ǃkweiten ta ǁken
|xam (San) chronicler of xam culture and knowledge
ǃkweiten ta ǁken (English pronunciation KWAY-tən tə KEN), also known as Rachel or Griet, was a noted ǀxam (San) chronicler of ǀxam culture and knowledge. Although her contributions to the Bleek and Lloyd archive of "Specimens of Bushman Folklore" have been limited in quantity, she played an important role in providing a female perspective on the life, rituals, and beliefs of ǀxam society.
Origins and family
ǃkweiten ta ǁken was the youngest of seven children of χaa-ttin and ǂamme-an, and sister of Diaǃkwain, who was one of Bleek and Lloyd's main informants. She would have been born in the late 1840s. Her name was said to mean 'orphan's child' and refer to her mother's feelings at the time of her birth, having just lost her own mother.
She was from the Katkop mountains and identified her father's place as ǁann or Steinpits, which Janette Deacon has traced back to the farm of Kans or Vaskans of today, South West of the town of Brandvlei in what is today the Northern Cape province of South Africa.
Based on the extensive interviews of her brother Diaǃkwain, we know that they had a sociable upbringing.
Married life and ǂkasin's arrest
ǃkweiten ta ǁken's husband was ǂkasin, or Klaas Katkop, who was also an informant for Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd. He was of mixed ethnic origin, his father being a Korana and his mother a ǀxam. After the marriage, they lived with ǂkasin's family, further North.
“ǃkweiten ta ǁken” enters the record as |xam (San) chronicler of xam culture and knowledge. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what ǃkweiten, ǁken and chronicler can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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