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Indigenous Creatures, Native Knowledges, and the Arts pp 35–57Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Kabbo Sings the Animals

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature ((PSAAL))

Abstract

This chapter is an exploration of some contemporary poetic versions of /Xam (Bushman) testimony, as recorded in the 1870s and now gathered in the Bleek-Lloyd Archive. The focus is on Alan James’ volume of versions, The First Bushman’s Path (2001), particularly the representation of animal-human relations in the testimonies of one major informant, //Kabbo. I suggest that animal representations have been ill-served by extant scholarly literature, and argue for a conjunction of ecocritical, postcolonial, and animal studies perspectives. In addition, I proffer a contemporary version of ‘animism’ as a lens through which to valorise such poetic versions of human-animal relations, both as a way of transcending binarist archaisms still somewhat embedded in anthropology and literary studies, and of rethinking the human/animal divide.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa

    Dan Wylie

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  1. Dan Wylie
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Correspondence to Dan Wylie .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa

    Wendy Woodward

  2. English Department, University of New England, Biddeford, Maine, USA

    Susan McHugh

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Wylie, D. (2017). Kabbo Sings the Animals. In: Woodward, W., McHugh, S. (eds) Indigenous Creatures, Native Knowledges, and the Arts. Palgrave Studies in Animals and Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56874-4_3

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