The original aboriginal - meaning from the earliest time - in southern Africa was the San, otherwise known as bushman of the Kalahari. Only within the last three centuries have other tribes, including our own, migrated with extreme prejudice into their homeland.
For tens of thousands of years, before this 'need for space' invasion, this resilient and resourceful people had navigated the landscape and named it's features with a vivid imagination. They carved time with names and rock with stone, and told stories of meaning with great humour and wisdom.
Many names have been lost but many have survived and still mark important and sacred places.
I think the San knew well that names, have power, in that they evoke an essence, an archetype, a spirit of the named in our imagination. I speak the name and it is created. Maybe our culture has forgotten this connection between thought and the material world. I say this because we name things without really understanding what we are doing, but now and again we are reminded. Serendipity is good at that.
Hermann with Tilly - just before preparing a wonderful breakfast.
I was reminded in an unusual way two weeks ago when travelling north to Etosha. Tilly and I were invited to stay with a friend of a friend named Hermann, who has a farm just south of a mountain called Etjo in the central highlands. Etjo means 'refuge' in Khoisan, the group of languages spoken by San. Interestingly in April 1989 Mt Etjo was chosen by a United Nations commission for a meeting between combatants in the Namibian war of independence. Representatives from Cuba, South Africa, Angola, Botswana and Namibia were all in attendance needless to say the San were not included.
So, Mount Etjo to the north and to the south of the farm are two, now extinct, volcanic cones, that together are called Omataka, which loosely translated means 'posterior' or bottom to you and me. I guess it's all in the shape and in my defence, the sketch was done before I new what the name meant!
Whatever the original meaning the name has certainly made me think about it. Maybe in a refuge thats what you do, sit on your bum and meditate for a bit.
Omatako mountains - morning light
To find Hermann's farm we were told to go through a gate, 13 kms from the tarred road, that marked the entrance, which was itself 7 km from the farm house. Hermann said it would not be padlocked, and told me to make sure the gate was closed again after I had gone through.
Well I arrived and saw the following - now I think that looks well locked up, so rather than checking it properly, I assumed I had the wrong gate and travelled further on. Little did I know that the next farm entrance was about 15 miles down the track and after 5 miles I decided to phone Hermann. He gently chuckled and told me that the gate might appear locked up - but that was to fool anyone looking to get through it. I said that it had really worked and that I was 5 miles away and would be with him soon. We had a great evening meal that couldn't be beat and I stayed for two days swapping stories, eating his cattle and sketching.
One of Hermann's stories was of a time he worked on a film called Hatari in the 1960's and the films name came up again, in a brochure I was reading at a game lodge a week later.......
.......reading brochures that have been translated into English can be great fun and this is what I read whilst sitting in the shade drinking a "you know who's" Indian Tonic Water with loads of ice looking out into the Kalahari as per the picture below.
This panorama shows the view from Waterberg Plateau Lodge looking east into the Kalahari.
" .......during 1960, while working for Paramount in Hollywood, he [the original owner of the aforementioned lodge] captured and transported all the animals for the film 'Hatari' starring John Wayne and many more famous actors." It depends how you read it of course but I love the way our language throws googley's all over the place.
I first saw the film Hatari, which means danger in Swahili, when I was 12 in a cinema in Bristol, in fact it was the first film I paid for and went to on my own. I soooo wanted to see it, I had a plastic Airfix cheetah's head on my bedroom wall and Africa was definitely were it was at.
The film made a huge impression on me and to a boy dreaming of adventures in the wilderness it seemed like the African savannah depicted in the film, was heaven on earth.
Great grand papa, William FG, one of the pioneers of moving pictures, once said that his dream was to create, through the moving image, a universal language that would inspire people and bring them closer together.
For me he achieved his dream - that afternoon, more than half a century ago and 4000 miles from the Serengeti, in a Bristol movie theatre.
Thanks William.