San orBushman religion is any of the traditional religions of the variousSan orBushman peoples. They are poorly attested due to their interactions with Christianity.
ǂKá̦gára andǃHãunu are brothers-in-law who fought with lightning, causing massive storms in the east.[4]
Other religions
ǃXu, from theKhoikhoi wordǃKhub 'rich man, master', which was used by some Christian missionaries to translate "Lord" in the Bible, and repeated by various San peoples in reporting what the Khoikhoi had told them.[5] It is used inJuǀʼhoan as the word for the Christian god. It has been misinterpreted as the "Bushman creator".
ǃXwe-ǀna-ssho-ǃke, girl who was one of the people of the early race[6]
To enter the spirit world,trance has to be initiated by ashaman through the hunting of atutelary spirit orpower animal.[7] Theeland often serves as power animal.[8] The fat of the eland is used symbolically in many rituals including initiations andrites of passage. Other animals such as giraffe,kudu and hartebeest can also serve this function.
One of the most important rituals in San religions is the great dance, or the trance dance. This dance typically takes a circular form, with women clapping and singing and men dancing rhythmically. Although there is no evidence that the Kalahari San use hallucinogens regularly, student shaman may use hallucinogens to go into trance for the first time.[9]
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 thenatural world into their entoptic phenomena, visualizing honeycombs or other familiar shapes.
In the third phase a radical transformation occurs inmental 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 that gives one the feeling that they have undergone a physical transformation.[10]
Pictographs can be found across Southern Africa in places such as the cavesandstone ofKwaZulu-Natal, Free State and North-Eastern Cape, thegranite and Waterberg sandstone of theNorthern Transvaal, theTable Mountain sandstone of the Southern andWestern Cape.[11] Images of conflict and war-making are not uncommon.[12] 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.[7] Most commonly portrayed are animals such as the eland, althoughgrey rhebok and hartebeest are also in rock art in places such asCederberg and Warm Bokkeveld. AtuKhahlamba / 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.TweelingMafahlaneng inMafube Local Municipality there is a rock shelter with some rock art paintings. The place has never been documented.
Lee, R.B. (1967). "Trance Cure of the ǃKung Bushmen".Natural History.76 (9):31–37.
Lee, R.B. (1968). "The Sociology of ǃKung Bushman Trance Performance". In Prince, R. (ed.).Trance and Possession States. Montreal: R.M. Bucke Memorial Society.
Vinnicombe, Patricia (1976).People of the Eland: rock paintings of the Drakensberg Bushmen as a reflection of their life and thought. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.
