The Mantis and His Friends: Bushman Folklore (Bleek and Lloyd 1923)

Maskew Miller, Cape Town, 1923, hardcover, edited and introduction by Dorethea Bleek, collected by  Dr Wilhem Bleek and Dr Lucy Lloyd.. Illustrated with  Bushmen drawings,  68 pages, includes a glossary of Bushmen names.

'The tales in this volume were all written down in the seventies by my father, the late Dr. Bleek, and my aunt, the late Dr. Lucy Lloyd. They were dictated by Bushmen in their own language, and many of them were translated at once with the help of the narrators. Of the great number of stories collected then, some were published by my aunt in 1910 in 'Specimens of Bushman Folklore', but many are still left. Since her death I have been preparing some of these for publication, and have chosen as a first installment the tales in which the Mantis or members of his family play a part.' (from the introduction by Dorothea Bleek)

Dorothea Bleek was the fifth daughter of Dr Wilhelm Bleek, the noted philologist, who, with his sister-in-law, Lucy Lloyd, did an enormous and pioneering job of recording the language and folklore of the /Xam and the !Kung in the late 19th century. Dorothea Bleek continued the work of her father and aunt, recording and documenting the San languages of Southern Africa and publishing books and articles based both on her own work and theirs. Her most important work, published after her death, was A Bushman Dictionary.

She undertook many expeditions in the course of her research on the different San groups, their languages and rock art. In 1910 she visited the area near Prieska in the northern Cape, from where some of the San informants interviewed by her father and aunt had originated. Subsequent travels included trips to other parts of the northern Cape, the eastern Transvaal, South West Africa (present Namibia), Bechuanaland (Botswana), Angola and Tanganyika (Tanzania).