In this chapter I address the implications of what previous chapters uncovered about interhuman relations and the construction of personal and social identity. If the practice of dress among colonial /Xam fed into strategies for social relations, both in terms of the normative actions considered essential to live in the world with other beings, as well as in the maintenance and continuation of these relationships as materialised in clothing, one might assume that similar notions of social relationships also manifested themselves through dress in the sphere of human–human interaction.

This chapter is concerned with being dressed in two senses: the state of being dressed, as well as the process of being dressed (by someone). It is about how being dressed constituted and created both personal and social identities and how this is reflected in the narratives.

The narratives

The first narrative below exemplifies, among other things, how ornaments and dress were of major importance to the personal identity of women. The second narrative suggests that the practice of dress was an important element in constructing social and personal identities in transitional stages of life.

‘The Story of !ko’-g !nuin-tara and the Dawn's Heart Star’

‘The Story of !ko’-g !nuin-tara and the Dawn's Heart Star’, or ‘The Story of the Dawn's Heart and His Wife the Lynx’, is found in three versions in the archive. Hewitt gives an elegant summary with details from all three versions (Hewitt 2008, 74–75). Andrew Bank considers the version related by //Kabbo to Lloyd as an appendix to the main story recorded by Bleek, as there is no mention of the central event of the plot – the transformation of the She-Lynx (Bank 2006b, 173). I consider it, rather, as an introduction to the story itself, which is how I summarise the story in what follows. Particular to this story is the focus on ornaments and detailed descriptions of dress, or the dressed main character.

The Dawn's Heart Star (identified as Jupiter [Bleek 1875, 11]) hides the Dawn's Heart Child underneath a pile of edible roots. He hides her so that her mother, !ko’-g !nuin-tara (the Lynx), might find her. He instructs her not to come out until her mother approaches.