Bochimans

The French name of the Bochimans or Bosjesmans is derived from English Bushmen (Litt: Men of the bushes or the bush). They name themselves San .

History

The Bushmen are the most former inhabitants of the Southern Africa where they live since at least: 20,000 years. Their habitat is vast the Kalahari Desert. They are defined as “those which follow the flash” while moving according to the rains to nourish fruits, roots and of game.
La denomination Bochiman was introduced by Boers. The African denomination is San and was introduced by Nama.

These wandering people of hunters-gatherers occupied formerly all the Southern Africa. The successive arrival of the Bantous, farmers sedentary, and of the Hottentots living of breeding and speaking a language about the same family, decimated this population and pushed back it towards increasingly ungrateful grounds. The arrival of the Dutchmen (Boers) and Huguenot S at the 17th century then British completed to reduce them to misery by driving out them their ancestral grounds. At the 18th century, the farmers gathered in militia ( kommando ) who launched punitive forwardings on Bushmen.

Today relegated on one of the most ungrateful grounds of the world, the Kalahari, Bochimans are still likely to have to give up for the reason acknowledged for the government of the Botswana to integrate them into the benefits of civilization but, according to the interested parties, to leave the place to the diamond-like prospection which would project the De Beers.

In 1991, the Botswana Christian Council published a report in connection with a business concerning of the bushmen suspectés to drive out on a private property and which were apprehended and tortured by guards of the national parks.

In 1997, much were expelled of on their premises in Kalahari and those which remained underwent drastic reductions in their territory of hunting, a continual harassing and tortures. With the beginning of the year 2002, harassing intensified: the water pumps were destroyed, the water reserves emptied in the desert and prohibited hunting and the gathering. Practically all Bushmen were then expelled of the Reserve of Kalahari but a great number of them since are turned over on their grounds and much of others want to do as much of it.

The proposed reasons of this expulsion differ largely according to the parties. The government botswanais proposed the fact that Bushmen did not live any more according to their traditions, raising cattle, and thus disturbed the ecological balance of the reserve. The British ONG Survival International suspects as for it of the interests related to the mines of Diamant S. In 2006, a court botswanais recognized the illegality and the unconstitutionality of the expulsion of Bushmens of the animal reserve of the center of Kalahari. The government does not seem however inclined to facilitate the task to them, it does not have obligation to restore the basic services in the area (water). At the end of 2007, Bushmen have in announced Botswana that they would bring a new lawsuit with the government if they cannot turn over on their territory.

Culture

The languages bochimanes are of family Khoïsan. They speak about the different languages which all, incorporate clicks (consonants inspired) translated in the writing by the signs! or/

Bushmen are hunters-gatherers who, during thousands of years, found their subsistence in the desert thanks to their knowledge and with their competences. They drive out - mainly several species of antelopes - but their daily food always especially consisted of fruits, bays and roots of the desert. They build temporary wood shelters. Much of them was forced to leave their territory and of living in villages located in unsuitable zones at hunting and the gathering.

With the Botswana in particular, they undergo the discrimination and the ostracisation of the company tswana in spite of a program of sedentarisation launched by the government. Rehoused in miserable camps or alive in the ranches in which they work, the bushmen are rejected and marginalized following the example Aborigènes of Australia. One counts: 100000 Bushmen in all the Southern Africa today. Some: 3,000 Bushmen would still live in the center of Kalahari but in a natural reserve created by the government botswanais. They continue their wandering life, last survivors of what the archeologists called the " civilization of the arc" . The others are sédentarisés.

Their works (scenes of war & drives out) are painted on rocks.

The film the gods fell on the head gave a transitory notoriety to these forgotten people of which the language, like the other languages Khoïsan and the Xhosa (a language bantoue having evolved/moved in contact with the Khoïsan languages) produced strange clicks | (slappings).

Poem bochiman

Take my figure and gives me holds!
Take my figure, my unhappy figure
Gives me your figure,
With which you return
When you die
When you disappear from my sight
You layers and return.
Lets to me resemble to you, because you are full with joy
You return each more alive time
After you disappeared from my sight
you did not promise us formerly
That we also we will return
And will be again happy after death?

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