San religion

The religion of the Khoisan people of Southern Africa draws from rituals, folk-tales and legends. The Khoisan are divided into two groups, the Khoikhoi and the San, and although each culture has its own religious tradition, there is overlap in their respective belief systems.

Legendary Figures

• Cagn (also known Kaang) is the supreme god of the Bushmen of southern Africa. He is the first being and the creator of the world. He is a trickster god who can shape-shift, most often into the praying mantis but also takes the form of a bull eland, a louse, a snake, and a caterpillar.. In some variants of the Khoisan creation story, Cagn receives so much opposition in the world that he moves his abode from the earth to the top of the sky. Cagn is said to have created the moon which holds special significance to the Khoisan; the phase of the moon dictated when rainmaking rituals were to be performed.

• Coti is the wife of Cagn. She gave birth to the eland, and Cagn hid it near a secluded cliff to let it grow. One day Cagn’s sons, Cogaz and Gewi, were out hunting. Not knowing their father's love for the eland, they killed it. Cagn was angry, and told Gewi to put the blood from the dead eland into a pot and churn it. Blood spattered from the pot onto the ground and turned into snakes. Cagn was displeased. Next, Gewi scattered the blood, and it turned into hartebeests. Again, Cagn was unhappy. He told Coti to clean the pot and add more blood from the eland, with fat from the heart. She churned it, and Cagn sprinkled the mixture on the ground. It turned into a large herd of eland. This was how Cagn gave meat to his people to hunt and eat. The Bushmen attribute the wildness of the eland to the fact that Cagn's sons killed it before it was ready to be hunted, spoiling it. The scholar David Lewis-Williams recounts a variation of the eland myth involving the meerkats. Cagn's daughter the porcupine married Kwammang-a, a meerkat. They had a son called Ichneumon (a mongoose). Ichneumon was close to his grandfather Cagn. Cagn used to take honey to feed his favourite, the eland. The people were curious as to what Cagn was doing with the honey, so they sent Ichneumon to spy on him and find out. When Ichneumon saw Cagn giving honey to the eland, he reported his discovery to his brothers, the meerkats. While Cagn was out gathering honey, the meerkats persuaded Ichneumon to show them where the eland was. They called the eland out of its hiding place and killed it.

• Heitsi-Eibib is usually as a culture hero, but his role is fluid. He is sometimes called a trickster. In other contexts, he appears as a patron of hunters and in some stories he even had a part in creating the world, impressing specific characteristics into different species. For example, he cursed the lion to walk on ground instead of nesting on a tree. The multiple roles of Heitsi-eibib have been called a reflection of the fluidity of the Khoisan's religious resources and rituals, which are usually ambiguous and lack in standardization. Heitsi-eibib was also a life-death-rebirth figure, dying and resurrecting himself on numerous occasions. Resulting from this, his funeral cairns can be found in many locations in southern Africa, and it is customary to throw a stone onto them for good luck. In different accounts, Heitsi-eibib is born from either a girl or—more often—a cow, who got pregnant by eating a magical grass. Heitsi-eibib was a legendary hunter, sorcerer and warrior.
• Tsui'goab is a sky deity associated with the phenomena of thunder and lightning. His name translates to bloodied knee, and he is said to dwell in a red heaven located somewhere in the east, as opposed to Gaunab’s black heaven.
• Gaunab is a god of sickness and death who is locked in constant battle with Tsui'goab.
• Utixo or Tiqua is the name used by missionaries as a translation for the Abrahamic God.
• The Ga-Gorib is a beast who lived on the edge of a pit. It would trick people into throwing stones at it, but the stones would always bounce back from the creature's hide, and the thrower would fall into the pit. When the hero Heitsi-eibib met the beast, he refused to throw stones until Ga-gorib turned away from him, whereupon he cast a stone that fell Ga-gorib into its own pit. In another version of the same story, Heitsi-eibib wrestled with the Ga-gorib and was thrown to the pit repeatedly, but could not be kept down. In the end, the Ga-gorib is again thrown to his own pit by Heitsi-eibib. Gorib is "the spotted one" (meaning leopard, cheetah, or leguaan) in Central Khoisan languages, so the Ga-gorib probably has some connection with this formidable species. The element "ga-" remains to be explained. Possibly, it is a negative, "not-a-leopard", not only on comparative morphological grounds, but also because its adversary Heitsi-eibib is connected symbolically to the leopard.
• The Aigamuxa (singular Aigamuchab) are a race of man-eating, dune-dwelling creature that are mostly human-looking, except that they have eyes on the instep of their feet. In order to see, they have to go down on hands and knees and lift one foot in the air. This is a problem when the creature chases prey, because it has to run blind.
• Hai-uri & Bi-Bloux are man-eating creatures which have only one leg and one arm, and travel by jumping, similar to the monopods in Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia. Hai-uri is the male variant, while Bi-Bloux is female.

