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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
 WorldCat |
| Title: | Evolution and Racial Theory: The Hidden Side of Wilhelm Bleek |
| Author: | Bank, Andrew |
| Year: | 2000 |
| Periodical: | South African Historical Journal |
| Issue: | 43 |
| Pages: | 163-178 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | race relations San biographies (form) Anthropology and Archaeology History and Exploration |
| About person: | Wilhelm Heinrich Immanuel Bleek (1827-1875) |
| External link: | https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02582470008671911 |
| Abstract: | This article challenges the highly selective and romanticized image of the German scholar and philologist, Wilhelm Bleek, in southern African scholarship during recent decades. It argues that the interest in Bleek's pioneering research into San mythology during the period between 1870 and 1875 ignores the fact that his intellectual contribution spanned almost twenty-five years. A consideration of Bleek's early writings of the late 1850s and 1860s shows how he contributed to evolutionary theory by comparing the 'primitive' language of Bushmen with the communication of primates and by classifying the indigenous peoples of southern Africa into Hottentots, Bushmen and Bantu. He also was not averse to new biological forms of classification and became actively involved in applying a project of anthropometric photography. Ref. |
