30/12/2016
The wall of GREAT AFRICANS!
NAMIBIA: Nǃxau ǂToma (alternative spelling Gcao Tekene Coma; December 16, 1944 (?) – July 5, 2003) was a Namibian “bush” farmer and actor who was made famous by his roles in the 1980 movie The Gods Must Be Crazy and its sequels, in which he played the Kalahari San (“Bushman”) Xixo.
The Namibian newspaper called him "Namibia's most famous actor".
Nǃxau was a member of the San, also known (controversially) as Bushmen.
He spoke Juǀʼhoan, Otjiherero and Tswana fluently, as well as some Afrikaans.
He did not know his own exact age, and before his appearance in the films he had little experience of typical "modern" living: he had only ever seen three white people before being cast and was unaware of the value of paper money, allowing (according to legend) his first earnings for The Gods Must Be Crazy to literally blow away in the wind.
He earned only $300 for his work in The Gods Must Be Crazy, but by the time of the first sequel he was educated about the purpose and value of money within the modern world and negotiated a much larger sum (R800,000 or $57,142 at today’s exchange rate unadjusted for inflation) for the film.
Regardless, he did come from a culture that did not value the material things that money could buy and consequently had never before learned money management skills; "he did not have the skills to manage his income," although he used some of it to build a brick house with running water and electricity for his family.
In addition to The Gods Must Be Crazy, N!xau starred in a series of sequels: The Gods Must Be Crazy II, Crazy Safari, Crazy Hong Kong and The Gods Must Be Funny in China.
After his film career ended, he returned to Namibia, where he farmed maize, pumpkins and beans and kept several head of cattle (but no more than 20 at a time because, according to The Independent, without the complex farming systems of the "modern world," he had trouble keeping track of more).
The Namibian local daily New Era stated that he simply could not count further than 20.
On July 5, 2003, he died from multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis while he was hunting guinea fowl. He was buried on July 12, in a semi-traditional ceremony at Tsumkwe, next to the grave of his second wife. He had six surviving children.
-Incredible portrait on right by Stephen Bennett. Twitter@ stephenwbennett
(Credit: WIKIPEDIA)