Trancing

To enter the spirit world, trancing has to be initiated by a shaman through the hunting of a tutelary spirit or power animal. The eland often serves as power animal. The fat of the eland is used symbolically in many rituals including initiations and rites of passage. Other animals such as giraffe, kudu and hartebeest can also serve this function.

Psychologists have investigated hallucinations and altered states of consciousness in neuropsychology. They found that entoptic phenomena can occur through rhythmic dancing, music, sensory deprivation, hyperventilation, prolonged and intense concentration and migraines. The psychological approach explains rock art through three trance phases. In the first phase of trance an altered state of consciousness would come about. People would experience geometric shapes commonly known as entoptic phenomena. These would include zigzags, chevrons, dots, flecks, grids, vortices and U-shapes. These shapes can be found especially in rock engravings of Southern Africa.

During the second phase of trance people try to make sense of the entoptic phenomena. They would elaborate the shape they had ‘seen’ until they had created something that looked familiar to them. Shamans experiencing the second phase of trance would incorporate the natural world into their entoptic phenomena, visualizing honeycombs or other familiar shapes.

In the third phase a[radical transformation occurs in mental imagery. The most noticeable change is that the shaman becomes part of the experience. Subjects under laboratory conditions have found that they experience sliding down a rotating tunnel, entering caves or holes in the ground. People in the third phase begin to lose their grip on reality and hallucinate monsters and animals of strong emotional content. In this phase therianthropes in rock painting can be explained, as heightened sensory awareness gives one the feeling that they have undergone a physical transformation.

A San trance dance featuring the San of Ghanzi, Botswana appeared in BBC Television's Around the World in 80 Faiths on 16 January 2009.

Rock Art

Pictographs can be found across Southern Africa in places such as the cave sandstone of Natal, Orange Free State and North-Eastern Cape, the granite and Waterberg sandstone of the Northern Transvaal, the Table Mountain sandstone of the Southern and Western Cape. Images of conflict and war-making are not uncommon. There are also often images of therianthrophic entities which have both human and animal traits and are connected to the notion of trancing, but these represent only a fraction of all rock art representations. Most commonly portrayed are animals such as the eland, although grey rhebok and hartebeest are also in rock art in places such as Cederberg and Warm Bokkeveld. At uKhahlamba / Drakensberg Park there are paintings thought to be some 3,000 years old which depict humans and animals, and are thought to have religious significance.

External links

• Lewis-Williams, J. D. (1988). Reality and Non-reality in San Rock Art (PDF). Raymond Dart Lectures (lecture 25). Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. ISBN 1 86814 024 5. ISSN 0079-9815.
• World Digital Library presentation of 3008 Rock Painting S00568, Bethlehem, Dihlabeng District Municipality, Free State . University of Pretoria.

Sources

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• Barnard, Alan (1992). Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521428653.
• Biesele, M. 1993. Women Like Meat: The Folklore and Foraging Ideology of the Kalahari Ju/’hoan. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
• Bleek, W.H.I. & Lloyd, L.C. 1911. Specimens of Bushman Folklore. London: George Allen.
• Garlake, P.S. 1995. The Hunter's Vision. London: British Museum Press.
• Guenther, M. 1999. Tricksters & Trancers: Bushman Religion and Society. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
• Hastings, James (2003). Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Part 2. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0766136701.
• Heinz, H-J. 1975. Elements of !Ko Bushmen religious beliefs. Anthropos 70:17-41.
• Hewitt, R.L. 1986. Narratives of the Southern San. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag, Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 2.
• Hollman, J. (Ed.) 2007. Customs and Beliefs of the /Xam Bushmen. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.
• Keeney, B. 1999. Profiles of Healing: Kalahari Bushmen Healers. Philadelphia: Ringing Rocks Press.
• Lang, Andrew (2003). Myth, Ritual and Religion Part 1. Kessinger Publishing. ISBN 0766156680.
• Lee, R.B. 1967. Trance Cure of the !Kung Bushmen. Natural History 76(9):31-37.
• Lee, R.B. 1968. The Sociology of !Kung Bushman Trance Performance. In Prince, R. (Ed) Trance and Possession States. Montreal: R.M. Bucke Memorial Society.
• Lewis-Williams, David (2000). Stories that Float from Afar: Ancestral Folklore of the San of Southern Africa. New Africa Books. ISBN 0864864620.
• Marshall, L. 1999. Nyae Nyae !Kung. Cambridge (Massachusetts): Peabody Museum Monographs (Number 8), Harvard University.
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• Moore, Elizabeth (2004). San Spirituality: Roots, Expression, and Social Consequences. Rowman Altamira. ISBN 0759104328. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Solomon, Anne (1998). The Essential Guide to San Rock Art. New Africa Books. ISBN 0864864302. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Stookey, Lorena Laura (2004). Thematic guide to world mythology. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0313315051.
• Vinnicombe, P. 1976. People of the Eland: rock paintings of the Drakensburg Bushmen as a reflection of their life and thought. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.