The Soul of Safrica

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life.

-Krishnamurti

Let there be a place for everyone under the sun - and everyone to take their lawful place - even the bushman to tame nature and to dance for the rain.

-Henry Jansen alias Xam

The National Coat of Arms of South Africa captures the very essence of our land and people. As such it is our National Icon!

Every South African should reflect long and and deep on its profound symbolism. It is well worth reading about it at the "National Coat of Arms" site.   I find it profoundly spiritual. For personal reasons the Khoisan element is especially interesting which is more fully explained on the Linton Panel page   The human figures in the Coat of Arms derive from the Linton Stone, now preserved in the SA National Museum in Cape Town:

Credit: Dr Ben Smith, Wits Rock Art Institute.

The panel shows people capturing a power the /Xam called !Gi. The San sought and used this power for the benefit of their community. It allowed for the healing of the sick and for the healing of divisions within society. San rock art was believed to be rich in this special power.

Credit: Dr Ben Smith, Wits Rock Art Institute.

This delicately painted figure has power that we can all share in. It was intended to have special power as it was painted straddling a line of !Gi. Within the new Coat of Arms the figure will continue, as its painter intended, to channel its power for the benefit of all.


This caught my attention. What is this !Gi?

!Gi refers to what has been variously described as "supernatural potency", "magical power",  "spiritual energy", or simply "spirit" or "soul" and even “sorcery" depending on the context. Some Christians may have difficulty with some of these concepts but without going into the anthropological explanations or theological implications, I think of !Gi as the "wind" that Jesus speaks of, "the wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth" (John 3.8). Or we can think of it as the Shekhinah of God permeating all of Creation. Hinduism speaks of the Atman -  the Universal Life Principle, and Taoism of Qi.

"The people who possess !gi  are called !gi ten, meaning 'those who are full of supernatural power", writes Cherrie Rhodes. However we may wish to think of !Gi, the intention of our National Coat of Arms is that Holy Spirit Power is for "the benefit of the community, the healing of the broken and divided". This is the essence of ubuntu ...

A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, based from a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.
-Desmond Tutu, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_(philosophy )


To read:
Lewis-Williams, D.J. & Challis, S, Deciphering Ancient Minds: The Mystery of San Bushman Rock Art
Lewis-Williams, D.J. and Pearce, D.G., 2004. San Spirituality: Roots, Expressions and Social Consequences. Double Storey, Cape Town.
Solomon, A, The myth of ritual origins? Ethnography, mythology and interpretation of San rock art. South African Archaeological Bulletin, http://www.antiquityofman.com/Solomon_myth_ritual.html
Rhodes, C, Shamanism Across Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the !Kung and Ainu,


©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

Star Lore of the Khoi and San

"My belief is in the blood and flesh as being wiser than the intellect. The body-conscious is where life bubbles up in us. It is how we know we are alive, alive to the depths of our souls, and in touch somewhere with the vivid reaches of the cosmos." 

-D.H. Lawrence

The Khoisan were the nomadic, indigenous peoples the Portuguese navigators and Dutch settlers encountered in the Cape Peninsula in the 15th and 16th Centuries. The European settlers called them Hottentots but are today collectively known as the Khoisan. They comprised three distinct groups:

• the Strandlopers (literally "beach walkers"). These were beachcombers living off shellfish and generally dwelt in the caves along the coast. They were the "Sea People".
• the Khoikhoi (literally "men of men") were pastoralists. They were the "Herd People".
• the San who were hunter-gatherers. They were the "Bush People". The Khoikhoi called them the Sankhoi.

Eva Krotoa was Khoikhoi whose grandfather was a Strandloper.

Unfortunately many of the traditional beliefs and legends of the southern Cape Khoi were lost in time. However the stories and rock painting records of the Khoisan from other parts of southern Africa have thankfully been preserved.

Sky Legends and Star Lore of the Khoi and the San

* A girl child of the old people had magical powers so strong that when she looked at a group of fierce lions, they were immediately turned to stars.  The largest are now in Orion's belt. 

