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Stories from Africa
The Bushman, San or Kung
God and an Afterlife
Cagn and the Baboons
The Wagtails Necklace
Rock Paintings
The Second Inhabitants of Southern Africa, The Khoikhoi or Hottentots
The arrival of the Bantu and European settlers. The Nguni, Xhosa during the 1750’s
The Mbulu
Xhosa Proverbs
Tales from Cape Townn
The Flying Dutchman
Eland Story
Stories from Africa is a page of stories sourced from a number of indigenous people and publications. The African culture is peppered with raconteurs and praise singers, seeping the hills and valleys in colourful oratory and spoken words captivating for ever the hidden mysteries of South and Southern Africa.
This page has been added because Africa is a continent of the spoken word. The history of its earliest people, their life style, cultures, passing into the realm of the past, those who lived here, the guardians of Africa never recorded their history in the written word. In rock etchings and delicate paintings dispersed widely throughout the sub-continent, Yes but the stories of life, the very fabric of the life was passed from generation to generation, from Father to Son, Mother to Daughters, from Granddfather to Grandson. Stories, an intregal part of the cultural maturity, told around wood fires in smoked filled thatched roofed huts, in the flickering glow of the cooking fires, under star lit night skies. Stories told by aging Grandmothers to bright young women passing from one cycle to the next in isolated initiation ceremonies hidden from prying eyes, sacred rights of passage nervously undertaken. Hidden voices speaking in hushed tones. benelovent ancestors waiting gifts from the conscious world.
We will be adding new stories on an on going basis and removing those that have past their prime. We invite you to interact with us on this page, to contribute your own stories, whether these stories are of your own personal experiences, of an African nature or those sourced further afield.
Modern technology has deprived us of our ability to entertain ourselves, deprived us of our ability to tell our stories. Join us as we incorporate modern technology with the oldest form of communication known to man. Story telling
The Bushman, San or Kung
On religion: Kung, like the Bushmen as a whole, are traditional tribal religionists and very close to Christianity. They believe the celestial bodies (sun, moon, morning star, and the southern cross) are symbols of divinity. They believe the praying mantis is a divine messenger and when one is seen, diviners try to determine the current message.
Other animals also have spiritual significance for them. They also believe that dancing near a sacred fire will give them the power to heal. Their spiritual leaders are diviners and healers. They believe ancestors are involved in curing rituals, but they do not revere the dead as the Bantu peoples do.
Legends play an important role in the life of the!Kung. Each story is someone’s perception of the supernatural. Each tells its own truth, bringing to light some aspect of the divine.
The sacred Tsodilo Hills are legendary. The story goes that a man had two wives, but he loved one wife more than the other, and this caused a big quarrel. The one he didn’t love hit him on the head, causing a deep wound. Then she ran off into the desert. But the Great God, Gaoxa, decided that because there was no peace among them, he must turn them all into a stone.
The man became the largest of the hills; the unloved wife became the smallest hill that stands alone; and the loved wife, with her children, became the cluster of hills in the middle. But they believe there are supernatural powers in the Hills because Gaoxa himself lives there. It was there that he created and kept his cattle, sheep, goats, and all sorts of different animals. The !Kung claim you can see the footprints in the rocks.
Some Bushman clans along the middle reaches of the Orange river have a quaint myth which explains the origin of Men and Animals, their early friendship, and how this was lost. These people say that their remote forefathers came out of a hole in the ground at the roots of an enormous tree, covering a wide extent of the country. Immediatly afterwards all kinds of animals came swarming out after them, some in twos, threes and fours others singly or in flocks and herds.
They crushed, jostled and pushed one another, so great were their numbers. Ever thicker they swarmed until they were even emerging from the branches as well as the roots. But when the sun went down, the animals ceased to appear. Those already there remained, peacefully resting, around the bottom of the tree. Like the men, they were all endowed with the gift of speech.
As the night came on, the men who were sitting with them grew cold and wished to make a fire to warm hemselves, but a divine voice told them to make no fire, but to wait until the sun rose to warm them in the morning. They remained like this for many hours, with the animals sleeping around them. But the night grew darker and the cold more intense until the men could stand it no longer. In spite of the warning that had been given to them, they succeeded in making a fire.
