By Aude Dumont
Thanks to the Eycon project’s partnership with the Service historique de la Défense (SHD) in Vincennes, we have been able to digitise the fond Victor Forbin, an archive that contains about 55 000 photographs from all over the world dating from approximately 1880 to 1920. Forbin collected images from Cameroon, Palestine, Turkey, and South Africa, among other locations. Although it is not easy to trace the history of the circulation of these photographs, many of them were published in the British press, and often have stamps on the verso from the Daily Mirror or the Illustrations Bureau. Such stamps make it possible to trace their circulation at least partially. The collection at the SHD was acquired from Forbin’s home in Clamart, in the Paris suburbs, and the fond’s boxes are classified by country.
Here we will focus on file 2K247 on South Africa, and on one photograph in particular that you can see below.


Photography held at the Service historique de la Défense, in Vincennes. SHD GR 2K247 11: “Fonds Rumpf, Archives photographiques de Victor Forbin”
On the right picture: The pencil caption at the top state, “Capt Courténay d’Esterre with the wild Dancing Bushman which he brought from S. Africa.” We then have Victor Forbin’s signature below, a measurement written in blue, unidentified numbers at the bottom left. There is also a stamp of the British Press illustration office.
There seems to be no information regarding the photographer’s identity. Similarly, Captain Courténay d’Esterre does not appear to be well known in other archives. He was certainly an English missionary in charge of documenting indigenous South African traditions and bringing people back to England to be exhibited in human zoos or universal exhibitions. This is the case with this man on the right, whose identity is unknown and is simply called the “wild dancing bushman”. We know only that he was brought back to England. Regarding the photograph’s date, it was certainly made around the beginning of the twentieth century, when English missions became increasingly numerous after the colonisation of this territory following the victory in the Boer wars. This can also be determined by the photograph’s varnish aspect, which is beginning to crack slightly, but also by a light yellowish or brown shade. The technique used was probably an old baryta silver print, also known as gelatino-chloro-silver bromide paper print, a process widely used from 1880 until 1930.
One thing that is immediately obvious is the white outline that has been added over the image. The addition of this outline can be seen, as embossed on the reverse side of the image. Closer examination reveals that hints of white colour have been added to the two individuals to increase the figures’ contrast. It is likely that this addition of white paint was intended to make the two protagonists more visible once the photograph was published in smaller print. The stamp of the Illustrations Bureau on the back confirms this hypothesis of publication in the British press. The image is then divided into two parts. There is the background, rather dull and without any real importance. While the foreground looks like a staged scene in which the English missionary wants to show off his finding, with a man at his side who, to a British audience, would have appeared much smaller than average. This staging of difference, emphasised by the comparison between the missionary and the dancer, is part of a widespread phenomenon at the time of Europeans measuring physical differences between human populations, and turning these differences into spectacles through the press, or universal exhibitions. He is also shown shirtless with an animal skin around his waist. Underneath their feet is a wild beast skin, highlighted by white outlining, as if to give a more exotic feel to the captain’s mission.
Unfortunately, much information that would help to trace the photograph’s history and the story of its circulation in the press is missing. It is not known, for example, who added the white outline. Was it the photographer himself, or was it the newsroom artists of a British newspaper in which this photograph was published? Are there several copies of this photograph, and perhaps an original without the white line? To write this photograph’s history in a more complete form, to understand whether the man on the right was forced to pose for this photo or not, and to know what happened to him, it is necessary to try to connect this archive to other archives, to have access to other points of view on this moment.
From the name of Captain Courténay D’Esterre, it was only possible to find one newspaper clipping. This is the Daily Mirror of January 16, 1913 – available below and in the British Newspaper Archive website – in which we can find exactly the same photograph without the white outline, as well as three other photographs of this “wild dancing bushman.” In the other three figures, as well as in the caption, this man is presented almost as an animal, or at least as a subhuman who only dances and sleeps. He and his “tribe” are presented sometimes as hunters, dancers, and he is sometimes a person “in his wild state.” His height, which is the main object of curiosity here, is mentioned as “4ft. 1in.” The different angles from which the person is shot and the accompanying caption demonstrate how the press popularized scientific racism. It should also be noted that the real name of the captain is Courteney D’Esterre and not Courténay D’Esterre as written by Victor Forbin on the back of our archive.