* A strong-willed girl became so angry when her mother would not give her any of a delicious roasted root that she grabbed the roasting roots from the fire and threw the roots and ashes into the sky, where the red and white roots now glow as red and white stars, and the ashes are the Milky Way. 

* When the Pleiades appear in the east, little ones are lifted by their mothers and presented to the stars. The Pleiades are considered friendly and the children are taught to stretch their hands toward them.

* According to the Namaquas, the Pleiades were the daughters of the sky god.  When their husband (Aldebaran) shot his arrow (Orion's sword) at three zebras (Orion's belt), it fell short.  He dared not return home because he had killed no game, and he dared not retrieve his arrow because of the fierce lion (Betelgeuse) which sat watching the zebras.  There he sits still, shivering in the cold night  and suffering thirst and hunger. 

-Compilation by Dave Laney, SAAO
http://www.astronomy2009.org.za/fileadmin/files/education/astrocd/resources/South%20Africa/HartRAO/Ch08_Star_Patterns_06a.pdf

The Khoi appear to have revered their ancestors and elevated them as sky gods. These were the "Sky People". Generally the belief was that Earth People become Sky People. Sometimes it may have been thought that the Sky People returned to the Earth when meteors or comets were observed. Some early European writers believed the Khoi were moon worshippers. The Khoikhoi Supreme Being was Tsui Goab ("Wounded Knee").  He was a chief by the name of Tikqua who had progressed and after many transmigrations on his eventual ascension became the Sky God. (http://www.vanhunks.com/cape1/vanhunks1.html)

Of peculiar interest is the Khoi reverence for the Praying Mantis. "Khoi and San mythology refers to the praying mantis as a god. The word for the mantis in Afrikaans is hottentotsgot (literally, the god of the Khoi)." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mantis) The San say that the praying mantis gave them words and fire.

The Hottentots-god
by Henry Jansen alias Xam 

One day all the animals got together and decided to destroy the one; namely the Hottentots-god. He was too fine and small, and usually sat in every tree and bush for days on end and never did anything. Elephants flattened every tree to get rid of the Hottentots-god. Lion roared that the earth shook and even the hyena lifted its last leg. Then a big drought arrived and everyone started to suffer, as there was no rain to feed the plants or the animals. Then they realized that the Hottentots-god always prayed for rain, but by then it was too late... 

[Let there be a place for everyone under the sun - and everyone to take their lawful place - even the bushman to tame nature and to dance for the rain.]

Hjalmar Thesen's haunting story, The Echoing Cliffs, ends with Liklik looking into the eyes of Kwiknee. There has been a massacre and Liklik says to her, "Look long, my little one, for we shall not see it again... Tonight there will be many new stars in the sky, our friends will be watching over us."

Kwiknee shivers and moves closer to Liklik and replies, "When the moons of one hand have shone over the ocean, your child will be born. This I tell you now, while my heart grieves for the people we shall not see again... My eyes are your eyes, my ears are your ears. My eyes look with yours towards the place where the sun sets and a home that will be the home of your children."

Indeed! Our souls are “in touch somewhere with the vivid reaches of the cosmos”! I owe something of this to my own ancestors.

Note:
The origin of the belief in the Sacred Mantis is obscure and the connection with the Alien Mantids of UFO lore is at best perhaps curious but largely conjecture. Or is it? See the somewhat bizarre reports of "Praying Mantis like Aliens" at http://www.ufobc.ca/Beyond/prayingmantis/index.htm and http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread299896/pg1 . Outlandish ? See my next blog!

Further reading:
Penny Miller, Myths And Legends of Southern Africa.
Hjalmar Thesen, The Echoing Cliffs, 1963, Hutchinson & Co.

©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

11th Great-Grandson of a Khoi-Strandloper

Today her documented legacy lives on, as paradoxically as her life, in at least three million previously classified ‘white’ descendants of her daughter, Pieternella, who married Dutch farmer Daniel Zaaiman. According to lineages provided by genealogist Keith Meintjes, these descendants include former premiers Paul Kruger, Jan Smuts and FW de Klerk.

