iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 19/09/2026

Oh, wait, are we doing this? Sure ...

Talibe, The Balladeer - Ismaël Lô
Mabemba, Rising Tide - Mokoomba
No Ballads Ballad, Spirit - Geoffrey Oryema
Dionysus, Untold Things - Jocelyn Pook
Makambo, Exile - Geoffrey Oryema
The Wife of Usher's Well, Broadside - Bellowhead
Njoka, Rising Tide - Mokoomba
Ndayaan, Ndayaan - Omar Pene
Dem Bobo, Africa For Africa - Femi Kuti
Rero, The Balladeer - Ismaël Lô
Happiness Is, Coming Home - Yungchen Lhamo
Lubara Wanwa, Laru Beya - Aurelio
Hard Times, Stone Cold Ohio - Little Axe
The Rhythm of the Heat, Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel
Dragonfly, Music Food and Love - Guo Yue
Nabou, The Balladeer - Ismaël Lô

Playlist for my novel Our Memory Like Dust:

Talé - Salif Keita
Red & Black Light - Ibrahim Maalouf
Safar - Imed Alibi
Sénégal - Ismaël Lô
Under the Shade of Violets - Orange Blossom
Kelmti Horra - Emel Mathlouthi
The Traveller - Baaba Maal
Sambolera - Khadja Nin
Séquences - Wassis Dip
Best Of - Ismaël Lô, Souad Massi
Everything Is Never Quite Enough - Wassis Dip
Dadje - Souleymane Faye
Sénégal - Ismaël Lô
Black Rock - Djivan Gasparyan, Michael Brook
Kelmti Horra - Emel Mathlouthi
Sambolera - Khadja Nin
Mariama - Pape & Cheikh
Safar - Imed Alibi
Mariama - Pape & Cheikh

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 17/08/2026

Won't someone think of the poor property owners whose houses are worth <calculators frantically> £5 million 😭

The average price of a home coming up for sale in Britain’s richest borough has dropped by almost £100,000 in a month as fierce competition among sellers in many areas prompts some to slash their price expectations, data shows.

The property website Rightmove said that for Britain as a whole, average newly listed asking prices for homes had fallen by 2% over the past month, the largest August price drop in eight years.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 14/08/2026

The Guardian covering themselves in shit.

All the stories The Guardian wrote on Jason Arday as they, along with every other British newspaper, drove this young man to take his life.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 12/08/2026

This is amazing to me. Not the eclipse itself. I don't tend to stand in awe of the universe. More that millions of people are going to go out with their little plastic spectacles and stare at the sun.

Screenshot of the current headlines on The Guardian:
- ‘It’s going to be spectacular’: Millions flock to Spain seeking best view of total solar eclipse
Eclipse chasers, tourists and astronomers searching for the clearest skies to watch the two minutes of totality

- The best place to see the eclipse and how to view it safely
- How to safely watch the solar eclipse
- Hotel prices in Europe jump before total solar eclipse

Exterior photograph as researchers set up telescopes in a small Spanish town to observe the solar eclipse

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 21/07/2026

Nothing shrieks 'hope' more than re-appointing a home office cabinet minister intent on brutalising immigrants, refugees, and minorities.

Guardian newspaper headline and photo: Andy Burnham vows to 'bring back hope' as he unveils his cabinet
Photo is of a grinning Andy Burnham in a black suit, while warmly grasping a giggling Shabana Mahmood who stands in thrilled excitement of all the atrocities she will get to commit against immigrants and minorities with the blood red of the British flag behind her.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 09/07/2026

Not now venomous-snakes-escaping-breeding-farms-during-flooding, we have other things to worry about.

Headline from The Guardian: Venomous snakes escape breeding farms in southern China during flooding
Alongside is a photograph of two children sitting next to damaged houses in the village of Liulan, near Hengzhou.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 28/05/2026

I've chatted with Sting and he's agreed that now that he's decided he's a social scientist and economist, I can be lead guitarist in his band.

Guardian headline: Loss of manual jobs could be driving toxic masculinity, says Sting
Alongside is a portrait of Sting looking more like a Blofeld-era Bond-villain than you ever thought possible.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 15/01/2026

Saw this advert on the Tube and I see gender-affirming care for "tired" cis men is just fine. But the alternate requires the hypocritic oath.

Advert on the London underground for "voy" which sells gender-affirming testosterone to "tired" cis men.

