The Three Freedoms: In Action and in Myth
Navajo Ritualism
Before migrating to the American southwest and becoming the Dine, what we call the Navajo, were part of a Canadian tribe, the Athabaskan. Several groups would splinter off and migrate from the Athabaskan people, so there is a large family of Athabaskan tribes. So we need to briefly consider the Athabaskan rituals.
The Alaskan Athabaskan lived a life in close harmony with nature. Their worship beliefs were based on their relationship with the supernatural spirits in plants, animals, and natural phenomena. Life for pre-religious groups often focused on spirits being contained within the elements they interacted with in their environment. Worship, as it were, was centered on appeasing the elements that they interacted with. The spirit world included both well-meaning and evil characters who had to be kept happy with songs, dances, and charms. One of the most feared spirits among the Alaskan Athabaskan was Nakhani, or the “Bush Indian.” In the summer the Nakhani loitered around the camps at night, waiting to steal children and attack hunters. So not only were the elements they interacted with the sun, moon, stars, weather events,etc; they were also the animals, the plants, and in this case a group of somewhat (seemingly frightening) group of other humans who seem to have “devilish” or evil qualities. I am not exactly sure who the Nakhani were, but they don’t appear to be an opposing tribe, but a small bands of seemingly unaffiliated “wildmen” not actually associated with any tribe. The Nakhani could very well be those non-conformist personalities that actually were unwilling to follow the norms of the societal rituals and been exiled and formed into small bands for their own survival and were more willing to invade the cultured communities for recruits, food, etc. I greatly suspect that these Nakhani existed globally and are quite possibly the first “kings” who somehow began to emerge globally in the late paleolithic and throughout the neolithic area as they gained enough outcasts, or began to change their tactics to usurp other communities and bind them to being beneath their authority. These kingly communities would then began to bind the people through taking the existing rituals that allowed communal survival and develop superior gods that supported their superior powers of authority.
Probably the most important aspect of Athabaskan worship was the connection they had with the animals on which they depended for their very existence. The Athabaskan considered animals equal to them and believed people would be reborn after death as animals.
The Navajo have a very long history and culture characteristics like unique political arrangements, distinctive language, and many things that definitely make them extremely special than other tribes of Native America.
Navajo worship has no superior god, or supreme being. The Navajo do not consider there worship as a religion but as a Way. Gods do not command their worship, but they respect and see equalities in the spirits of all that exists—watercourses, sun, winds, and numerous spiritual beings that they believe intervene in every human affair. Such spirits are worshiped by offerings as well as ceremonial dances to honor them wherein they have been represented by masked and painted men. They do believe that there have been two main types of beings. These are the Holy people and earth people. Even though they cannot see Holy People, they feel that these harm or help the earth people. The Holy People are very wise, that is why they must be respected. The Navajo Way never viewed worship as the activity that must be separated from daily encounter in life. The living things (animals, people and plants) are the greatest portion of the worship and the sustenance of their own existence. Everything has a purpose and every purpose is a spirit in their own world. The main intention for Navajo people in worship is maintaining balance and peace and stay in harmony with nature and the world.
It is believed that centuries ago the Holy People taught the Diné how to live the right way and to conduct their many acts of everyday life. They were taught to live in harmony with Mother Earth, Father Sky and the many other elements such as man, animals, plants, and insects. The Holy People put four sacred mountains in four different directions, Mt. Blanca to the east, Mt. Taylor to the south, San Francisco Peak to the west and Mt Hesperus to the north near Durango, Colorado, thus creating Navajoland. The four directions are represented by four colors: White Shell represents the east, Turquoise the south, Yellow Abalone the west, and Jet Black the north. The Navajo people, the Diné, passed through three different worlds before emerging into this world, The Fourth World, or Glittering World.
The number four permeates traditional Navajo philosophy. In the Navajo culture there are four directions, four seasons, the first four clans and four colors that are associated with the four sacred mountains. In most Navajo rituals there are four songs and multiples thereof, even the Navajo wedding basket is made to represent the four aspects of life.
