A shade of red to the rainbow

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Shadow bird
Willemien le Roux
Kwela Books

Shadow bird provides brief glimpses and short insights into an almost extinct existence. Subtly tackling a myriad of complex issues, Le Roux draws on her vast experience gained from living among the Bushman people of D’Kar in Botswana.

Leaving the comfort of my warm bed, modern kitchen and access to medical facilities, I peeked into this world and found a vibrant, yet docile existence that humbled me. Le Roux takes us back to a time before fences — when the wandering Bushmen followed and hunted the game. And she brings us forward to a time where these same people struggle to adapt to a more regimented culture of servitude to a new “baas”. She shows us their strength as they begin to make a stand — as they take their stories to the world.

And these are some of those stories. Shadow bird introduces us to the “red people” in these separate tales. Friends met at the beginning of the book wander back later providing the authenticity of a small community filled with an abundance of stories. From Oom Jimmy, a white settler who fathers a sizeable brood of Bushman descendants; Nqaba, a notoriously free spirit who shocks with her vivacious approach to life and faith; Dina who makes a name for herself as a very young midwife to Kelebetse, Komtsha and Debe who begin to show the world certain injustices inflicted on their people, Le Roux paints a rich picture of a people facing the tough decision to accept a new world on their own terms.

As a missionary to D’Kar, Le Roux avoids the trap of preaching to reader and characters alike. Instead, issues of faith are left to the individual. Dina, for example, sensed that “God was very far away, and although she sensed something of the immensity of the distance, she believed that He could still see her. Even at night, when the coals of the fires of all the dead people lit up the sky, His eyes could pierce the darkness and peep into the huts of those on earth, see the good as well as the evil in their hearts” (p 45). Komtsha struggles “with his whole heart” to get to know God and to see if He “could really change their lives”, while Nqaba’s “relationship with God was as unconventional as her clothing” (p 57). It is in these aspects that the Moruti and the Mmamoruti (the preacher and his wife) play a cohesive and unerringly invisible part. While their presence is obvious and sought after in matters of birth, death and illness, there are no significant fire and brimstone teachings in an effort to convert.

In the end, it is the twisted “faith” of his own white people that disturbs the Moruti more than the embryonic faith of the Bushman people. Travelling to Cape Town to participate in a Bushman exhibition the young missionaries, in the company of their Bushman friends, stop at a guesthouse where they are faced with the sharp sword of religious fervour. “It is a pity that all your work will be in vain. The souls of these people can’t be saved. They’re not chosen; they are not even truly human,” (p 185) says the owner of the establishment as he tries to hide the Bushmen from his other guests in the main house.

Perhaps not everybody’s cup of tea, Shadow bird gently exposes the reader to what is portrayed as a simpler world. Uninitiated as I am to the subtleties of these people, the almost child-like characterisation of many of the adults makes me interested to garner the views of the actual D’Kar community on the book. Le Roux, however, seems sensitive to her environment and has created a community which she emphasises is not based solely on fact, but more on collective experience. Shadow bird is definitely a worthwhile experience though and provides an interesting addition to the plethora of black versus white stories as it adds a shade of red to the rainbow reading experience.

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