ABSTRACT
The constraints of environment, "development policies," and indigenous socioeconomic characteristics simply did not permit the achievement of an established capitalistic social system and political economy and resulted in the inevitability of extreme violence. In frontier zones, violence achieves more than the normative relation of exploitation. Violence is the basic mechanism of social control in the absence of other, as well as inadequate or compromised, mechanisms. In 1982, when the social world of Bushmen at Tsumkwe was collapsing all around them, Weich made one last effort to understand their rejection of Christianity. Science, especially anthropology, has contributed to shaping the myth of the Bushmen. Many Bushmen originating in Angola were Christians prior to entering the South African Defence Force. Many aborigines, and no doubt Bushmen, would accept the version of history because most of the atrocities committed upon them were done with the active collaboration of fellow indigenes.