Text on the advert states:

Are your hormones getting the better of you?
If you're feeling fatigued, it might be low testosterone.
Get an at-home test.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 16/12/2025

There's this amazing technology called high-voltage transmission. DC current max effective distance: 7,000km. AC max is about 4,000km. Distance from somewhere like Almera in Spain to the middle of the Sahara is about 500km. It's not a technical problem.

Google Earth satellite map showing the distance between Almera in southern Spain to the centre of the Sahara is about 500km.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 12/12/2025

This is why I have no respect for The Guardian. Can you imagine the utter carnage if this headline was about Jewish rather than trans rights? If a vulnerable minority is targeted for oppression & government won't protect them, it is not a "debate". It is a human rights legal issue for the courts.

Guardian headline: "Trans rights should be a private affair. A toxic debate does no one any favours"
By Guardian senior columnist, Simon Jenkins, who is a cunt. Picture of gammon-looking dude accompanies.
Sub-title: "The courts are a clumsy means to negotiate social relationships. Let organisations make up their own minds about inclusion"

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 01/11/2025

I'm visiting a walkable, livable North American city. Excellent food, lots of culture, parks, trees, boulevards, public transport, accessable... Hell, they even have public hire bikes, & the place is so safe parents are out chatting while their kids play under the trees. Welcome to Mexico City.

Chinese community in Mexico City. A art with red paper lanterns strung across the street, with crowds walking happily amongst restaurants and goods, with their wares displayed under umbrellas.

Entrance to the main city park, a large distinctive figure of the head and torso of a woman has been built such that visitors walk through her chest to get into the park. She is painted black with her clothes and hair in bright pink, and white filigree is painted as if to reveal her skeleton. It is a bright blue day.

A series of enormous painted skulls are placed in two long rows, one above the other. They are decorated to celebrate the Day of the Dead festival, with bright contrasting colours in bold patterns. Each is over a metre in height. And the are a lot of them.

A casual outside restaurant on the pavement serving freshly-made tacos. Four people sit on high chairs eating, while people walk past. There are other food stands serving different dishes in the background. Trees and apartment buildings are visible behind.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 01/10/2025

Rest well Jane Goodall. You did one hell of a job for humanity and our delicate planet.

Very famous Gary Larson Far Side comic featuring two chimps in a tree, one wearing the typical Larson peaked glasses who is picking something out of the other chimp's back. "Well, well," she says, "another blond hair. ... Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?"

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 24/09/2025

You are fucking cowards @theguardian.com You do *not* deliberately introduce doubt for one of the safest anti-inflammatories in the world in the fucking headline! Link for those wanting to see this shame www.theguardian.com/society/2025... One for @ianbetteridge.com to get angry about too.

Absolutely fake and hate-filled headline *asks* whether paracetomol is safe or causes autism ... it fucking doesn't, and The Guardian is a fucking cunt.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 23/09/2025

And this is precisely why The Guardian will never get a cent from me (this and their whole anti-trans crusade). It's not "contentious" assholes. It's fucking anti-science, anti-women lies and hatespeech. Take a fucking stand.

Guardian newspaper headline stating "Trump attacks paracetamol as officials unveil highly contentious conclusions on autism". A photograph to the left shows a hand in a random piece of lab equipment weighing out a pile of white pills.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 02/09/2025

I'm always fascinated by the curious lack of brain cells in people who respond to their absurd fear of immigrants by ... rising up, and becoming immigrants.

Clip from an FT article on Americans emigrating to Russia. It says:

“Russia was really our only option,” the couple said, decrying their home country’s alleged “LGBT indoctrination of kids” on TV, cities “overrun by immigrants” and “mind-blowing” levels of crime.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 31/07/2025

My bank emailed me asking for information, but providing no way for me to send it to them. So I tried their help chat in the app. But it's an "AI" which gives me wrong answers only. When I complain, it says "Transferring you to an agent", but doesn't transfer me anywhere.

Chat screenshot with my bank "AI":

"AI": If this isn't quite what you were looking for, please rephrase your question and I'll try my best to get you what you need.

Me: Just reproving that "AI" is incapable.

"AI": I'm just here to help you get things done <hugs emoji>

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 19/05/2025

You saw Zapiro's comment? "Good luck with that."

Zapiro cartoon of President Cyril Ramaphosa entering the White House gates, looking anxiously at a sign that says "White Supremacy House".