-Sharon Marshall

©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

Storms River Mouth and Ancestral Memories

Near the mouth is a large cave which was once used by the Strandlopers for shelter. It's about forty metres deep and very dark and eerie. - http://www.turtlesa.com/ezine139.html

Many years before I even became aware of my ancestral connections to the "Strandlopers" (Beachcombers of the Cape) I felt an inexplicable attraction to them and none as powerful as at Storms River Mouth near Knysna on the Garden Route.  We first visited Storms River Mouth in July 1994. I then described my first impressions...

"Storms River Mouth in the Tsitsikama Nature Reserve where mighty oceans pound, mysterious forests sing to the song of loeries, and a massive cave haunts the human heart. At Storms River, ocean, forest and cave come together in a mighty orchestration of emotion. It is a crescendo of sight, sound, and scent. The churning tides and crashing of the waves was for me a picture of the turbulence within my heart. This must surely be the most enchanting place I have ever visited." (Journal 15 July 1994)

Why did the confluence of river gorge, enormous waves, and wild indigenous forests affect me so? Indeed, what magnet drew great-grandfather Laurance Garvie from Scotland to these very forests near Knysna? I don't know but near the mouth of the Storms River is a cave that might well hold the answer. You get to it by means of a scary suspension bridge swaying over the restless tides far below. The synchronicity of sea, skies, and the sun coalesced there for me in that cave, "deep and very dark and eerie".

Knysna author Hjalmar Thesen captures something of the spirit of this link between Europe and Africa in his Strangers from the Sea. I first read this story many years before I even "met" my ancestral Khoikhoi great-grandmother Eva Krotoa. She was a Strandloper. Thesen's story gripped my imagination with a strange familiarity that I couldn't explain. He starts...

"The woman cradled a tin cup in both hands and, as the moon began to spread its purple across the dunes, her eyes shone with a wild brilliance, for she was drugged with the dagga she had smoked. She sipped from the cup of brandy... The woman wore a tattered skirt and her shoulders were covered with a thin shawl. Her breasts protruded uncovered and they were shapely full, curved and pointed with youth... The hypnotic sea droned in splendour and from beyond, where the lights of the fort began, there came the needle point of a violin. The night cast its spell and the woman's voice became the sound of the surf and the lilt of the violin and the weeping of the jackal." (p.1f)

Perhaps there is something in what psychologist's call "ancestral memories". Carl Jung termed it "racial memories". It is said that an object or a place can trigger a genetic memory you share with your ancestors resulting in a deja vu experience. One experiences a "flashback". That is exactly what it seemed like as I spent a few quiet moments in the Storms River Cave. I had been there before! The StateMaster Encyclopedia explains:

"In Jungian psychology, racial memory is a hypothetical type of memory which is not gained through experience or conditioning, but is inherited genetically, as part of a "collective unconscious" of the human species. Racial memory does not define a memory insofar as a specific recollection of an event; instead it references an inherent genetic recollection of the experiences of the ancestral line of any given individual, and how this influences his or her behaviour." http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Racial-memory

Remarkably, the day before visiting the Cave I had bought and read another of Hjalmar Thesen's books, The Echoing Cliffs. In my Journal of the 14th July 1994, the day before visiting Storms River Mouth, I had unconsciously made an ancestral connection with the Khoi long before I had actually discovered it as fact in 2010. I wrote:

I read Thesen's The Echoing Cliffs. I was amused by a Jungian quaternary, a symbol of wholeness, that came to mind:

Laurance Garvie                     Johanna Garvie
  - child of the forests                    - child of the seas

The Khoi                                 The San
- people of the seas                    - people of the bush


Curious as that experience might be, ancestral memories haven't been scientifically proved but our DNA could very well hold the key. Are we not all collectively joined together by invisible threads and family ties? Whatever this feeling of connectedness to a particular place might be, Storms River Mouth remains for me one of several magical "thin places"  I've come to revere here in South Africa.


©Colin G Garvie HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za