Bushmen, Botany and Baking Bread

Bushmen, Botany and Baking Bread: Mary Pocock’s record of a journey with Dorothea Bleek
across Angola in 1925 presents the record of a remarkable overland
journey documented by the botanist Mary Agard Pocock and illustrated, in
colour, with her photographs, sketches and paintings of southern
Angola, its people and its plants. The purpose of the six-month-long
expedition, by boat, on foot and by machila, was primarily for the
renowned ethnologist Dorothea Bleek to collect ethnographic information
of the last remaining Bushmen of the region. Besides her role as
aide-de-camp, Mary Pocock’s intention was to study the flora. She
collected almost 1000 plant specimens from this virtually unexplored
region, several of which proved to be new to science.

A talented
artist and photographer, Pocock also described, painted and photographed
Bushmen in their villages. These are unique and rare representations of
daily activities such as spinning cotton, preparing food, forging
metal, playing musical instruments and dancing. Her meticulous daily
travel account, glass plate slides, negatives, sketches and paintings
have now been rescued from oblivion and collated, edited and presented
here for the first time.

Bushmen, Botany and Baking Bread
will appeal to those interested in Bushmen ethnology, African botany,
early 20th century African travel, and not least the significance of
gender in scientific exploration of that era.