As soon as the flames began to flicker, the animals sprang up in terror and rushed off. The panic-stricken hordes escaped into the mountains and plains, losing in their fright their power of speech, and fleeing forever afterwards the prescence of man. Only a very few animals remained behind with the firemakers and these the men domesticated and kept for their own use. But the great family of men and beasts was broken up, never to be united again.
God and the After Life
The Bushman’s god is nothing other than the unseen but all-encompassing prescence of the wilderness and the vast sky and mountain. They prayed occasionlly to the Sun or the Moon and the Stars, but they could give no explanation as to why they did this. Sometimes they called this prescence ‘Kaang’ or ‘Cagn’ and not only attributed to him human characteristics, but also many charms and magical powers.
Bushmen also appear to have had a belief in an afterlife. A dead man’s weapons were buried with him, and his face was turned to the rising sun, as they believed that were he to face the west it would take the sun longer to rise the next day. For burial the bodies were sometimes annointed with a red powder and melted fat.
They were then placed in shallow graves, in a curled-up position - the favourite sleeping posture of man in life. Some African tribes would break the bones of their dead upon internment ( perhaps to deter their ghosts from walking and wandering around), but the Bushmen never did this. They allowed the corpse to remain intact, and merely raised a small cairn of stones over it to prevent wild beasts from scratching up the remains.
Cagn and the Baboons
Long ago, baboons were little people like the Bushmen, but mischievious and quarrelsome. One day they met Cagn’s son, Cogaz, who had been sent by his father into the bush to collect sticks to make bows. Oh ho!’ they jeered, dancing around the boy, ‘Your father thinks he is so clever, making bows to kill us. We will kill you instead.’ So they killed poor Cogaz and tied him up in the top of a tree and danced around it singing in their own tongue, ‘Cagn thinks he is so clever!’
Soon Cagn, who was asleep, awoke and knew that there was something wrong. He called to his wife Coti to bring him his charms. He rubbed some magic on his nose and thought and thought. Then up he jumped. The little men have hanged Cogaz,’ he said and off he went to where they were dancing. When they saw him coming they were frightened and changed their chant, but a little girl said, ‘Don’t sing that way, sing it the way you were singing before.’ And Cagn ordered, ‘Sing as the little girl wishes,’ and they were obliged to sing and dance as before. So Cagn said, ‘Yes! That is the song I heard, that is what I wanted; go on dancing until I return.’ He went and fetched a basket full of pegs and went behind each of them as they danced, making a great deal of dust, and drove a peg into each one’s backside with a crack. They all bounded off to the mountains, barking and leaping with their baboon tails sticking up behind, to live on roots, beetles and scorpions and to scratch fleas and chatter nonsense forever.
Then Cagn climbed up into the tree and took down Cogaz and by magic restored him to life.
It is a fact that to this day Bushmen seem to be the only people that not only understand the language of the Baboons but to a limited extent can even converse with them.
The Wagtails Necklace
The Wagtail is one of our prettiest and most delicate birds, which has lived alongside man for many generations. The gentle Bushmen loved this bird too. The friendship began long ago when the Bushmen lived in the Cape in low caves with rocky walls and sandy floors. The steep, rocky sides of the Kloofs ( Narrow valleys) sheltered them from the biting winds of winter and the scorching heat of the summer sun. These kloofs also held water and, in this dry land, it was good to have a constant water supply flowing by your door.So the Bushmen lived in the Cape mountains, hunting and gathering roots, fruit and berries, talking and dancing and singing and painting. They were happy people and very content with their homes and surroundings. Then one day the sand-flies came. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Millions breeding by the running water - burrowing into the sandy floors of the caves - biting men, women and children. The Bushmen could do nothing.