Evil for the Navajo is when the balance that must be maintained is skewed and illness or evil appears until the balance can become restored. When disorder evolves in a Navajo’s life, such as an illness, a medicine man will use herbs, prayers, songs and ceremonies to help cure patients. A qualified medicineman is a unique individual bestowed with supernatural powers that is obtained by studying the rituals for many years to be able to diagnose a person’s problem and to heal or cure an illness and restore harmony to the patient. There are more than 50 different kinds of ceremonies that may be used in the Navajo culture – all performed at various times for a specific reason when anything untoward might occur and the ceremonies become necessary for capitulation and restoration of the balance. All of these rituals are performed in seriousness by those trained to balance the good spirits and the evil spirits.
As there are four sacred components in everything, Navajo myth is the oral story of the creation of the four worlds from the first world of the Holy People through the present fourth world which is the Way in which they live.
I do not intend to go through all of the four worlds, but I want to attempt to explain the existence that they see as the first world, because as you will see it was not a paradise peopled by any type of gods.
“Of a time long ago these things are said. The first world was small, and black as soot. In the middle of the four seas there was an island floating in the mist. On the island grew a pine tree.
“Dark ants dwelt there. Red ants dwelled there. Dragonflies dwelled there. Yellow beetles dwelled there. Hard beetles dwelled there. Stone-carrier beetles dwelled there. Black beetles dwelled there. Coyote-dung beetles dwelled there. Bats dwelled there. White-faced beetles dwelled there. Locusts dwelled there. White locusts dwelled there.
“Around the floating island were four seas. Each sea was ruled by a being. In the sea to the East dwelled Tééhoołtsódii, Big Water Creature, The One Who Grabs Things in the Water. In the sea to the south lived Táłtłʼááh álééh, Blue Heron In the sea to the west dwelled Chʼał, Frog In the ocean to the north dwelled Iiʼniʼ Jiłgaii, Winter Thunder.
“Above each sea appeared a cloud. There was a black cloud, a white cloud, a blue cloud, and a yellow cloud. The Black Cloud contained the Female spirit of Life. The White Cloud contained the Male spirit of Dawn.
“The Blue Cloud and the Yellow Cloud came together in the West, and a wind from the clouds blew. From the breath of wind, First Woman, Áłtsé Asdzą́ą́, was formed, and with her the yellow corn, perfect in shape, with kernels covering the whole ear. White shell, and turquoise, and yucca were there with her.
“The Black Cloud and the White Cloud came together in the East, and the wind from the clouds blew. From the breath of wind, First Man, Áłtsé Hastiin, was formed and with him the white corn, Kóhonotʼíinii, perfect in shape, with kernels covering the whole ear. Crystal, symbol of the mind and clear seeing, was with him.
“First Woman made a fire with her turquoise. First Man made a fire with his crystal. Its light was the mind's first awakening. They saw each other's light in the distance.
“When the Blue Cloud and the Yellow Cloud rose high in the sky, First Woman saw the light of First Man's fire, and she went out to find it. Three times she was unsuccessful. The fourth time she found the home of First Man. "I wondered what this thing could be," she said. "I saw you walking and wondered why you did not come," First Man said. "Why do you not come with your fire, and we will live together." First Woman agreed to this. So instead of the man going to the woman, as is the custom now, the woman went to live with the man.
“Another person, Mąʼiitoʼí Áłchíní, Great Coyote was formed in the water. He told First Man and First Woman that he had been hatched from an egg, and knew all that was under the water and all that was in the skies. First Man believed him. Then a second coyote, Áłtsé Hashké, First Angry, appeared. He said to the three, "You believe that you were the first persons. You are mistaken. I was living when you were formed." First Angry brought witchcraft into the world. The Air-Spirit People became jealous of one another and began to fight. The rulers of the four seas, Blue Heron, Frog, White Thunder, and Big Water Creature could stand it no more, and told the beings of the island that they must all leave this world. Some climbed and some flew until they came to an opening in the sky. They crawled through it and into the Second World.”
