The Bushmen were the first people in Southern Africa. Their origins lost in time. They can be traced back +40 000 years following information from Border Cave on the border between Swaziland and South Africa.
They left part of their beliefs, culture, and history in paintings and engravings on rock faces. Some of the paintings are very old dating 25000 B.P and some about 150 years old. It is very difficult to date paintings. To use radiocarbon dating you have to use a part of the scene's paint which would destroy the painting. The above old date comes from other stuff like charcoal dated in the layer, in which the painting done on a slab was founded.
The paintings was done with natural paints and brushes made from sticks, bones, animal hair and other natural fibbers. Natural colors used was black from charcoal, white from ashes or bird droppings, yellow, and red brown from ochre or dried blood. The mixture to get the paint isn't known but we do know they used mixed ingredients like egg yellow, urine, animal blood and colors together to form the paint. Different painters probably used different recipes.
Their paintings depicted normal way of live:
daily tasks- like catching fish and collecting honey and digging for roots,
history- the strife that existed between the pastoralists and the Bushmen and other groups,
trance dances - to find the rainbull and drive out sickness,
stories-legends and stories about animals and the friendship that existed between man and animal.
They belief animals were once people with human characteristics.
There are/were different dialeks of the Bushmen click language and different myths. Some have the same beliefs or myth but the story surrounding the beliefs were different. The people also lived in different regions that shaped these beliefs and myths.
These people showed respect and gave characteristics to animals, the rain, the sun, the moon and the stars. They do pray/ask for a good hunt or food or rain, but they don't have a religious ceremony and a divinity or fore farthers to which they pray.