xx FOOD OF THE BUSHMEN 341 



Kafir tribes in exchange for the skins of wild 

 animals, their only native weapon being the bow 

 and arrow. Their bows are very small and weak- 

 looking, and their arrows are unfeathered, being 

 made of light reeds into the ends of which bone 

 heads are inserted. These bone arrow-heads are 

 always thickly smeared with poison, which seems to 

 be made from the body of a grub or caterpillar 

 mixed with gum. At least, in the bark quivers of 

 the Bushmen whose belongings I have examined, I 

 have usually found, besides their arrows and fire- 

 sticks, a small bark cylinder closed at one end, in 

 which were the bodies of grubs or caterpillars pre- 

 served in gum, which I was told contained the 

 poison they smeared on their arrows. 



The Masarwa living immediately to the west 

 of Matabeleland have long since discarded their 

 bows and poisoned arrows in favour of firearms, 

 but twenty or thirty years ago these curiously toy- 

 like but very effective weapons were in general 

 use amongst the Bushmen living in the deserts to 

 the south and west of the Botletlie river. 



Except that they do not eat grass, Bushmen are 

 almost as omnivorous as bears. Besides the flesh 

 of every kind of animal from an elephant to a mouse 

 (which is acceptable to them in any and every stage 

 of decomposition), they eat certain kinds of snakes, 

 fish, lizards, frogs, tortoises, grubs, locusts, flying 

 ants, wild honey, young bees, ostrich eggs, nestling 

 birds of all sorts, and various kinds of berries, bulbs, 

 and roots. Bushwomen may often be met with 

 miles away from their encampments, wandering 

 alone over the desert wastes they inhabit, searching 

 tor edible roots and bulbs, which they dig up with 

 pointed sticks. The children, too, begin to forage 

 {or themselves at a very early age, and I have seen 

 little mites, apparently not more than two or three 

 years old, crawling on their hands and knees on 



