Neat Pic

[TSA]

a sad but poignant picture.
From when we were fighting communists in Angola.
my mates picture.- it was obviously posed, the patrol met up with a young Khoi-San boy ( bushman) and put a staaldak( tin cover) and webbing on him, and got a pic.
 awesome bow- great tiller.
they never unstrung their bows, were very low poundage, used poison arrows, and were phenomenal trackers.

[bjrogg]

Nice picture Wayne. Do you know what the arrow is made of? Is it a removable forshaft?
Bjrogg

[TSA]

i have seen so many variants with regards to the arrows.
 some had removable foreshafts , some did not- some had a rough binding/wrap- that held the poison.
My mate sent me this pic,
him and i were in different units , so was not there that day.

so many guys traded for bows and arrows as souvenirs.
many bows came back from the bush, a very common thing to be seen hanging on a pub wall in a guys home, for folks of  from my generation.

[PEARL DRUMS]

That is very cool, thanks for sharing it Wayne.

[Sidewinder]

Yes very cool. Its even cooler because the little kid could probably hit what he needed to with it too. Even though he was posing he wasn't carrying it for show I'm sure. Thanks for sharing it.

[TSA]

yup,
can you imagine the unconsidered responsibility- when survival is at stake- this is just every day. here is a youngster with a lethal hunting weapon, this is not a toy bow.
he knows how to use it, how to be safe, and responsible- like everyone else in the group probably.
these nomadic people still rely heavily on the bow and other foraging techniques for their everyday survival.
they live in an incredibly harsh environment- the kalahari desert.

every on of these incredible people you meet- is a survival expert- whether it be man, woman or child.
they laugh easily, are very accepting, share everything, and dont put any real value on ownership or worldly possessions.
in old times this created a lot of conflicts, when the Khoi-san would hunt the settlers cattle. they must have thought that that was an amazing windfall- fat lazy, easy to hunt and plentiful 
they did not believe the cattle could belong to another human.
 my Grandfather remembered as a young boy, his dad saddling up on a sunday, to go off with the all neighbors in the district to go and hunt "Bushmen".
crazy times for sure!

[DC]

They have always fascinated me. I guess since" The Gods Must Be Crazy". They just seemed to have it all together.

[Hawkdancer]

And the "Bushmen" are still there!  As they have been for longer than the whiteman.  That is a harsh environment for sure, but they have adapted.
Hawkdancer

[Selfbowman]

I have a bow and arrow setup just like that . It was taken off a African poacher. A good friend gave it to me that had been to Africa many times. Arvin

[NorthHeart]

So which cultures/geographic regions use poisoned darts to kill the animal vs. hemorrhaging?  I assume these bows have just enough power to stick the dart into the flesh, their not going for organ and artery slicing, lungshots and passthroughs...

[TSA]

yup these are maybe #20 bows, the Bushmen are a small people, light in stature- an economical frame for their harsh environment. easier to feed and water a small frame.
their bows are for just puncturing the skin and delivering the poison, sometimes thir quarry can go for days, consequently those bushmen have become phenomenal trackers. have seen them do phenomenal things.
in the military they were used as trackers- a seat would be bolted to the fender of a landrover- and as fast as you can drive in the bush, they can follow an insurgents trail.
seen them follow an animal across massive "dwala's" huge acreages of flat rock, by bending down and blowing and seeing the lichin dust blow up that was dislodged.
they will follow a specific animal out of a herd of animals- waiting for the poisoned animal to break away from the herd.

hawkdancer, you are correct, they were the first peoples in southern africa,they were the first people the europeans met on the beaches. in fact, they were being pushed south by the advancing black tribes- coming down the lush east coast ( the west coast is very arid and desertified).
then the europeans were moving up north from their landfall in the Cape of Good Hope, the whites and the blacks met kinda halfway in what is called south africa today- at a place called "the great fish river", the bushmen were caught in the middle- and not loved by either group of people the black settlers saw them as a threat, the white settlers were having their cattle "stolen". they ended up being squished out sideways towards the west, and into the inhospitable desert areas, first the karoo and then ultimately the Kalahari.

In fact, i have always maintained that if anybody had title to south africa it would be the  bushmen, and not the Black tribes or the white arrivals.
ironically they are the least concerned about land ownership or possession.
And yes, they have done a lot better than the other people groups, they find water in a massive sand desert, they hunt, they feast and the sleep- what an admirable people.

[Parnell]

That's a treat to see.  Thanks for sharing.