Wauwatosa news. [volume] (Wauwatosa, Wis.) 1900-1948, 1908-04-17
AFRICAN BusHMEN DOOMED,
Dr.. Rudolf Foch to Make a Study of ;
Disappearing Race.

Disappearing Race.
A letter received in New York fro,,
DR.. Rudolf Poek, the well known an.
thropologist. says:
l am about to start under the auspjecs
of the Imperial Academy of Sciences #
Vienna for the kalahart desert in Soutb
Africa TO make study of the busbmer
The race is rapidly dying out and Inc
sole purpose of my expedition is to ada
TO our knowledge of this people before
they become extinct.
The fact has been recognized for SOM
years that this African race is destined
to extinction. This is all the more re-
markable because everywhere else the
African races are more than holdin,,
their own.
Pestilence, war and the evils that the
white introduce are powerless 10 oh
literate them. Africa is growing stead.
lily in native population.
But the bushmen are now reduced "a
a handful and every year they ara
dwindllng. Circumstances are too hard
for them and it is not believed they coulJ
be saved even by a change in their con.
ditions.
The bushmen inhabit the great desert
of South Africa. There is no running
water. and YET among the sand wastes
there are depreSsions where the natives
find water by digging, and in places Il
comes so near the surface that vegeta
tion flourishes and many animals find
nurture in the desert.
The bushmen are only a few inches
/ taller than the pygmies of central Africa
They live in rock caves or in huts Of
sticks and grass. They seldom wear.
more than leather apron to protect
their legs from thorns.
They subSist on the scant vegetation
on roots and on the animals they Kill
Clubs, bows and arrows and few
spears are their only weapons. They ~,
primitive, but they do not buy their
wives; they have been faithful to those.
whites who have befriended them. and
they paint and draw in an astonishing
manner. Much has been written of tlie
thousands of animal paintings with
which they adorn the rocks and the walls
of their caves.
,, Why do they not abandon the desert
to which they are confined? They could
not if they would. They are hemmed
around by pastoral and agricultural re-
gions, all occupied by strong tribes, who
Kill them like yermin if they venture
across the line.
Ii they Were free to leave the desert
/ it is doubtful if they would do so, for
they are hunting people, and such
tribes have never voluntarily become Il
pastoral or an agricultural community.
Whenever cattle have been given to the
bushmen they have killed them, for they
will not herd them
The whites have been even more de-
structiye of the Gushmen than their ma
tive enemies. Late IN the Eighteenth
century the Dutch used to shoot those
little. people as they would game 1t IS
feared that in the ten years ending in
1895 the Dutch killed 24S0 bushmen.
They have always shrunk from CON
tact with civilization. and today, when
they see white protectorates planted all
around them, they are retreating further
into the desert. The whites are invad ~
The more fertile valleys, are stalking out
ranches and building little settlements,
are killing off the game that is the
hereditary food Of the desert nomaIs,
ploughing the places where the bushmen
go for berries ard edible roots and mar
rowing the area IL which they can live.
They seem ,yhoily unable to live mr.
der new conditions, and the old condi
! tons are passing away. All who know
| them best say that their absolute ex-
termination is a question Of only few
years.-New York Sun.