“Wild bushman who sleeps in the day and dances at night” Daily Mirror, January 16, 1913
After attempting to trace the history of this photograph from the time it was taken in South Africa to its publication in the Daily Mirror in England, a new challenge emerges. How to trace the history of the photographed subject so as to give him a name, to understand the history of his life, and to ensure he does not remain a static picture or an unknown “wild dancing bushman”? Firstly, we now know that the SHD photo dates from around 1913, as it was published in that year, and that this South African man was brought back to England around the same time.

“Clico Wild Dancing, South African Bushman,” unknown photographer, United States at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, circa 1928
Based on the vague term “wild dancing bushman”, it is possible to find a man named Clicko, sometimes spelled Clico, who also went by the name Franz Taaibosch. This man turns out to be the same as the one in our photograph. This can be seen from his facial features and the lump on his right arm – see the picture above. He was first “brought” back to Europe, as written in the Daily Mirror where he performed dances in Paris, London, but also in Spain and Germany between 1912 and 1913. Then he moved to Havana in 1916 to join the Cuban circus, Santos Artigas Gran Circo before arriving in New York in 1917 at Brooklyn’s Coney Island amusement park.[1] He joined the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Company formed in 1919 from the fusion of Ringling Bros with Barnum & Bailey. This company was familiar at that time with “freak shows” throughout the United States, i.e. the presentation of animals and people with abnormal physiognomy to amaze the American audience. The photo above mentions the name of this circus in which he took part. His name is often accompanied by the short description “wild dancing bushman” because his role in this circus was essentially to perform a traditional Korana dance, the ethnic group to which he belonged. It is important to mention that he was Korana, a tribe of the Khoekhoe ethnic group, and not a Bushman, which refers to another ethnic group, the San. The only academic book to treat this little-known history was written by Neil Parsons and published in 2010.[2] Thanks to this more detailed study, it is possible to question the veracity of Clicko’s description in the Daily Mirror. Indeed, Parsons wrote that he was probably born around 1870, which means that he would have been about 43 years old in 1913 and not around 60 to 70 years old as written in the newspaper clipping.
The intention to make him appear older than he really was in this newspaper was deliberate in order to attract public curiosity about him, and it was not just a mistake.
“He was billed as the “first specimen of the most primitive race ever brought before the public”, that he could dance for eight hours continuously and that he was more than one hundred years old. To attract paying audiences the unusual, the exotic, “a unique specimen of human nature”, had to be emphasized.”[3]
However, at no time did Neil Parsons mention Captain Courteney d’Esterre, and it is not possible to find any other trace of the four photographs published in the Daily Mirror, except for the one on the top right where he is in a tree which became a publicity postcard distributed in England in 1913 as seen in Bernth Lindfors’ book.[4] The card is composed of this picture and a writing in white paint saying “Yours faithfully, The Wild Dancing Bushman.”
It was also possible to find evidence that Captain Courteney d’Esterre may not have been the first European to meet him before he left for Europe. In a small booklet available at the Milner Library of Illinois State University,[5] an Irishman named Captain Maurice Patrick (Paddy) Hepston, also known as Morris Epstein in Ireland, claimed to have found a Bushman who was Franz Taaibosch, in the Kalahari Desert while hunting ostriches. Bushmen were then considered an extinct race by Europeans who searched for them in vain. This man lived on a farm near Kimberley and he was a gold miner, farmer and diamond digger. He refers to himself in the third person and boasts about his discovery that Dr Livingstone spent years trying to make in the same desert with no result. He speaks of Franz as an animal, or as a “specimen” sometimes “docile” and compares him to the ostriches he was hunting.
It was the same Paddy Hepston whom Franz followed to Ireland and Havana and who pushed him to perform in circuses. Hepston wanted to escape from the Aborigines Protection Society in London, which was pursuing him because of his mistreatment towards Franz.