The sand-flies multiplied and multiplied until whole valleys were plagued by them. The Bushmen held a council meeting and decided to move. All the caves were emptied of their scanty belongings. weapons, tools and cooking utensils were packed, and everyone was ready to leave. They intended to march out along the valley of the Olifants River into the vast Karoo. Their leader was making a speech, explaining to all why they had to leave, trying to prepare them for the hardships that lay ahead. Then he stopped talking and looked up into the bright blue sky with amazment. A large, black cloud was speeding rapidly towards where they were standing. Everyone watched in wonder and felt afraid,t then, as the cloud began to echo with sound, they realised it was a flock of birds.
These birds were small and delicate, with long tails which jerked up and dwn as they walked. Their backs were grey-brown, and their chests and outer tail feathers were white. The whole tribe watched in amazement as the birds settled by the running water and took over the kloof. They had made a long journey and they were very, very hungry. The sand-flies were just what they wanted! In their hundreds, they scoured the stream and the caves and the ground around the caves.
For three days they gobbled and pecked as the Bushmen looked on in amazement. By the end of that time, there was not a single sand-fly to be seen. Then the flock flew away as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind them just one pair of birds. The cloud of tail-wagging birds continued on its journey and everywhere it settled - in every kloof, by every pond, by every stream - one pair stayed behind. So that is how the Wagtails, as we call them now, came to live all over our land.
It was a miracle, and the Bushmen were overjoyed at being able to remain in their homes. To show their gratitude, they decided to honour the Wagtails. But how does one honour a bird?
The Bushmen had no medals of honour and very little jewellery. The women and children wore necklaces made of small pieces of ostrich egg-shell. So it was decided that the women would make a similar necklace for the Wagtail and his wife. This was soon done and everyone was delighted. But, of course, it did not work. The necklace was to heavy for the birds. It caught in the bushes and once even broke in flight and was lost. The Wagtails were upset and the Bushmen were upset. They wanted to show their gratitude to these birds - but how? For long nights they sat in their caves and talked of nothing else. what could they do?
There was one Bushman who lived in a high cave overlooking the kloof, and he was a great artist. He painted in brown, orange and black - paintings of men, lion springbok, birds, insects and plants. His work was as beautiful in its delicacy and charm as any painting you have seen.
Why not,’ said one of the eldest Bushmen, ‘ask one of the artists to paint a necklace onto the Wagtail and his wife?’ Everyone agreed with enthusiasm.
The artist was approached and the problem explained. Gladly, he mixed a rich grey-black and painted a dark choker-necklace on the white chests of the birds. It looked beautiful. The Bushmen loved it and the Wagtails loved it. Mother nature looked down from her seat above the Great Karoo and she loved it too. She decided, there and then, that the collar would forever be the sign of man’s gratitude to the Wagtail. A symbol for all the help the Wagtail gives in controlling insect pests. And from that day to this, Wagtails have always worn a dark-grey choker-necklace. Next time that you see a Cape Wagtail, have a careful look at him. He never goes anywhere without his necklace.
Rock Painting
There are over 15 000 sites in Southern Africa where such paintings have been found. The oldest in Namibia maybe as old as 27 000 years,though most were probably painted within the last 2 000 years. the Kloofs of the Cape Mountains - the Cedarberg and the Baviaanskloof, in particular - have many caves with beautiful paintings on heir walls and ceilings. the best examples however are to be found in the massive mountains to the north “The Barrier of Spears” as the nguni knew this range of mountains, now called the Drakensberg. Here the paintings take on different hews, known as polychrome paintings and are exquisit in their fine detail and delicasy
The Bushmen lived in the mountains for centuaries before the spread of European ‘civilization’, destroyed their old way of life
The Second Inhabitants of Southern Africa, The Khoikhoi or Hottentots as they were previously named.
The Hunters Prayer“O Heitsi-Eibib
Hail! Our forefather,
Send luck to me.
Give into my hand the wild game.
Let me find honeycomb and sweet roots
And I will sing your praise.
Are you not our Father’s father
You, Heitsi-Eibib?
(T. Hahn, The native tribes of S.W. Africa.)
