PRIMITIVE POLITICS IN SANCTIFIED LANDSCAPES - THE ETHNOGRAPHIC FICTIONS OF POST,LAURENS,VAN,DER

The Cold War confrontation of the 1950s-60s posed a threat to civil ex istence and cultural life as Western Europe and America knew it. In th e atmosphere of immanent nuclear annihilation and ecological dissoluti on reinforced by a communist menace, modernity with its science and te chnology, appeared to undermine Euroamerican cultural meaning. One met aphorically powerful resolution to this crisis arose in a revival of a ttention to humankind's presumptive primordial roots. Ethnographers, f ilm-makers, and novelists responded by inventing a primitive past worl d as a foil to the seemingly apocalyptic present. 'Bushman' quickly be came a main subject attention. In the existential image of Kalahari 'B ushmen' as the Jungian archetype of authentic humanity these personal and collective crises were fused and resolved. This essay, focuses on the image as it evolved in the novels, films, and polemical writings o f Laurens van der Post.