Not science, but an attempt at understanding, that is really all that science really is. But the Navajo attempt to maintain a balance in the totality of existence does not blame the “bad” things that happen because in existence due to any failures of man to behave properly in accordance with the will of any god, but because confrontations that are created in the world will either destroy existence and force the beings of existence to flee to a new existence. The “Holy People” were not holy in the sense of being holy, or sacred beings, but in the sense that the escaped the turmoil of prior existences and taught to the Dine in this fourth world the failures of the prior worlds in being unable to maintain the stability of their worlds. If the balance therefore is not maintained, life, survival, and the existence of any creation becomes distorted and so rituals are necessary to attempt to restore that balance. Death, of course, is the consequence of imbalance, and the rituals around the death of any Navajo are very extensive to ward off that imbalance. Hogans are usually burned to the ground and survivors move into new dwellings. It’s not as silly as it might seem, it wards off the evil consequences of death–contagions a dying person might bring and the spread of disease through the imbalance in the culture that a death might bring. One of the amazing things is that these practices helped prevent massive death through epidemics that reduced memberships in many Native tribes when they came into contact with western diseases. Another advantage was they didn’t live in as close proximity as many tribes, or many people of the world and so epidemics tended to be less widespread. One of the advantages of a rather barren landscape and their approach to maintaining a natural balance with their barren environment was seen to be not to conglomerate into population centers, but they maintained their tribal culture by frequently coming together in their rituals of Unification. over what to many in the days of slow transportation was somewhat abnormal to the common practice of being close-quartered for the common survival. Such close-quarteredness however was seen as detrimental to the balance that their environment required.
Iroquois Ritualism
The Iroquois did not have the same relationship to the world as a world of harmony that had to be maintained as did the Navajo.
Members of the League speak Iroquoian languages that are distinctly different from those of other Iroquoian speakers. This suggests that while the different Iroquoian tribes had a common historical and cultural origin, they diverged as peoples over a sufficiently long time that their languages (and cultures) became different, and they distinguished themselves as different peoples. Archaeological evidence shows that Iroquois ancestors lived in the Finger Lakes region from at least 1000 C.E.
After becoming united in the League, the Iroquois invaded the Ohio River Valley in present-day Kentucky to seek additional hunting grounds. According to one pre-contact theory, it was the Haudenosaunee who, by about 1200, had pushed tribes of the Ohio River valley, such as the Quapaw (Akansea) and Ofo (Mosopelea) out of the region in a migration west of the Mississippi River. But, Robert La Salle listed the Mosopelea among the Ohio Valley peoples defeated by the Iroquois in the early 1670s, during the later Beaver Wars. By 1673, the Siouan-speaking groups had settled in the Midwest, establishing what became known as their historical territories. Just as the Siouxan peoples were displaced by the Iroquois, they displaced less powerful tribes whom they encountered, such as the Osage, who moved further west. Most archaeologists and anthropologists believe that the League was formed sometime between about 1450 and 1600. A few claims have been made for an earlier date; one recent study has argued that the League was formed shortly after a solar eclipse on August 31, 1142, that seemed to fit one oral tradition. Anthropologist Dean Snow argues that the archaeological evidence does not support a date earlier than 1450, and that recent claims for a much earlier date "may be for contemporary political purposes". According to tradition, the League was formed through the efforts of two men, Deganawida, sometimes known as the Great Peacemaker, and Hiawatha. They brought a message, known as the Great Law of Peace, to the squabbling Iroquoian nations. The nations who joined the League were the Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Mohawk. Once they ceased most of their infighting, the Iroquois rapidly became one of the strongest forces in 17th- and 18th-century northeastern North America. According to legend, an evil Onondaga chieftain named Tadodaho was the last to be converted to the ways of peace by The Great Peacemaker and Hiawatha. He became the spiritual leader of the Haudenosaunee (all of the people from all of the tribes). This is said to have occurred at Onondaga Lake near Syracuse, New York. The title “Tadodaho” is still used for the league's spiritual leader, the fiftieth chief, who sits with the Onondaga in council. He is the only one of the fifty to be chosen by the entire Haudenosaunee people. Before the creation of the Great Law of Peace, all the nations that would one day make up the Iroquois Confederacy were constantly at war. Hiawatha lost his wife and child to this fight. Wandering, distraught, he entered Mohawk territory, where he met Dekanawida, the Great Peacemaker. Dekanawida was not himself a Mohawk but was born in the Wendat Nation of what is Southern Ontario today. Legend doesn't explain why Dekanawida left his home and began living with another tribe. When he first met Hiawatha, he performed cleansing rituals to help the man handle his grief and enlightened him about the need for peace. The two then set out to spread the word. They traveled from tribe to tribe until each was united in peace under the Iroquois Confederacy. (see Longfellow’s poem. It is a fairly accurate rendition of Iroquois legend.)
