Picturing Bushmen: The Denver African Expedition of 1925

Abstract

The Denver African Expedition went to Africa in 1925 to seek the cradle of Humanity. The explorers claimed to have found the Missing Link in the Heikum bushmen of the Kalahari - and they proceeded to market this image. As Robert J. Gordon shows in Picturing Bushmen, the impact of the expedition lay not simply in its slick merchandising of bushmen images but also in the fact that the pictures were exotic and aesthetically pleasing. The Denver Expedition played a key role in romanticizing bushmen. Indeed, its image of bushmen has permeated Western mass culture. Before the expedition, bushmen commonly had been presented on postcards as impoverished savages. In its wake, the bushmen of South Africa have inspired not only commercial advertisements, but art exhibitions and novels. Although Rob Gordon is an anthropologist, this study ranges into questions of film theory, history, and popular culture. It offers a new perspective on coffee-table books, ethnology, and the nature of research on those labeled others. While suggesting how ethnographic photographs might be appreciated, Picturing Bushmen is also a subtle analysis of the perennial issues that haunt field workers - especially what and how they see and how their perception is influenced by the mundane in their own societies.