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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:At War with God: Ju/'Hoan Curing Dances
Author:Platvoet, Jan G.ISNI
Year:1999
Periodical:Journal of Religion in Africa
Volume:29
Issue:1
Pages:2-61
Language:English
Geographic terms:Botswana
Namibia
Subjects:African religions
dance
religious rituals
San
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Religion and Witchcraft
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/1581786
Abstract:In the 1950s and 1960s, only a few !Kung-speaking San, or Bushmen, continued to follow the traditional way of life of nomadic food gathering in the Kalahari semi-desert of southern Africa. One group was formed by the Ju/'hoansi of the Nyae-Nyae and Dobe areas of the northwestern Kalahari, along the Namibia-Botswana border. This paper discusses Ju/'hoansi religion. Their central rite was the curing dance, an all-night ritual which they often practised (and still practise now). It served as their main means of maintaining solidarity, partly because the dance was itself a process of sharing, of 'n/um', curing power, and partly because it served as a ritual of exclusion. God and the deceased were blamed for the evil present in the group, were declared 'personae non gratae' and refused admission to the dances as unwelcome aliens, the !Kung waging a continual ritual war upon them as their sole enemies. The special interest of this religion and this ritual for the comparative study of religions is highlighted by an examination of the link between the anthropological study of the !Kung curing dances and recent archaeological research on San rock paintings. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum.
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