As a result the Iroquois are a melting pot. League traditions allowed for the dead to be symbolically replaced through captives taken in the "Mourning War." Raids were conducted to take vengeance on enemies and to seize captives to replace lost compatriots. This tradition was common to native people of the northeast and was quite different from European settlers' notions of combat. The captives were generally adopted by families of the tribes to replace members who had died. The Iroquois worked to incorporate conquered peoples and assimilate them as Iroquois, thus naturalizing them as full citizens of the tribe. Assimilating others into their tribes made war unnecessary. Cadwallader Colden wrote, "It has been a constant maxim with the Five Nations, to save children and young men of the people they conquer, to adopt them into their own Nation, and to educate them as their own children, without distinction; These young people soon forget their own country and nation and by this policy the Five Nations make up the losses which their nation suffers by the people they lose in war." By 1668, it was reported that two-thirds of the Oneida village were assimilated Algonquians and Hurons. At Onondaga there were Native Americans of seven different nations and among the Seneca eleven. They also adopted European captives, as did the Mohawk in settlements outside Montreal. When the Iroquois decided to make peace with the British their was a return of many westerners who subsequently had a great deal of trouble assimilating into the western cultural society. I believe most of the men and boys returned to their Iroquois community, but the females were generally prevented from doing so and forced to become westernized and to become wives of settlers.
The supernatural world of the Iroquois included numerous deities, very unlike the Navajo, the most important of which was Great Spirit, who was responsible for the creation of human beings, the plants and animals, and the forces of good in nature. The Iroquois believed that Great Spirit indirectly guided the lives of ordinary people. Other important deities were Thunderer and the Three Sisters, the spirits of Maize, Beans, and Squash. Opposing the Great Spirit and the other forces of good were Evil Spirit and other lesser spirits responsible for disease and other misfortune. In the Iroquois view ordinary humans could not communicate directly with Great Spirit, but could do so indirectly by burning tobacco, which carried their prayers to the lesser spirits of good. The Iroquois regarded dreams as important supernatural signs, and serious attention was given to interpreting dreams. It was believed that dreams expressed the desire of the soul, and as a result the fulfillment of a dream was of paramount importance to the individual.
Women held dwellings, horses and farmed land, and a woman's property before marriage stayed in her possession without being mixed with that of her husband. They had separate roles but real power in the nations. The work of a woman's hands was hers to do with as she saw fit. At marriage, a young couple lived in the longhouse of the wife's family. A woman choosing to divorce a shiftless or otherwise unsatisfactory husband was able to ask him to leave the dwelling and take his possessions with him. The children of the marriage belonged to their mother's clan and gained their social status through hers. Her brothers were important teachers and mentors to the children, especially introducing boys to men's roles and societies. The male chief of a clan could be removed at any time by a council of the women elders of that clan. The chief's sister was responsible for nominating his successor.
Religious ceremonies were tribal affairs were primarily concerned with farming, curing illness, and thanksgiving. In the sequence of occurrence, the six major ceremonies were the Maple, Planting, Strawberry, Green Maize, Harvest, and Mid-Winter or New Year's festivals. The first five in this sequence involved public confessions followed by group ceremonies which included speeches by the keepers of the faith, tobacco offerings, and prayer. The New Year's festival was usually held in early February and was marked by dream interpretations and the sacrifice of a white dog offered to purge the people of evil.