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 14/04/2025

For the Zapiro fans, and South Africans who have been waiting for Trump to get the Zuma treatment. www.dailymaverick.co.za/cartoon/the-plumbing/

First panel: Donald Trump is visible from the gut up, his arms are outstretched - his tiny hands ending in tiny stumpy fingers - gesturing at a large executive order calling for "GREATER WATER PRESSURE IN SHOWERHEADS". He is proudly declaring, "... My latest executive order!"
2nd panel: A shower head sprouts from his head and promptly begins gushing fulsomely onto his exotic coif.
3rd panel: Trump stands, his arms outstretched ending in tiny hands, as water pours from the showerhead fixed to his skull. "What just happened?!!" he demands. Jacob Zuma pops in, looking unimpressed, his own showerhead fixed to his dome, dripping. "Long story!" he says.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 15/03/2025

South Africa threw off Apartheid and white-supremacy. Trump and Musk can never forgive this. Cry the beloved country.

FT headline: US declares South African ambassador 'persona non grata'. Photo is of Ambassador Ebrahim Rasool.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 14/03/2025

The Godwin Betteridge Corollary: the probability that any headline that ends in a question mark that should be answered by the word `yes` is only left in doubt because the privileged proclaimants are too chickenshit to declare that this *is* about Nazis. @mnemonic.bsky.social @ianbetteridge.com

New York Times "opinions" section, with the headline:

"Is the Destruction the Point?": Three Opinion Writers on Trump’s First 50 Days
Michelle Goldberg and Frank Bruni join Patrick Healy to discuss the issues that have defined Trump’s presidency thus far.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 08/03/2025

It's genuinely astonishing how Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang - a.k.a. Dr Beetroot - has been reincarnated as US health minister. Trump's America combining the worst of 1980s Apartheid ZA with the worst of 2000s ANC ZA's state capture & incompetence, with no intervening period of service to the people.

Zapiro cartoon of different types of vegetables, including an African potato, beetroot, lemon, garlic and the head of a cross-eyed Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

The caption at the top reads: All these vegetables prevent the rollout of antiretrovirals - True of False?

Answer at the bottom: False - lemon is not a vegetable.

The cartoon is from 15 February 2004. Yep, 20 years since we've been having this bullshit about taking actually appropriate medication for a life-threatening disease.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 03/03/2025

South Africa's #Zapiro with the view from the South. www.dailymaverick.co.za/cartoon/unhi...

A colour cartoon by Zapiro. Donald Trump, dressed as Adolf Hitler with a Swastika armband and a yellow glove on his "outstretched" left arm, holds a card in his right hand with the word "PEPFAR" scratched out and the words "END TO AIDS FUND" scrawled in red pen.

A red-eyed black-feathered vulture, with the word "AIDS" on its chest, has just launched from his gloved hand.

Adolf Trump yells, "NON-AMERICANS! MILLIONS OF AFRICANS! ... GO GET 'EM!!"

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 28/02/2025

Ah, yes, we should definitely trust all our important decisions to computers programmed and used by humans.

Citigroup credited a client’s account with $81tn when it meant to send only $280, an error that could hinder the bank’s attempt to persuade regulators that it has fixed long-standing operational issues.

Citi’s technology team instructed the payments processing employee to manually input the transactions into a rarely used back-up screen. One quirk of the program was that the amount field came pre-populated with 15 zeros, which the person inputting a transaction needed to delete, something that did not happen.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 23/02/2025

Between Janan and Jemima, I'm starting to feel the FT is going the way of The Economist with its highly privileged "takes" and "sane-washing" on social inequality and injustice. After 20 years of subscribing, just cancelled my renewal.

FT headline of column by Janan Ganesh: The anti-woke overcorrection is here

FT headline of column by Jemima Kelly: When we politicise everything we make society stupider

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 08/02/2025

Musk's DOGE will soon be introducing this sophisticated tool, used during South Africa's Apartheid era, to ensure scientific racial classification. After all, if White South Africans are to get easy entry to the US, first you need to ensure they really are "White".

A standard number 2 pencil, unsharpened. Made by Sanford. Photo was taken by Evan-Amos as a part of Vanamo Media, which creates public domain works for educational purposes.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 06/02/2025

Shunning a G20 meeting in ZA over their efforts at post-Apartheid equality is quite the look. Given that US ideas of "majoritarianism" involves its majority "race" vomiting all over its minorities, would he prefer ZA do the same thing? Oh, wait, no, that would be called "white genocide" wouldn't it?

