The San, or Bushmen, of the Natal Drakensberg were Khoisan-speaking, semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived in small clans to support their way of life. The San are thought to be the first inhabitants of Southern Africa – tools dating back more than 40 000 years have been found in Border Cave in northern KwaZulu-Natal. Though the San are no longer found in the Drakensberg, they continue to survive elsewhere in Southern Africa and are among the oldest cultures on Earth.

It is not known when the Bushmen first settled in the Natal Drakensberg, because the cold of winter may have discouraged this until it became their best option to escape reprisals by Europeans and Zulus. Before then, they may have ventured into the mountains only in the warmer months, following the antelope on their summer migration to the foothills.

Although some of the rock art in the Natal Drakensberg has been dated, the dating process is destructive and is therefore avoided. There is a clear chronology in their paintings dating back to at least the arrival of European explorers and settlers, but beyond that it is difficult to determine exactly how old the other rock art is.

Rock art was usually done on the wall of a sandstone overhang, there being no true caves in the Natal Drakensberg. Very occasionally, artwork was done on the roof of such an overhang. The larger overhangs served as living quarters, but many sites are shallow overhangs or large, free-standing boulders with no living space at all. These may only have served as a temporary shelter for a passing artist.

The San rock art of the Natal Drakensberg is therefore exposed to the weather, natural chemical leaching, smoke from veld and camp fires, and animal and human activity – including that of the Bushmen themselves. Some rock art is even exposed to direct sunlight. Judging by the speed with which it has deteriorated over the past 50 years, even allowing for changes in the climate that may adversely affect it, the rock art that can be seen today is unlikely to date back more than several hundred years.

Very little is known about the Bushmen of the Natal Drakensberg, but based on what is left of the San culture elsewhere, when they were not hunting and gathering, they would have spent time conversing, joking, playing music and doing ceremonial dances. They had no written language, but their rock art was a very effective substitute. It is not known for certain which member/s of the clan would have done the paintings, but it is likely that the more spiritual artwork was done by the clan’s shaman (medicine man). As with most of their activities, probably everyone joined in.

San men and boys hunted with bows and poison arrows. These were unique to the San – no other indigenous peoples in Southern Africa possessed them. Arrowheads were made of bone or chert. These were coated with the  entrails of the larvae of a beetle called Diamphidia nigroornata (commonly known as the Bushman arrow-poison beetle, a type of leaf beetle). The larvae contain a diamphotoxin poison, which is only toxic to mammals when injected into the bloodstream, not when eaten. It destroys red blood cells, reducing haemoglobin levels by as much as 75%. This eventually slowed the animal enough for the hunters to be able to catch up with it and bring it down with spears. In the case of an animal the size of an eland, the chase could last several days – which meant that the Bushmen were well known for their physical fitness and endurance.

According to Marlize Lombard of the University of Johannesburg, the Bushmen also used extracts from the Strychnos pungens (spine-leaved monkey-orange) tree and its fruit, Euphorbia ingensas (candelabra tree or naboom) and Boophane disticha (tumbleweed) as poison.

The tumbleweed is one of the most widely distributed bulbous species in South Africa and is found in both the Natal Drakensberg and Lesotho, easily identified by its fan-like appearance and its bulb half-protruding from the ground. It produces a single flower head whose pedicels undergo a stiffening  and elongation process. When the flower head separates at its junction with the stalk, it is easily moved by light breezes, scattering seeds as it rolls. The bulb contains eugenol – an aromatic, volatile oil smelling of cloves and having analgesic properties, and the toxic alkaloids buphandrin, crinamidine and buphanine (Wikipedia).

The monkey-orange is only found from the Witwatersrand northwards, but the candelabra tree can be found in the lower, arid regions of the Natal Drakensberg in very small numbers. It is not known if the rock-hugging euphorbias of the high Drakensberg were used by the Bushmen, but since all euphorbias have a poisonous white sap, this is very likely.

It is believed, but impossible to prove, that some of the paths in the Natal Drakensberg were made by the Bushmen. Eland, due to their enormous size and much like cattle, make very good paths in valley cutbacks and on steep hillsides. It is a fact that anywhere an eland can go, a human can go too. It makes sense that the Bushmen would have used eland paths to help them track down their favourite prey, possibly making their own paths in the gaps between the eland ones. Some of the low stone walls found in caves today would have first been constructed by the Bushman clans that lived in them.