The Iroquois creation story is central to their mythology. Han-nu-nah, the turtle who was the Iroquois bearer of the earth. Well before the creation of the earth, there was an island floating above the water that covered everything. This was where the Sky People lived. On this island, everyone was happy, with no one getting sick, dying, or being born. One day, Iagentci found that she was pregnant and excitedly told her husband, Hawenneyu. He immediately assumed she had done something devious, as births did not happen on the island. In his rage, he tore apart the tree of light that was the sole source of light for the Sky People, creating a hole that looked down on the waters below. Iagentci peered into the hole and was shoved by Hawenneyu, beginning her descent toward the water. Birds flying nearby saw the woman falling and took pity on her, catching her on their backs. They took her to the water animals who brought up mud from below to place on the back of the great turtle, Hah-nu-nah. Eventually, there was enough mud to hold the woman, making an entire world. As Iagentci stepped onto the land, she spread dust into the sky, creating the stars. She also created the sun and the moon to have light. Eventually, she gave birth to her daughter, Eithinoha. Eithinoha would subsequently give birth to twins fathered by the god of the wind, Geha. They would be manifestations of good and evil. The malevolent son, Tawiskaron, had a sharp flint mohawk that cut Eithinoha during his birth and caused her to die. He claimed that his brother caused her death when Iagentci became upset, leading to Tharonhiawakon's banishment.
The two brothers were in constant competition. For every beautiful thing Tharonhiawakon created, Tawiskaron created something twisted in its place. While Tharonhiawakon was busy creating animals, fish, and plants for humans to eat, Tawiskaron would go behind him and add thorns to the plants or bones to the fish. Tawiskaron created winter, and in response, Tharonhiawakon created spring. Eventually, their bickering resulted in a full fight. Tharonhiawakon finally defeated his brother, but as a Sky Person, Tawiskaron could not be killed. As a result, he was banished to wander the earth, periodically showing his anger as a volcano.
As part of their mythology, they developed a society for treating medical ailments through rituals called the False Face Society. To become a member of the society, a person must be cured by them or see them in a dream. They wear masks that the Iroquois believe to have supernatural powers, imbuing the wearer with healing abilities. Each mask depicts a different supernatural being that the wearer carved into a tree. After the carving was completed, it was separated from the tree as a whole mask. These masks are considered living beings by the Iroquois and are offered gifts, such as food and tobacco. When they are not in use, they are cared for at the appropriate level for vessels of sacred beings. The Iroquois, as shown in their mythology, have great respect for nature. They also envisioned animals as kindred spirits, giving them a firm place in their mythology. For example, in the creation story, animals were there to save Iagentici from her fall from the sky and continued to help her after that. This being one of the most important stories of their culture, it shows how essential nature and animals are to the Iroquois.
While the Great Spirit is often mentioned, many other deities and beings have essential roles throughout Iroquois mythology, as illustrated below.
There are certainly spirits of good and evil, but these spirits are not worshiped in the sense of being all powerful gods, but respected as the givers of life. Only Tawiskaron creates the chaos. Tawiskaron also created the tribal conflicts that existed prior to formation of the peace. It is the chaos of ugliness that might occur in nature by the deformity of a plant or tree, or the barriers like thorn that are out of proportion to the plant that sustains the rituals that are performed in consequence. The festivals are celebrated to give oblation to the fruits of the harvest and are blessings of gratefulness to the harvests themselves, not to any god who created the harvest for man to do as he pleases with. It was the animals and the plants that were the “saviors” of Iagentci and gave her the opportunity to give humanity life, so it is the animals and the plants and the sun and the moon who are thanked for the goodness they give in making the life of the Iroquois possible and in that they contain godliness. It is a pantheistic bestowing of godliness in the qualities within the environment that made their own lives possible. Only the False Face Society deals directly with the evils of Tawiskaron. So once again, similar to the Navajo in the sense they certainly recognized hindrances that they thought were brought by Tawiskaron—they had to come from somewhere, but while Tawiskaron was devilish and malevolent, the community selected a few to perform rituals to prevent him from disrupting the harmony of the world which they mostly saw as beneficial and godly in giving life.