It is said that the Khoikhoi, probably originated in the Horn of Africa and from there, they migrated to the region of the Great lakes. Driven from this area by the Bantu (Nguni) tribes, they then migrated to Southern Africa. Some of the clans of the community were left behind, however, and became independent settlements. Tthe strange name of the Hottentots ( as they were called ) was given to these people by early Dutch visitors to Southern Africa who first met up with them near the Cape of Good Hope. Dapper, writing in the 1670’s states that they were given the name because of the harsh, guttural, and generally curious sounds of the language they spoke. The same name is applied in Dutch to one who stammers and stutters. Far from considereing themselves mere stammerers, however, these men called themselves the Khoi-Khoi or Men of Men’, and they drew a sharp line between themselves and the Bushmen, whom they looked down upon and called the Sa-n or San as they are commonly referred to today.
The Khoi-Khoi is yellowish in appearance with a narrow skull and prominent cheek-bones, and there is a theory that Bushmen and Khoi-Khoi were once the same race. ( It has subsequently been found that their DNA is indistinguishable). Some broke away to raise cattle, build huts and lead a peaceful pastoral life, while the rest stayed true to the wilderness and the elements, and remained children of nature. It is said, too, that they originally all spoke the same language. All the Khoi-Khoi tribes could understand one another, but the dialects of the various Bushman clans diverge so widely that they became incomprehensible to one another. The Hottentot has a perfect decimal system while the average Bushman was limited to little more than’one - two - three - much’.
Khoi-Khoi name all the boys in the family after the maternal side, and all the girls after the paternal half. The eldest daughter is always highly respected and the milking of the cows is left entirely to her.
The arrival of the Bantu and European settlers. The Nguni, Xhosa and the free Dutch farmers, the Boers, during the 1750
Xhosa tales.
The Xhosa are historically the southern most of the Nguni people. They settled in the Eastern Cape, arriving from the north western seaboard, at about the same time as the arrival of the first permanent European settlers in the form of the free Boers migrating East, away from the Cape Colony.
The Tokoloshe.
The ubiqutous tokoloshe, the water sprite, is probably the best known character in Xhosa folklore. They also call him hili ( The Xhosa, H is pronounced as a guttral G). His reputation is bad, as he is usually kept by a witch. He eats her food, drinks the milk of her cows, and also makes love to her; in exchange he is obliged to carry out her evil requests. Because of his many enemies, he only allows himself to be seen by children, whom he befriends and trusts. The monitor lizardis also said to be his friend, and acts as a sort of house servant, keeping his den clean and its walls well plastered with mud. When the Tokoloshe is feeling gay and wishes to dance, the lizard will clap and stamp in time to the tune.
The Mbulu
The Xhosas also like to weave stories around the mythical mbulu. All children firmly believe in the existance of this fabulous creature. As it is always changing itself into different things, it is difficult to describe its physical appearance. the only fixed characteristic of an Mbulu is its long tail for, however convincingly it may change its shape, its tail always remains the same. One of its peculiarities is that it never speaks the truth when it is possible to lie! Mbulus occur in many folktales, and always play a deceitful part. . . .
Xhosa Proverbs.
Although their stories are not quite so moralistic in intention as those of the Tswana, the Xhosa have a wealth of proverbs - many very similar to those of their European neighbours. These examples are taken from George M. Theals Ethnography and condition of South Africa.
The sun never sets without fresh news.
To skin a mouse - Implying that which is done secretly. A mouse can be skinned without anyone noticing, but an Ox cannot.
You disturb monkeys on their way to drink - expressing irritation at uncalled - for interference.
There is no wormwood that comes into flower that does not wither. describing the life of man.
The wonderful and the impossible have come into collision - applied to any involved question.
He has gone in pursuit of the birds of the sea - one whose ambitions will probably not be realized.
It is the foot of a baboon - a treacherous person.
He is a buck of an endless forest or He is a dog of the wind - one who is footloose and does not stay long in any occupation.
You are lighting a fire in a wind - applied to one who trusts strangers.
A misfortune of a soup made of shanks and feet - an untrustworthy person who is continually in trouble. The soup in the proverb is not highly esteemed.