Hepston then did everything possible to keep track of him and continued to exploit him in circuses. One of the pieces of evidence is found in the United States, in a photograph taken by the famous photographer Charles Eisenmann, who produced cabinet card pictures or views of human oddities from the Barnum and Bailey circus. On the verso of one of his 1930 portraits of Franz, held at Syracuse University in the State of New York, it is written “Clicko the bushman actually captured from head hunters by Capt. Hepston 1930 with Ringling Circus.”[6]
Nevertheless, this story of a discovery in the Kalahari Desert seems romanticised, and only served to add to the mystery of the Bushmen people, who were hard to be found. It is more likely that Hepston met Franz in Kimberley when he was already in the company of a certain Christiaan Willem Roberts, who kept sheep in Middleburg, and who employed Franz. They travelled to Kimbereley where Paddy Hepston later hired him in a local circus. Captain Courteney d’Esterre may also have met him in Kimberley. Neil Parsons himself admits that this year of Franz’s life, which corresponds to the year of our photograph and its publication in the Daily Mirror, remains unclear.
“The biggest gap in the known biography of Franz Taaibosh is the eleven months between July 1912, when Paddy Hepston was given official permission at Kimberley to take on “Bushman W.D.” as his servant, and June 1913, when the Wild Dancing Bushman made his first appearance in a London theatre.”[7]
Since there is little historical evidence of Franz Taaibosch entering a local circus in Kimberley, it is difficult to know whether he was forced to join Paddy Hepston, or whether he did so voluntarily, to earn money. This requires a deeper understanding of the social and economic context of the Khoekhoe and San (Bushmen) ethnic groups at that time to determine if there was a proletarianization, and some form of indirect coercion of their labour.[8] Similarly, Captain Courteney d’Esterre claimed to have “brought” him to England, as if Franz had simply followed him without having the choice. We do not know if this statement is true. But we also know that he chose to stay with the Cook family in the United States. Tracing the history of his life choices or possible coercion is therefore difficult since there is no direct testimony from him. Furthermore, Neil Parsons’ book relies heavily on the testimony of Evelyn Cook, who herself may have had a biased view of Franz’s life, between choice and coercion.
If we have finally been able to put a name on this face, then rehabilitating his memory and the story of his life cannot be done only through the prism of European or American sources, as with the Daily Mirror’s cut or Neil Parsons’ book. It is important to know his story from the point of view of his descendants – if he has any – or at least from the point of view of people of the same or a close ethnicity, who may have a different view of the racial discrimination he suffered in his time. They can tell us more about his life before he left South Africa, about everything that Franz himself could not convey to us and that we only know through European protagonists who told his story for him. It is important that his story is not only narrated here by Europeans and Americans, even though it took place on three continents. Only a connective and polyphonic history allows for a comprehensive view of Clicko’s life.
In fact, among the few works on his life, a fairly detailed podcast has caught our attention. It was produced by Shaldon Ferris, a Khoisan and Indigenous Rights Radio Coordinator. The speaker talking about Franz/Clicko is Letitia Timas Peterson, an advocate for Indigenous African descent rights in South Africa. The podcast was published one year ago on the Cultural Survival website.[9] This organisation wants to give a voice to cultures and ethnicities oppressed by various states around the world, including South Africa. The podcast was produced on the occasion of the International Day For People Of African Descent, a celebration created by the United Nations in 2021. The Cultural Survival organization was created in 1972 by David Henry Peter Maybury-Lewis a British anthropologist, ethnologist, and an activist for indigenous peoples’ human rights.
Here is an interview conducted in February 2023 with Letitia Timas Peterson and Shaldon Ferris about Clicko/Franz Taaibosch.
Aude Dumont: How did you get so much information about Franz Taaibosch, whom you were able to present in your podcast, when so little historical work has been done on him?
Letitia T. Peterson and Shaldon Ferris: He is one of our ancestors, not direct ancestor but one from our ethnicity. Most of the information we have about Franz Taaibosch comes from the information Neil Parsons collected. But there are also oral testimonies circulating in his ethnic group, as indirect descendants are still with us so that this story will not be forgotten. I don’t have their contact. But these accounts tell of his life as a house servant in Kimberley before he left South Africa, and then of the possible mistreatments he received in the United States.
