Early Encounters with the Bible among the BaTlhaping

In most forms of post-colonial discourse, the Bible's reception is subsumed under the reception of Christianity. This article argues that the Bible is a separable object of power in the protracted transactions between the Tlhaping people of southern Africa and the explorers and missionaries who first brought Bibles among them. The focus of the article is the visits of the explorer William Burchell and the missionary John Campbell to the Tlhaping in the early 1800s. Through a detailed analysis of their journals, diaries and letters, read "against the grain," signs of an emerging indigenous hermeneutic can be detected. While the Bible occupied a particular place in the constellation of meanings the missionaries embodied, it is argued there that the Bible as a distinct object took on a different order and fresh significations among the Tlhaping — significations that may be considered foundational for subsequent moments in their history.