I rejoice that Kalomba’s mother is dead - applied whenever anything one particularly dislikes has come to an end. ( Kalomba’s mother was apparently an extremely unpleasant person!)
You will find out what the hili ( Tokoloshe) of the Mbala people experienced. This is a warning to those who are contemplating a misdeed. the story behind this is that once a man of the Mbala people had reason to suspect that his wfelove with a Tokoloshe, or hili, as the Xhosa call him.
Accordingly, the man pretended to leave on a long journey, but that night he secretly returned to the hut, and found the hili there. the man called his neigbours who came with sticksand beat the hili until he was unable to move. They then tied him up in abundle and fastened him to the back of the woman, who was turned out of the kraal (bryre) to wonder in the wilds.
Tales from Cape Town.
How Cape Town’s Table Mountain got its Table Cloth.
No tale about Table Mountain could be better known than that of the confirmed old smoker and retired pirate, Van Hunks. Van Hunks’s haunt is the prominent clump of rocks standing on the saddle of land that connects Devil’s Peak to Table Mountain. His actual home is said to have been in Cape Town, and several houses, long since demolished, were thought to have been his original abode.
Sitting in the lee of Breakfast Rock on the saddle when a south easter starts blowing and watching the fabled Table cloth cascading over the face of Table Mountain, one can almost picture the following scene taking place . . .
It seems that Van Hunks suffered one thing in common with another famous compatriot of his Rip van Winkle: they were both afflicted by nagging wives. In Rip’s case, he was driven out by his wife because, as he was a young and able-bodied man, she felt he should help more with the chores around the house. In escaping these wearisome tasks he took refuge in the Catskill Mountains, where he fell into his celebrated sleep.
Van Hunks, however, was no longer young when he took to the mountains to get away from the sharp tongue of his wife. Although he had been a roque and a fearless villain all his pirate days, the sound of his wife bearing down in a rage aroused more fear in him than the shadow of the gallows tree! He was no match against a broadside from her fiery tongue. The trouble was that she could not stand the smell of his old calabash pipe and the strong shag with which he filled it. If he dared to light up his beloved comforter in the vicinityof her nostrils, out he went, willy-nilly! He would climbed the mountain in summer; but the cold spray from the seven seas had seeped into his bones and in winter and he would take his aching joints into the taverns instead.
But in good weather, high on the saddle of land on the mountain, he would light up his old clay pipe and settle himself comfortably on a warm boulder, and send clouds of blue smoke wafting up from his old calabash pipe, a small keg of the best black shag tobacco cradled between his knees.
One day he was slightly disturbed to find his solitude invaded by a rather odd-looking figure who was climbing the mountain path towards him. The stranger seemed to have some difficulty walking - as though his boots were a size too small for him. An old black frieze coat hung to his knees, almost brushing the heads of the purple bushes of erica as he shuffled upwards, and an old wool cap was pulled well down over his eyes.
He dropped down on a comfortable rock next to Van Hunks, and mopped his brow. Van Hunks thought he saw steam emanating from under the brim of his wool cap.
Sit down a moment and cool off matey,’ said Van Hunks kindly. ‘It’s warm enough for the devil himself today!’
The stranger gave him a peculiar stare from beneath his slanting eyebrows, but said nothing. Van Hunks puffed awhile in silence. The stranger puzzled him. Surely he had seen him before somwhere? Unaccountably Van Hunks was reminded of some of the worst scenes from his pirating days: he seemed to hear the screams of the chained slaves as the great Spanish galleasses sank below the shark infested waves off Hispaniola, and the gurgle of a captive swinging from the yardarm; the reek of gunpowder was n his nostrils as he lead a whooping, bloodstained pack over the side of a reeling, desperate galleon, death-locked with grapnels to his own looming ship. And through it all - the press of contorted faces and screaming mouths - hovered before the face of this stranger, now sitting so peacefully beside him . . .
Van Hunks started, as though awakened from a bad dream. The noise of the battle and sudden death sank to mere whispers amid the silver trees; then the lonely cry of a wheeling seagull was the only sound.