But the Iroquois environment was more bountiful than the Navajo environment. They were able to praise their good fortune in having the aid needed to survive as a people by that environment, and those imbalances that might occur, again deformity, illness and death, were not directly cured by individuals within the community but by the masks that were directly given to them by the trees themselves in allowing the masks to be carved upon them, and worn to ward away misfortune through the natural masks that didn’t expose the wearers to direct confrontation with the misfortunes that existed. In this sense the Iroquois’ worship was not about conforming to any god’s will, but blessing what existed that gave them life, and disguising themselves whenever any untoward events occurred through the blessings that were given by the nature itself. But even though there does appear to be primary spirits that bless and bring harm, within the Iroquois the worship is a blessing for what is provided. The Great Spirit does not tell how they must behave, the gods give them the sustenance. They don’t worship to the Great Spirit, they worship for what exists. Worship does not entail any type of sacrifice, and beyond blessings of gratefulness their “gods” lack all authority in the decision-making of the tribes.
The story of Hiawatha and the Peacemaker is of course, mere legend that was orally transmitted through the generations. Like Homer’s Iliad, there is more than likely a degree of truth to the legend. But unlike Homer’s legends of the battle with Troy, there are no gods intervening or picking favorites. The Iroquois legend has only men warring against each other and only men negotiating for the peace of unity.
San
Most archaeologists believe that the San hunter-gatherer culture dates back 20,000 years. However, some archaeological evidence supports the view that the San should be attributed to the Early Later Stone Age. The San tribes are descendants of the oldest inhabitants of Southern Africa and thus belong to the oldest cultures on earth. The term San is to be understood as a collective term for several indigenous ethnic groups in Southern Africa. These groups include, for example, the ǃKung, |Gui, Ju/'hoansi or Naro Tribe. They are collectively referred to as Khoe-San. Khoe-San genetics reveal that those groups harbor the greatest level of diversity and that their genetic Y chromosome have been traced to the earliest haplogroups, or branches on the human Y-chromosome tree. Mitochondrial DNA studies also provide evidence that the San carry high frequencies of the earliest haplogroup branches in the human mitochondrial DNA tree. This DNA is inherited only from one's mother. The most divergent (oldest) mitochondrial haplogroup, LOd, has been identified at its highest frequencies in the southern African San groups.
They speak Khoisan languages, which rank among the most complex languages in the world. Symbols such as ! or / represent the typical clicks of this language in our alphabet.The San lived near and in the vast expanse of the Kalahari Desert, covering parts of what is now known as Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. The Kalahari is a hot, large semi-arid savanna with lots of sand. Only adapted survival experts who know their environment inside and out will survive here. This unforgiving rule of life applies to humans and animals. African San people are migratory people. That means they do not stay in one place for long. Small mobile family groups, comprising up to 25 men, women and children, carry their simple shelter with them. Whenever available, the nomadic people made use of caves for protection.
The San are excellent hunters and make use of a wide variety of methods. Antelopes and giraffes are just two examples of mammals, birds, reptiles and insects considered huntable. Depending on the animal being tracked, the hunt can last between a few hours and several days in the unrelenting heat and sparse resources. The San use, among other things, pitfall traps or snares. For pitfall traps, they dig a hole, for example at a waterhole that is frequently used by the hunted species, and cover it with branches. If an animal accidentally falls into the trap, it cannot escape this large, deep hole and becomes easy prey. Snare traps are intended to catch smaller species, such as hares. For this trapping method, a deadly snare is formed from plant fibers that tightens when an animal walks into the trap. For hunting larger game they use poisonous bow and arrows when hunting, the poison made from beetles that has the advantage of killing the animal but not poisoning the meat. They often hunt through endurance hunting, the oldest form of human hunting, focuses on chasing animals until they collapse. It is a similar hunting style that wolves use to bring down large game. The wolf hunts in a pack, as do humans, but like humans they cannot outrun their prey. The problem with the wolf is that he only runs at the same speed as his typical prey, but he can out endure the prey and eventually catch up to his prey and surround that prey, again as early human hunters would do, and the San still do. But humans still needed to fashion weapons from nature because we have neither the strength nor the bite of the wolf.