These oral testimonies are certainly based on Parsons’ book and other archives as it was certainly difficult, if not impossible, for Franz to have a direct contact with his family. Indeed, he died in the United States without ever having returned to South Africa. His grave is in Cedar Park Cemetery in Hudson, New York, with that of the Sullivan-Cook family, whom he stayed living with. It was this family, and in particular Evelyn Cook, who was able to give so much information about Franz to Neil Parsons. Not returning to South Africa was his choice, he was not forced and considered the Sullivan-Cook as his family. We also know that he was fluent in Afrikaans and perhaps his relatives were too, although this is difficult to know. However, he was a prisoner of the circus he worked for, where it was easier for the show to pass him off as an “ignorant savage” which may have prevented him from communicating. He also knew some English for example, but never spoke it.
A.D.: Do you know how to write exactly the tribal name of Franz?
L.T.P: The tribal name of Franz was !Gaub. He was from the clan called !Gaibe or Taaibosch !Korana, Korana or !Ora people.[10]
A.D.: Do you know something about the descendants of Franz Taaibosch?
L.T.P and S.F.: There are many with the same surname, one will have to investigate to find out if he had children, and then we have to figure out who was directly linked to him. There is Taaibos, and Taaibosch, which has a Dutch spin on it.
For Neil Parsons, “There is at least one Taibos or Taaibosch family still living today in the town of Middleburg, close to Haydon on the northern edge of the Sneeubergen.”
A.D.: Did he talk about his life in America and the stereotypes and racism he possibly faced?
L.T.P and S.F.: We don’t really know sorry. Perhaps there is more information about this in the book of Neil Parsons.
A.D.: Why were you interested in the story of Franz Taaibosch?
L.T.P: I was first interested in the story of Sarah Baartman in 2002. You know this is the woman who was taken to England to be exhibited in human zoos because of her unusual appearance. She was called by Europeans the “Hottentot Venus”[11]. She was then exhibited for years in the National Museum of Natural History in Paris after her death. Cuvier had dissected her and then reconstructed her statue and skeleton for exhibition. If I was working on this subject in the early 2000s, it was because we had requested, with the support of the South African state, the restitution of her skeleton so that she could be buried according to our customs. After an initial refusal by the French state, we were finally able to repatriate her body in 2002. I was there for the burial. It was while making research on her that I heard about Franz Taaibosch, so I was able to make a podcast about him to tell all the things I discovered.
A.D: I could find you through the podcast you made about Franz Taaibosch on the Cultural Survival website. Why did you make a podcast about him on the Cultural Survival website? Can you tell us about the purpose of Cultural Survival?
L.T.P and S.F.: Even in the context of commemorations such as International Day for People of African descent (which is a new commemoration by the way), it is very seldom that people will talk about Indigenous peoples. Franz’s story is an international one, and one that is seldom heard. It is important to let the world know the history of Indigenous South Africans. Cultural Survival advocates for Indigenous Peoples’ rights and supports Indigenous communities’ self-determination, cultures and political resilience since 1972. Here is a link to the homepage of our website for all the people who are interested: cs.org.
A.D: What do you think of the archive from Vincennes I sent you? What was your reaction? Are you surprised to know that it is in France?
S.F.: Yes indeed. I think archives as well as artefacts should be returned one day. Why is it in Europe when it is our relatives? Europeans in the past have studied all that they can, for the sake of their own narrowmindedness, so they can return it now.
This research is taking place in the context of the claim of artefacts by various African states to European museums, be they statues, bodies such as that of Sarah Baartman, or cult objects. Besides, the digitisation of these archives that we have carried out with the Eycon project allows easier access for anyone in the world, not just a European audience. But in the case of our photograph, it is complicated to argue that it should be returned to South Africa or not, as this would imply that the material object itself belongs to South Africans. But, as we said earlier, the photo was probably taken by an English missionary. The issue here should then be considered differently. It is not the possession of the material object that is in question. Instead, the question is who owns the content of the picture, i.e. the representation of the person who was photographed, in this case Franz Taaibosch. It is difficult to guess whether he was forced to pose for this photo and the others that were published in the Daily Mirror. But if so, can we consider that his image is stolen?
A.D.: Do you know Captain Courtenay D’Esterre? Have you ever seen this photograph that I found in Vincennes?
L.T.P: No, never, I’m sorry.
A.D: I feel that there is a lack of historical works on Franz Taaibosch and maybe on other people from this ethnicity in general. What can you tell me about this? Do you feel the same way in South Africa? Do you think more historians should work on such subjects?
