Medicine Experts of the |Xam San

The !kwa-ka !gi:ten who Controlled the Rain and Water

Author: Ansie Hoff. Series edited by: Rainer Voßen.

Series: QKF Research in Khoisan Studies Volume 19

2007
67 pp.
1 map
Text language(s): English
Format: 160 x 240 mm
160 g
Paperback
€ 29.80

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In the nineteenth century the linguists W.H.I. Bleek and his sister-in-law, L.C. Lloyd, conducted interviews with |Xam individuals from the Upper Karoo and Bushmanland in the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. The |Xam, together with some other ethnic groups, formed part of the Southern San. Two subjects repeatedly included in the data collected by the Bleeks were, firstly, the importance and characteristics attributed to water and rain which was often portrayed as a being, and, secondly, supernatural power which could be harnessed by |Xam ritual practitioners who had a connection with rain.

In 1991 the author began research among descendants of the |Xam. The research area included the places from where the Bleeks’ informants came. The purpose of the research was threefold: to add to the data of |Xam views on water/rain and thereby increase the understanding of |Xam views in this regard, to explain the role of the specialists in connection with it, and to place, in broad outline, the data in the |Xam cosmological framework of a stratified universe.

The author commenced her research among the |Xam descendants with enquiries about their symbols for water/rain. The first objective was to determine whether rain/water was and still is a subject frequently discussed by the |Xam descendants, and whether factors other than the obvious need of water for survival could account for the suggested importance of rain/water.

Hoff found that rain/water was, and indeed still is, a prominent subject, which the |Xam descendants viewed as beneficial but potentially dangerous and which they symbolised in the attitudes and behaviour of a group of Water Animals, which formed part of a category of water things, connected with the underworld. The second topic of enquiry was about the persons (!khwa-ka !gi:ten) who caused rain to fall, their influence after death, the techniques used to cause the rain to fall, and reasons for unwillingness of them to cause rain. The fast-disappearing lifestyles of foragers is a general phenomenon and |Xam concepts of water/rain show continuity and change, but therefore they should not be seen merely as archaic survivals of |Xam cosmology, but as part of an ongoing and unfinished process.

Under these links you will find further studies of traditional beliefs and healing in Subsaharan Africa, of the conceptualization of landscape, environment, nature and space, as well as publications by the author:

Accompanying material:

• !Ōsis – Female Leader of the Richtersveld (South Africa) (ISBN 978-3-89645-632-8)
• Dealing with Disorder (ISBN 978-3-89645-082-1)
• Environmental and Cultural Dynamics in the West African Savanna (ISBN 978-3-89645-478-2)
• Khoisan Medicine in History and Practice (ISBN 978-3-89645-148-4)
• Konzeptualisierung von Landschaft im Mbukushu (K.333/K.43) Bantusprache in Nord-Namibia) (ISBN 978-3-89645-600-7)
• Living with the Lake (ISBN 978-3-89645-216-0)
• Rock Paintings of the Klein Karoo and a Link to a Local Story (ISBN 978-3-89645-879-7)
• South African |Xam Bushmen Traditions and Their Relationships to Further Khoisan Folklore (ISBN 978-3-89645-875-9)
• The |Xam and the Rain (ISBN 978-3-89645-866-7)

Cross-reference:

• A Tima-English Dictionary (ISBN 978-3-89645-901-5)
• Alltägliche Zauberei (ISBN 978-3-89645-310-5)
• Anthropologie des Raumes (ISBN 978-3-89645-217-7)
• Brunnen und Felder (ISBN 978-3-89645-895-7)
• Ein Heilungsritual der Dama, Südwestafrika/Namibia (ISBN 978-3-89645-351-8)
• Hexenjagd und Aufklärung in Ghana (ISBN 978-3-89645-909-1)
• Man and Health in the Lake Chad Basin / L’homme et la santé dans le bassin du lac Tchad (ISBN 978-3-89645-897-1)
• Perception of the Invisible (ISBN 978-3-89645-603-8)
• Religion, Myth and Magic in Tangale (ISBN 978-3-927620-46-9)
• Swahili Plants (ISBN 978-3-927620-89-6)
• The Akie Language of Tanzania (ISBN 978-3-89645-714-1)
• The Mukogodo Maasai (ISBN 978-3-927620-86-5)
• Voices of Affliction (ISBN 978-3-89645-245-0)

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