Healer

A woman named Be was alone in the bush one day in Namibia, when she saw a herd of giraffes running before an approaching thunderstorm. The rolling beat of their hooves grew louder and mingled in her head with the sound of sudden rain. Suddenly a song she had never heard before came to her, and she began to sing.

Gauwa (the great god) told her it was a medicine song. Be went home and taught the song to her husband, Tike. They sang and danced it together. And it was, indeed, a song for trancing, a medicine song. Tike taught it to others, who passed it on.

As described by Marguerite Anne Biesele in Folklore and Ritual of !Kung Hunter-Gatherers, Cambridge, 1975

Ancestor of the North
e-mail me
Dream Basket
Return to 1992 Shaman Wall Calendar
Ⓒ The Susan Eleanor Boulet Trust (illustration)