A Bushman Voice from the Drakensberg: Zanele Mkhwanazi's Story

There is a popular perception that the people who are commonly referred to as the Bushmen or San vanished from the Drakensberg region, leaving only their rock art behind. In 2003, however, Zanele Mkhwanazi won The Witness newspaper's “true short story competition” with a piece in English about her Bushman grandmother, Makhulomhlophe, who had passed away a few years before. Mkhwanazi charts her growing realisation of her own Bushman roots, and opposes the stigma that still attends Bushman identity in the region. This article discusses Mkhwanazi's story in the context of the supposed disappearance of the Drakensberg Bushmen, and considers some of the ambiguities that attend identity politics in the region.