we consider the complex ontological instabilities and continuities in an oral tradition by focusing on !khwa—rain potency. From this we demonstrate how cultural literacy, with no direct written form, is translated from an extinct |xam language and culture and finds meaningful leverage among present-day descendants of the |xam who are genetically extant but now speak another language, Afrikaans.

Keywords

• oral literature
• memory
• intercultural translation
• rock engravings
• rock gongs
• senses
• sensorium
• foreignness