A San boy hears people talking about change coming to their land and their lifes because companies are prospecting for diamonds. The boy's grandfather takes him out hunting and he tells him about his own youth and how he was affected by the desire to make money. The book is based on the true story of a Khoekhoe woman who lived in the Cape in the seventeenth century. As the daughter of a chief, she experienced the changes that took place when her people moved up the coast once the Dutch settlers arrived in the Cape in 1652. She married a Dutch settler, became an interpreter for the Dutch settlers and was later banished to Robben Island. The Dutch people called her Eva.