‘First Peoples’: Laurens Van Der Post’s Usage of the Term Antedating The OED Entry

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, 'First People(s)' (also written uncapitalized) is a chiefly Canadian term: '(Usually in plural) Indigenous peoples in Canada, considered collectively; First Nations, Inuit, and M etis peoples; (also more generally) the Indigenous peoples of any country or region'.The OED further dates the earliest known use of the noun to the title of a 1973 book, The first peoples in Quebec; a reference work on the history, environment, economic and legal position of the Indians and Inuit of Quebec, by Toby Ornstein. 1 I have found no scholarly accounts which adduce an earlier usage.However, some fifteen years earlier than Ornstein's book, Laurens van der Post can be seen using the term in whatas I will demonstrate-is an identical sense.This absence of a reference to Van der Post is particularly puzzling considering his two key texts which I discuss are frequently cited in other entries. 2 Van der Post was an Afrikaner South African who established himself as a leading public intellectual and prolific author in the UK during the second half of the 20th century.His public and more learned-literary career converged on the topic of the Bushman, 3 the collective name for a number