Reading the Hartebeest: A Critical Appraisal of Roger Hewitt’s Interpretation of the /Xam Narratives

The Bleek and Lloyd collection of /Xam materials continues to elicit growing attention from both the wider public and academics such as historians, linguists, literary critics, folklorists, art historian, and ethnologists. Despite this interest, the actual body of writing that engages in close analysis of the texts themselves is surprisingly limited. This small but influential literature has itself not been subjected to a systematic critique. Many of the assertions contained within it have been reproduced in the wider field of Bushman studies as though they were facts rather than opinions. This paper attempts to begin to redress this situation by engaging in the close examination of the some of the writing that has been produced by Roger Hewitt in relation to the narratives in the /Xam archive. Hewitt’s work comprises the most detailed and most widely cited analysis of the texts to date.