Diä!kwain was a ǀXam hunter in the northern Cape Colony, at a time of conflict with encroaching European settlers. He was arrested by colonial authorities for retaliating against a Dutch farmer who had threatened to murder his family. While in prison, Diä!kwain and a few other ǀXam were transferred into the custody of a German linguist and Welsh archivist who wished to study their language. The imprisoned ǀXam shared their vast repository of oral lore, which the two scholars transcribed and translated between 1870 and 1880. They remembered Diä!kwain as “a soft-hearted mortal” who wept when his puppy got distemper, and sometimes escorted visiting ladies home to protect them from hoodlums.

XA:Ä-TIN, Diä!kwain’s father, was the pupil of a shaman, !Nuin-/kuïten, who taught him such skills as how to lead the Rain Bull across the sky and how to make his enemies sick. Xa:ä-tin would hear his teacher calling him by plucking the strings of his bow, but with the teacher’s death the string of shamanic succession ended.