A photo of an orange-throated cock warbler who rejoices in the name "Marco Rubio", under the headline: Marco Rubio shuns G20 meeting in South Africa over 'equality' drive.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 01/02/2025

Zapiro with the hot takes from One Day in the AI Money Pool. www.zapiro.com/250130dm

Two panel comic by South Africa's Zapiro. Left panel is a group of large fish in different colours and labeled - Tesla, Amazon, Meta AI, OpenAI, Nvidia, Apple AI, Alphabet, Microsoft - all facing to the right looing bored and unimpressed as a tiny fish shaped like the DeepSeek whale log swims up to them and greets them in Chinese.
The second panel is the big fish all look startled as the tiny fish opens its mouth ultra wide - so wide it can swallow all of the big fish in one gulp, and lined with thousands of razor-sharp teeth - and announces, "Hi, I'm DeepSeek."

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 18/01/2025

Fifty years after Trump's catastrophic Canadian campaign in the winter of 2025, noted French cartographer and engineer, Charles Minard, produced the definitive chart revealing the tragic and disastrous losses of the American military advance and retreat.

Figurative Map of the successive losses in men of the American Army in the Canadian campaign 2025-2026. Drawn by M. Minard, Inspector General of Bridges and Roads (retired). Paris, November 20, 2079. The numbers of men present are represented by the widths of the colored zones at a rate of one millimeter for every ten thousand men; they are further written across the zones. The red designates the men who enter Canada, the black those who leave it. — The information which has served to draw up the map has been extracted from the works of M. M. Thiers, de Ségur, de Fezensac, de Chambray and the unpublished diary of Jacob, the pharmacist of the Army since October 28th. In order to better judge with the eye the diminution of the army, I have assumed that the troops of Prince Jérôme and of Marshal Davout, who had been detached at Vancouver and Calgary and have rejoined near Orsha and Vitebsk, had always marched with the army. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Joseph_Minard

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 09/01/2025

Zapiro's view... www.dailymaverick.co.za/cartoon/pen-...

Cartoon by ZA featuring six panels:

1. A book titled Stop That Cartoon, the global megalomaniacs' handbook
2. A drawing of Jeff Bezos captioned Kill the cartoon, 2025
3. A drawing of Kenya president Ruto captioned Abduct the cartoonist, 2024-5
4. A drawing of Jacob Zuma with a shower head attached to his head, captioned Sue the cartoonist 200-12 (Zuma sued Zapiro)
5. A drawing of Al-Assas captioned Break cartoonist's hands 2011
6. A drawing of upright pencils swamped by flowers and a "Je suis Charlie" card, captioned Kill the cartoonists, faceless religious extremists

It is a decade since Charlie Hebdo massacre.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 18/12/2024

OK, America, real talk from a South African who's seen this story many times. This is *not* "bending the knee". It's table stakes to buy a spot for the rich & powerful to dip their snouts in the gravy train feeding trough of favourable regulations & cash handouts. This is what corruption looks like.

Headline from the FT of 18 December 2024: "What choice do they have?": America's CEOs bend the knee to Trump.
Pictured in a circle around Trump are (from left) Sam Altman, Shou Zi Chew, Jeff Bezos, Sandar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and some other arbitrary white guy CEO.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 05/12/2024

If there's one thing that smelts South Africa's diversity into nationhood, it is enduring the crucible that is Home Affairs. Feels like an achievement in solidarity & good humour to have emerged successfully with a new passport & my sanity intact.

Still-life in coffee shop featuring a new South African passport in the foreground on top of a receipt for coffee, and some coffee-like beverage in a mug behind.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 13/11/2024

Hey, @ianbetteridge.com ... one for you? Does this finally break the rule?

Headline from the FT of 13 November 2024. Under a photograph of Donald Trump alongside a sea of American flags, the headlines:

Congress of the United States

Will a Republican Congress give Trump everything he wants?

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 29/10/2024

If you see this, quote your first print novel's cover and share a link to it. My first novel: Lament for the Fallen, www.amazon.com/Lament-Falle... #cover #SciFi #art #qrp #author #WritingCommunity

Cover art for the print edition of Lament for the Fallen by Gavin Chait. Line drawing on a black background of an African tribal mask. The mask is drawn with thin white lines, with glowing golden eyes, and gold lines radiating outwards from the edge of the mask.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 13/10/2024

The exceptional Angélique Kidjo performing live in Marseille with the La Cité Des Minots, opera.marseille.fr/action-cultu...