S.F: Yes, we have not learnt anything about Franz, or Sarah Baartman or Dawid Stuurman in school. The ones who write history, writes their own versions. Now, it should be us who research and tell these stories.
This interview may be published later by Shaldon Ferris on the Cultural Survival website as a follow-up to the podcast on Franz Taaibosch.
References:
Neil Parsons, Clicko: The Wild Dancing Bushman, University of Chicago Press, December 2010
Neil Parsons: Clicko: The Wild Dancing Bushman. Review by: Sheridan Griswold. Botswana Notes and Records, Vol. 42 (2010), pp. 192-194
Lindfors, Bernth: Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business. Bloomington Cape Town: Indiana University Press, 1999
Capt. M. P. Hepston: The wild dancing bushman, his history and story of his discovery in the Kalahari Desert, South Africa. Dreamland Circus Sideshow (Coney Island, N. Y.), 1917/1918. Special Collections at Milner Library, Illinois State University (Circus and Allied Arts Collection), https://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/digital/collection/CircusSelects/id/3
Becker, Ronald G.: “Ronald G. Becker collection of Charles Eisenmann photographs”, 1836-1960. Box 14: 1123-115. Syracuse University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center, https://library.syracuse.edu/digital/guides/b/becker_eisenmann.htm
Wilmsen, Edwin: Herders, Warriors, and Traders, Pastoralism in Africa. Chapter “Pastoro-Foragers to “Bushmen”: Transformations in Kalahari Relations of Property, Production and Labor”. Routledge, 1991
Good, Kenneth: Bushmen and Diamonds (Un)Civil Society in Botswana. Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2003
Shaldon Ferris and Letitia Timas Peterson: Cultural Survival podcast about Franz Taaibosch, https://rights.culturalsurvival.org/international-day-people-african-descent
[1] Neil Parsons: Clicko: The Wild Dancing Bushman. Review by: Sheridan Griswold. Botswana Notes and Records, Vol. 42 (2010), pp. 192-194
[2] Neil Parsons, Clicko: The Wild Dancing Bushman, University of Chicago Press, December 2010. About the age of Franz Taaibosch, see also the review of Sheridan Griswold.
[3] Clicko: The Wild Dancing Bushman by Neil Parsons. Review by: Sheridan Griswold. Botswana Notes and Records, Vol. 42 (2010), pp. 192-194
[4] Lindfors, Bernth: Africans on Stage: Studies in Ethnological Show Business. Bloomington Cape Town: Indiana University Press, 1999. Chapter 8: ““Clicko”: Franz Taaibosch, South African Bushman Enterntainer in England, France, Cuba, and the United States, 1908-1940” p. 203
[5] Capt. M. P. Hepston: The wild dancing bushman, his history and story of his discovery in the Kalahari Desert, South Africa. Dreamland Circus Sideshow (Coney Island, N. Y.), 1917/1918. Special Collections at Milner Library, Illinois State University (Circus and Allied Arts Collection), https://digital.library.illinoisstate.edu/digital/collection/CircusSelects/id/3
[6] Becker, Ronald G.: “Ronald G. Becker collection of Charles Eisenmann photographs”, 1836-1960. Box 14: 1123-115. Syracuse University Libraries, Special Collections Research Center, https://library.syracuse.edu/digital/guides/b/becker_eisenmann.htm
[7] Parsons, Neil: chapter 4: “Disappearance to Australasia or the Far East”
[8] On the changing labour market in the Kalahari, including the emergence of gold and diamond mines, see: Wilmsen, Edwin: Herders, Warriors, and Traders, Pastoralism in Africa. Chapter “Pastoro-Foragers to “Bushmen”: Transformations in Kalahari Relations of Property, Production and Labor”. Routledge, 1991
Good, Kenneth: Bushmen and Diamonds (Un)Civil Society in Botswana. Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2003.
[9] https://rights.culturalsurvival.org/international-day-people-african-descent
[10] The “!” symbol refers to the click sound. The nickname Clico also comes from the clicking sound of his native language.
[11] « Hottentot » was used by early Dutch settlers to talk about Khoekhoe people, and probably meant stutterers.