This new edition of the long-out-of print classic collection of Bushman tales provides a fascinating look into the life of these little-known people. As Megan Biesele writes in her Foreword: "The fact that a family of trained linguists and their associates sat down between 1870 and 1884 with a group of /Xam people who had been temporarily sprung free of imprisonment in Cape Town's Breakwater Prison has immense potential consequences. San people today, like indigenous peoples all over the world, are quietly organizing educational futures for themselves which will make fine use of this record of the intellectual history of their culture." This edition reproduces the English text of the 1911 edition and is richly illustrated with photographs.

With a style reminiscent of oral tradition, the Bushmen share their legends about their principal deity, the Mantis, their relationship with their environment and its animals, and some aspects of their traditions and everyday lives. "En un estilo que refleja la tradicion oral a la que corresponden sus historias, los bosquimanos narran sus leyendas relativas a su deidad principal, el Mantis, a su relacion con el entorno y los animales, y a algunos rasgos de la convivencia al interior de sus sociedades."