Angélique Kidjo singing in the foreground, with her band behind her, and the La Cité Des Minots choir in the background

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 11/10/2024

Musk plainly has no idea about the size of the average person's home ... where do you find space for something so large so that it can carry one fucking bag of groceries into your kitchen? Mod aftermarket for this "invisible friend" gonna be a bit frottage.

Advertising video of Elon Musk's invisible - whoops, "humanoid" - friend demonstrating as it hobbles into a hotel-sized kitchen carrying one small bag of fresh produce and places it on an oversized counter top.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 10/10/2024

You laugh now, but BRICS also started off as a joke.

XKCD Comic #2996: Four people stand on a stage celebrating (professionally) under a large banner with the initials C.I.D.A.B.M. and maps of four islands in black beneath grey coastlines of mainlands.

The text reads: Geopolitical News: Sicily, Sri Lanka, Hainan, and Tasmania have joined together to form the Coalition of Islands that Dangle Awkwardly from the Bottom of a Mainland.

XKCD alt-text: There's a heated debate over whether the big island of Tierra del Feugo should qualify for membership.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 18/09/2024

Until Sunday 18 April 2021 when a fire swept through the Jagger Library. The horror & grief of what was lost is profound. Fortunately, the Bleek & Lloyd Collection survived but it's a warning about the precariousness of memory. lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za

A photograph of the burned out remains of Jagger Library on UCT campus in April 2021. Light shafts in through the destroyed room onto piles of sodden and destroyed piles of what was once books from the collection. Image credit: News24.

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 18/09/2024

Lloyd continued with an ever-expanding group of teachers: Diaǃkwāin, ǀAǃkúṅta, ǃKweiten-ta-ǁKen, ǀHaṅǂkassʼō & others joined ǁKabbo. By 1879, they had amassed 110 notebooks, including thousands of pages & hundreds of drawings.

Pencil or charcoal sketch by Dia!kwain of a !ga or "Padder"/toad, and a Toi |ai tyi, Female Ostrich. May 1875

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 18/09/2024

ǁKabbo introduced them to members of his family, & - through patience & persistence - they set to work. For all of them, this was tenuous with little money to support the work. Bleek died in 1875. He was 48.

A scan from one of Lucy Lloyd's handwritten notebooks, with two columns on each page. The first is in ǀXam, the second translated into English. This particular story (pages 256 / 257) is entitled "Lion and giraffe".

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 18/09/2024

Wilhelm Bleek, a German philologist, arrived in the Cape in 1856 & set about trying to learn the "Bushman" language. In 1870, he & his sister-in-law, Lucy Lloyd, finally secured permission to interview Khoekhoe prisoners at their home in Mowbray. Their first real teacher was ǁKabbo.

Undated photograph of ||kabbo (in English ‘Dream’), one of the most important |xam teachers.

From http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/xam.html

|kabbo was between 55-60 years old at the time of his arrival at Mowbray and proved to be an experienced and accomplished storyteller. While he was at Mowbray Bleek and Lloyd tried to locate his wife !kwabba-an (or Oud Lies) without success and had to secure his continued presence at Mowbray after the expiry of his jail sentence in 1871 with the promise of a much desired reward – a gun. ||kabbo is described by his son-in-law |han≠kass’o on p.8033 of Lloyd’s notebooks as being ‘a mantis’s man’ or a man who ‘had’ mantises, and on p.4701v of Lloyd’s notebooks Dia!kwain describes ||kabbo’s ‘place’ as one where its sorcerers transform themselves into birds and jackals. ||kabbo was also closely associated with a sorcerer called |kannu (or |kaunu) who was the ‘Rain's man’ and who was also ||kabbo's 'person' .

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Gavin Chait; @gavin.whyqd.com · 18/09/2024

#StoryTime Tata kaŋ ǂkakka ke, ti e:, ŋ ǁnan, o ka: |hu|hu, ŋ ǁnau !gwara, ŋ syritənsyriən ǁkho twitwi:tən-ʘpwonni o ŋ-ka |hau !nu!nuniu. Ta:, tata |ki |k’eja ke, ti e :, |hu|hu ǁkhẽĩǁkhẽĩ-jã: siŋ ǁna |hau.

A Shimbari with pipe, quiver and arrows, bow, calfskin backdress, and dogskin front [ditto], with the head skin and four legs left on. Drawing in pencil and blue crayon by !nanni, 19 February 1880.
From the Bleek and Lloyd Collection, UCT.

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