Human can retain their body temperature with sweat pores and their upright walking ability on two legs have a significant advantage when it comes to perseverance. On the other hand, predators such as lions depend on reaching their prey in one go. Otherwise, they would overheat, and the target would escape. The San are sophisticated trackers who know the game and habitat very well, which helps them to lead their way on a persistence hunt and prove that humans can survive in less temperate environments. The San retain their ancient culture and have not succumbed to air conditioned. I know this wisdom is against common parlance, but those who have not lost their ability to withstand many hours of heat will be the most likely to falter if the climate continues. You will survive the heat better if you begin turning using your air conditioner less and less. Believe it or not your body (and a little common sense) is actually a better cooling machine than your air condition as long as you have a bottle of water at hand. I survived ten years in Yuma, Arizona without any indoor cooling unit. And it was another ten degrees warmer in my un air-conditioned ice cream van.
Water is a scarce resource in the Kalahari Desert, and the San learned that by squeezing the root of the “bi! bulb”, it provides them with water when they are running down a prey. They also scoop water from the morning residue and the water droplets are then stored in ostrich eggshells.
Children have no social duties besides playing, and leisure is very important to San of all ages. Large amounts of time are spent in conversation, joking, music, and sacred dances. Women are the leaders of their own family groups and also make important family and group decisions and claim ownership of water holes and foraging areas. Women are mainly involved in the gathering of food, but sometimes also partake in hunting. The matriarchal family is of key importance to the San people since they toil together to obtain food for survival. In addition, the San culture considers women as very important to the society. Women must be consulted before making any major decision for the society. They are married pretty much at puberty in the San community, and like the Iroquois and Navajo, it is the man that moves out to live in the family of the bride, in order to provide for the family’s needs. Although divorce is very common in the San community, marriage rituals are very much treasured by the San people. Traditionally, even though the San are a completely egalitarian society, they do have hereditary chiefs but the San make all of their decisions by consensual agreement, with women treated as equals in decision making. Gifting is extremely important and maintains a relatively conflict free society because they have little recognition that individual survival is not dependent on the community, they value what is shared and don’t tend to challenge each other over possessions.
Khoisan legends and myths do refer to a “trickster” god, who can transform himself into either animal or human forms, and who is capable of dying and being reborn many times over. The praying mantis, a predatory insect with large eyes and other features characteristic of animal predators, figures in San myths and folktales in a role similar to the clever fox in European folktales. Khoisan herdboys still use mantises to “divine” the location of lost animals. In Afrikaans, the mantis is referred to as “the Hottentot’s god.”
