George
Bertrand Silberbauer was born on the 19th of March 1931 in Pretoria,
South Africa. His father was a farmer who had studied agriculture at
Cambridge. He was an only child and did his schooling in Pretoria. He
studied at the University of Stellenbosh, doing forestry followed by
majors in Zulu, Sotho and African Law and minors in anthropology and
Roman Dutch Law. He began military service with the South African Air
Force in 1950, first as a navigator and then a pilot flying fighter
aircraft (including Spitfires) and then moved to a maritime squadron
flying Venturas, Sunderlands and Dakotas for 3 years. Leaving the air
force he moved to London where he completed a law degree at the
London School of Economics. He subsequently joined the British
Colonial Service and was posted to the Bechuanaland Protectorate
after a year of training in London. He was sent to Maun in
Bechuanaland (now Botswana) as District Officer for 3 years before
being promoted to District Commissioner, the youngest in the history
of the Colonial Service. He was sent to the University of the
Witwatersrand to do honours in social anthropology (with Max Marwick)
and linguistics (with Des Cole) preparatory to beginning the great
Bushman survey which formed the basis of his most important
contribution to anthropology. For the duration of the survey he was
based in Ghanzi but travelled extensively throughout the central
Kalahari Desert. One of his lasting contributions was the
declaration of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, envisioned as a
homeland for the San (Bushmen) people where they could continue to
pursue a hunter-gatherer way of life vital to their survival as a
people and a culture. The posting wound up in 1967 when the Colonial
Service departed, as a prelude to the country’s independence.
George had started a PhD at the University of the Witwatersrand
supervised by John Blacking. The focus of his thesis (hunter gatherer
socioecology) grew out of his interaction with the Bushmen over more
than a decade of the survey and his work as a District Commissioner.
The PhD was completed at Monash University with Max Marwick
supervising after he took a job as senior lecturer in anthropology at
Monash. He told me he got the job when a telegram from Marwick
arrived saying “You have been appointed as senior lecturer. Please
apply!” He came to Monash in 1967 and lectured on the Bushman and
kinship, politics and religion. He and his family which now included
two young daughters moved to Upper Beaconsfield in 1972. George
joined the local fire brigade when he arrived at Upper Beaconsfield
(during the second world war he had trained as an auxiliary fire
fighter and was involved in fighting grass and forest fires in South
Africa). In a tragic and ironic twist the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983
razed the family home in Upper Beaconsfield. He retired from Monash
in 1996 at the age 65. He continued to be involved with the Country
Fire Authority and worked as fire fighter and consultant (his
particular interest was the investigation of bush fires and
community recovery after disaster). He moved to a house in the
country near Korumburra in 1993 and spent his later years writing and
advising colleagues worldwide. From 2004-06 George again acted on
behalf of Bushmen people as an expert advisor and witness in the
successful case before the Botswana High Court to reinstate
traditional settlement and hunting by the Bushmen in the Central
Kalahari Game Reserve. He died on the 29th of August 2013 at the age
of 82. He is survived by his daughters Letitia, Victoria and Celeste,
and his granddaughters Sophia and Claire. George Silberbauer's
contribution to anthropology in general and to Bushman Studies in
particular was significant and multi-faceted and this is not the
place for a broad assessment. Let me conclude then with this quote
from Alan Barnard's book on Anthropology
and the Bushman:
“It is hard to know what makes a great ethnography. Bushman studies
have been blessed with many, but Silberbauer's (1981) Hunter
and Habitat in the Central Kalahari Desert
remains my own favourite.”
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