The stranger spoke in a deep voice.
Well Myheer Van Hunks,’ he said affably. ‘It is good to sit here and smoke. It soothes the nerves and clouds old and unpleasant memories. Unfortunately I have run out of tobacco, or I would join you.’ He tapped the bowl end of a large black pipe which stuck out of his back pocket.
You know my name? said Van Hunks suspiciously.
‘Oh, I know everyone,’ replied the stranger sweepingly. ‘Don’t worry, as for you, I like what I know. You are a man after my own heart,’
Van Hunks, relieved, pushed the keg of shag towards the stranger. ‘Fill up, mate,’ he growled. ‘The past is past and I’ve no quarrels left with anyone I’ve lived a full life and enjoyed every minute of it. This tobacco is the best and I smoke more of it, Mynheer than any man alive.’
‘A great statement,’ said the stranger mildly, digging into the keg with his long sinewy fingers. ‘In the port that I hail from we smoke day and night and I wager you here and now that I can smoke more than you at a single sitting!.
Now there is one thing that could make Van Hunks sit up and take notice, it was the chance of a good wager. ‘What stakes, what stakes? the old pirate growled eagerly.
The stranger leaned forward.
Your soul against a barguentine of red gold,’ he whispered evilly, reddish eyes glinting.
Van Hunks roared in his beared, ‘You’re a rum cove! My soul went by the way years ago, matey! And as for your red gold, I’ve enough hid away for many a rainy Cape winter yet. However a bet is a bet and I will smoke against you for the sheer love of the thing!.
Then Van Hunks upended his Keg of strong black shag and poured the leaf into two equal heaps on a convenient flat rock. ‘Share and share alike,’ he grunted. ‘I think you will find we are equal.’
‘Fair and generous,’ agreed the stranger. ‘Let us begin.’
A long silence followed, broken only by the steady puffing of the calabash pipes and the occasional gurgle as a pull was taken from Van Hunks’s flask to wet a dry gullet.
Soon, down went the sun behind the mountains, and the moon came up behind the Tygerberg, lighting the waves to a silver shimmer below them; but on they puffed, neither one giving way to the other. And gradually a choking white cloud grew around them.
By morning the entire top of Table Mountain was hidden beneath billowing folds. The cloud poured down the rock faces like a white waterfall and the burghers below closed their doors and windows and sat indoors in wonderment. The wind tossed the huge cloud about and roared with glee. Never had a south-easter such as this descended on the city of Cape Town since Van Riebeeck first planted his hedge of almond trees in Kirstenbosch!
Still the two smoked on, and the cloud grew. The bristly face of Van Hunks had grown red and sweaty, and his breathing was laboured; but his companion was in a far worse state: his sinister countenance had first turned white, then green and at last he rolled off his boulder seat with a terrible groan. ‘Brimstone and sulphur are as nothing to this truly devilish poison,’ he gasped. ‘Quick give me a drink - I burn, I burn!’
Van Hunks sympathetically passed his flask across.
‘There, what did I tell you? No one can stand up to an old roaring rover like Van Hunks!’ The stanger threw back his head and took a long pull. the liquor sizzled and smoked as it went down his throat, and his wool cap fell off. Van Hunks found himself staring at two sharp horns that adorned the stranger’s head.
‘Horns!’ he gasped. Old Scratch, as I’m a sinner! the very Devil himself!’ With a screech the creature jumped out of his coat, boots and all, and exposed himself in his full frightful regalia of pointed tail and cloven hooves. ‘Right again, Van Hunks,’ he crowed, ‘and I don’t like to play a losing game!’
There was a great blaze of lightning, and a smell of sulphur, and the white cloud was momentarily illuminated by a red glow - then it whirled skywards in blinding fragments. Finally, the tumult ceased and the mist cleared, rolling away to reveal neither the stranger, nor Van Hunks - only a bare patch of scorched earth where they had sat, the charred remains of two calabash pipes and an empty keg of black shag tobacco . . .