The Bushmen in African mythology worshiped Cagn, who is their creator God, an amorphous deity of many parts and capabilities, he can also be called Kaang, Kaggen, Kho, and Thora. The northern Bushmen call him Cagn or Kang, and the southern Bushmen call him Thora. He is a male god; he is known for his ability to transform into anything he wants to; he can change anything from an antelope to a praying mantis. They say he also owns magic sandals, which can turn into guard dogs. People did not always live on the surface of the earth. At one time people and animals lived underneath the earth with Kaang (Käng), the Great Master and Lord of All Life. In this place people and animals lived together peacefully. They understood each other. No one ever wanted for anything and it was always light even though there wasn’t any sun. During this time of bliss Kaang began to plan the wonders he would put in the world above. First Kaang created a wondrous tree, with branches stretching over the entire country. At the base of the tree he dug a hole that reached all the way down into the world where the people and animals lived. After he had finished furnishing the world as he pleased he led the first man up the hole. He sat down on the edge of the hole and soon the first woman came up out of it. Soon all the people were gathered at the foot of the tree, awed by the world they had just entered. Next, Kaang began helping the animals climb out of the hole. In their eagerness some of the animals found a way to climb up through the tree’s roots and come out of the branches. They continued racing out of the world beneath until all of the animals were out. Kaang gathered all the people and animals about him. He instructed them to live together peacefully. Then he turned to the men and women and warned them not to build any fires or a great evil would befall them. They gave their word and Kaang left to where he could watch his world secretly. As evening approached the sun began to sink beneath the horizon. The people and animals stood watching this phenomenon, but when the sun disappeared fear entered the hearts of the people. They could no longer see each other as they lacked the eyes of the animals which were capable of seeing in the dark. They lacked the warm fur of the animals also and soon grew cold. In desperation one man suggested that they build a fire to keep warm. Forgetting Kaang’s warning they disobeyed him. They soon grew warm and were once again able to see each other. However the fire frightened the animals. They fled to the caves and mountains and ever since the people broke Kaang’s command people have not been able to communicate with animals. Now fear has replaced the seat friendship once held between the two groups. The Bushmen of Africa believe that not only are plants and animals alive, but also rain, thunder, the wind, spring, etc. They claim: What we see is only the outside form or body. Inside is a living spirit that we cannot see. These spirits can fly out of one body into another. For example, a woman’s spirit might sometime fly into a leopard; or a man’s spirit fly into a lion’s body. Animals and transformation play important roles in San society because of the scarcity of animals, and because they view the environment as potential heavily and their struggle to survive a necessary punishment for having attempted to transform the night into day. Because of the transformative ability of the world that was created as a transformation, the shaman who is able to transform and enter into the boundaries that the normal Sans person cannot enter. There is little evidence the Shaman regularly uses any types of hallucinogen to transform himself into the spirit of another being (frequently the eland is sought as one of the more powerful beings in their world. Instead the shaman will begin to whirl around in a dance until he enters a trance and he continues to whirl as he is perceived to having transformed himself, if not physically, into the spirit of another animal that helps guide him to give instructions for the community.
As we have seen these societies do not in any way feel above the elements in their community either the physical or the living plants and animals with in their environment. The rituals are centered on oblations of greatness that their “equal partners” within the environment permit them to survive within their environment. Their science, “myths” are attempts to understand the drawbacks that both gave them the environment they survive within and attempting to understand why their environment sometimes is difficult to survive. In all of these myths the environment must be preserved and blessed in order to continue to share in its blessings and rituals are used to give thanks for that survival. But there is a sense of faultness in these myths, that the wrong is their responsibility, for at some point in time, having tried to exercise “dominion” or to have at one timer in the past attempted to exercise dominance against or over their environment at some point in the past, so all of the non-idyllic aspects within their environment that make survival difficult are what they see as “evil”. But the evil is not the kingly conception of sin or crime of rebellion against the god or the state, it is a rebellion against the ideal for having at some point in their past for having tried to alter the environment and the consequence is that to live in harmony with nature and survive within their environment they must remain grateful and respectful for what they have and “worship” what has been given to them because such dominion had introduced all of the hardships and barriers in which they must survive.
On the other hand, the second ritualistic function is a protection from those detriments to survival. Individuals are selected to be their human intercessaries to prevent the entire community from needing to intervene with the spirits who are the “evil spirits” that might bring them harm. These intercessions against harmful aspects in their environment are meant again as preventions rather than alterations to the environment. The Navajo death rites are not aimed at stopping death altogether,but reducing death from capturing more people into its claws than it must. Similarly with the Iroquois’ “fake faces”, and the San shaman. Imbalance rather leads to conflict and only recognizing the un-uniqueness of themselves and a recognition that all of the elements and all of the life-forms are of co-equal importance. And when times are challenging or decisions need to be made they come together to share ideas rather than have leaders to tell them how they must adapt or decide.
Of course that’s a primitive way to think about the world, isn’t it.