Dia!kwain

Diaǃkwāin (1845?) was one of the most important instructors of Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd about the now extinct ǀxam culture and language. He lived in their house in the 1870s, and through his many stories he became one of the greatest contributors of the Bleek & Lloyd collection, which features on the UNESCO's Memory of the World international register. Dia!kwain's life is also a reflection of the genocide against the Cape San.

Biography Family background and childhood The closest information we have about the place of Dia!kwain's childhood was given by his sister ǃkweiten ta ǁken, who identified her father's place as ǁann or Steinpits. Dia!kwain described the area as a site where “gemsbok, quagga, and ostriches etc. used to drink, before the time of the boers” and indicated that his father represented these animals through rock engravings. Janette Deacon has traced the area to the farm of Varskans, some 25 km South West of Brandvlei. Their family belonged to the ǀxam clan known as the !nussa !e’: (Grass People).

He was the sixth child of Χaa-ttin (Jakob Hoesar), who is said to have been a magician, and ǂkamme-an (Annike), and appears to have had a sociable upbringing among his siblings as well as numerous aunts and uncles. He related, for example, memories of either his grandfather or another old man sharing stories to the little boys. Some victims close to Dia!kwain include his cousin and four other men; the elder brother of Dia!kwain's friend, who was beaten to death, and later, another acquaintance of Dia!kwain with his young son. Reasons for their killing, when specified, included "not herding the sheep well" or "getting poison to prepare his arrows for hunting springbok". These stories suggest that ǀxam communities were living in fear of the Boers. It tells of six or seven trekboer families who were moving north into the land inhabited by the ǀxam in the summer of 1868–69. It was the rainy season and the plain was lush with abundant game. They pitched their tents near a waterhole and, according to the Huisgenoot article, had a peaceful relationship with the groups of ǀXam who lived there. After a few weeks, however, Jan Kruger noticed that six of his sheep were missing. He rode towards the huts where Dia!kwain, his friends and their families were staying. They denied knowledge of the sheep, but (still in the Huisgenoot version) Dia!kwain became angry and, as Kruger was riding away, shot him in the back; his brother-in-law ǂkasin fired another which struck his saddle. Wounded, Kruger tried to escape but died before reaching his camp. Skotnes provides a slightly different version, mentioning that Kruger had accused Dia!kwain and the other men of stealing the sheep and threatened to return to their camp with his men to ’exterminate them’.

After the fatal shooting, Dia!kwain, ǂkasin and their friends were forced to flee, but three constables were dispatched to find them and catch them. After a 30-day chase, the five were arrested and brought to a magistrate. Dia!kwain and ǂkasin were both sentenced to five years imprisonment, a relatively mild sentence considering that theft of livestock was punished with two years imprisonment - prompting Skotnes to assume that the judge and jury believed he had acted in self-defense. It has also inspired the title of Dr Lorato Mokwena's documentary The Broken String.