From that day, the area became known as Devil’s Peak. when the south-easter blows, those who are old and wise will look up at the white cloud and say, ‘The devil and Van Hunks are at it again
The Flying Dutchman
This tale features in the lores of many sea-going nations, differing only in the nationality of the cursed individual. In all cases, the legend is basically the same: a captain and his phantom ship with its ghostly crew are doomed to spend eternity trying to double the Cape of Good Hope, but are always blown back by the storms. The Flying Dutchman is one of the world’s most famous ghosts; in the fourteenth-centuary guise of the Hollander Captain Van der Decken ( who purportedly diced with the Devil himself for his soul) he has been sighted by many sailors.
These reports were made seriously and in good faith, and were entered into the logs of the ships that sighted his own vessel. A famous instance occurred on the 11th July 1881. One of the boats sailing in a special squadron under Louis of Battenberg ( Great uncle to the present Duke of Edinburgh) was the H.M.S. Bacchante. On it a certain young midshipman later to become King George V of Britain recorded in his diary:
At four a.m. the Flying Dutchman crossed our bows.’
The lookout man on the forecastle reported that the ship was close to the portbow, where the officer of the watch also saw her clearly: ‘. . . . a strange red light, as of a phantom ship, all aglow, in the midst of which light the mast, spars and sails of a brig 200 yards distant stood out in strong relief as she came up.’
Two other warships, the H.M.S. Cleopatra and the H.M.S. Tourmaline, which were steaming in company with the Bacchante, also sighted the phantom. To the sailors the appearance of the Flying Dutchman was always regarded as an evil omen and in this encounter, true to legend, their fears were proven well grounded. Barely seven hours later, the royal midshipman relates:
The ordinary seaman who had reported the Flying Dutchman fell from the topmast cross-trees, and was smashed to atoms. His body was committed to the deep with full military honours, and his messmates were left certain that Van der Drecken had gained another member for his ghostly crew.’
The Flying Dutchman will always hail any other vessel in sight so that the phantom crew can send letters to the families and homes that they left so long ago.
On a visit to South Africa, W. Clark Russell, the famed Victorian authority on sea and seafaring folk, met an old Capetonian who had actually seen the phantom and was able to to give a detailed account of it. He told Russell that if the Captain of a ship heads towards the ghost ship to recieve one of the messages from the Dutchman, he and his vessel are doomed. Thus poor Van der Drecken and his bleary-eyed and storm battered sailors are forever yearning to communicate with those homes which have long ago ceased to exist, but the mariner, knowing the penalty of accepting the mission, flees from their approach. The phantom ship, after a short chase, desolately shifts her helm and braces herself once again against the gale which prevents her from doubling the Cape.
The Flying Dutchman has been seen by many people simultaneously. A great crowd of holiday makers on Glencairne beach, near Simonstown, watched her for as long as half an hour, and in 1939 she was clearly seen sailing off the Muizenberg coast. In 1959 the Dutch freighter Straat Majelhaen reported sighting ‘a huge windjammer’ coming straight towards it. Her sails were full set, and a man was seen at her wheel. She appeared so swiftly out of the night that there was no chance of avoiding a collision, but just as she was about to strike she seemed to disintegrate, and vanished before their eyes.
The Flying Dutchman continues to be sighted in modern times and occasionally newspaper reports appear confirming another sighting of this peculiar phantom of the high sees.
_______________________________________________________
All of the above stories have been sourceed from
Myths and Legends of Southern Africa
by
Penny Miller
Published By
T.V. Bulpin publishers 1979
Eland Story
A long, long time ago, we, the Bushmen, roamed these mountains, masters of the unpredictable ways of nature. We were nomads then, moving with the great herds of game and the changing of seasons. When the animals migrated we followed, leaving no houses or roads to mark our presence here. All we left behind was our story painted in the rock, in the shelters, the story of sacred animals and our journeys to the spirit world. These mountains once gave us shelter and the herds of antelope gave sustenance, and meaning to our lives. Especially the eland, for it is the animal of the greatest spiritual power. For us, it is the animal of well-being and healing, of beauty and peace and plenty. The eland could take us on journeys to the world beyond and connect us to God."
