Finding and Foregrounding Massage in Khoisan Ethnography

Abstract

This article demonstrates that massage is a commonplace and important healing strategy amongst ‘Khoisan’. Ethnographic and anthropological literature, however, does not seem to reflect this and largely ignores or downplays massage. The article accounts for this apparent anomaly in terms of the contingency of the ethnographic eye. I contend that the primary reasons for this partiality concern the ‘everyday’ and ‘recognisable’ nature of massage and that the low medical status accorded massage through history has persistently deflected ethnographic interest. I further suggest that an overwhelming anthropological focus on the San healing dance has overshadowed recent research into healing strategies and perpetuated an uneven representation of Khoisan medicine. The article then describes how massage and the dance relate to one another in a wider healing context. By linking the dance and massage in this manner, I suggest how aspects of current massage practice continue to operate within distinctive and old Khoisan ways of thinking about and practising medicine. The article ends by presenting examples of ‘Khoi’ disease categories and their treatment by massage. Whilst not going so far as to identify a Khoisan ‘medical system’, the article uses massage to lay the bones of a distinctive and coherent approach to illness and treatment.

Notes

^*Khoisan is a recognised European compound of ‘Khoi’ (modern Khoe) and ‘San’. In the following I use the term ‘Khoi’ to refer to the Nama, Damara and Topnaar as opposed to ‘Khoe’, which as a linguistic reference also includes certain San groups. I would like to thank the ESRC for their continued support of my research through doctoral funding and a Research Fellowship.

¹ C.H. Low, ‘Khoisan Healing: Understandings, Ideas and Practices’ (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 2004).

² M. Biesele, Women Like Meat: The Folklore and Foraging Ideology of the Kalahari Ju/’hoan (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993), p. 13.

³ C.T. Onions (ed.), The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 3rd edn. (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 1,286.

⁴ Ten Rhyne, ‘Schediasma de Promontorio Bonae Spei’, in I. Schapera (ed.), The Early Cape Hottentots Described in the Writings of Olfert Dapper (1668), Willem Ten Rhyne (1686) and Johannes Gulielmus De Grevenbroek (1695) (Cape Town, The Van Riebeek Society, 1933), p. 115; P. Kolben, The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope (London, 1731), p. 141.

⁵ D. Beeckman, A Voyage to and from the Island of Borneo in the East-Indies (London, 1718), p. 186.

⁶ P. Cullinan (ed.), Robert Jacob Gordon 1743–1795: The Man and his Travels at the Cape (Cape Town, Struik Winchester, 1992), p. 23.

⁷ Early distinction between Hottentots and Bushmen is not obvious, although most early contact was clearly Hottentot owing to their far closer and more extensive interaction with early settlers. Distinction becomes increasingly clearer through the nineteenth century.

⁸ P. Raper and M. Boucher (eds), Robert Jacob Gordon: Cape Travels, 1777 to 1786 (Houghton, The Brenthurst Press, 1988), p. 203.

⁹ Morden, Geography Rectified, or a Description of the World (London, 1680).

¹⁰ C.P. Thunberg, Travels at the Cape of Good Hope 1772–1775, based on an English edition 1793–1795, V.S. Forbes (ed.), second series, 17 (Cape Town, Van Riebeek Society, 1986), p. 64.

¹¹ I. Schapera, The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa: Hottentots and Bushmen (London, George Routledge, 1930), pp. 217, 410.

¹² R. Viljoen, ‘Medicine, Health and Medical Practice in Precolonial Khoikhoi Society: An Anthropological-Historical Perspective’, History and Anthropology, 2, 4 (1999), p. 530.

¹³ R. Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity from Antiquity to the Present (London, Harper Collins, 1997), p. 51.

¹⁴ H. Skinner, The Origin of Medical Terms, 2nd edn. (Baltimore, Williams and Wilkins, 1970), p. 265.

¹⁵ M. Bloch, ‘What goes without Saying’, in A. Kuper (ed.), Conceptualizing Society (London, Routledge, 1992), pp. 127–46.

¹⁶ Rivers cited by F.H. Garrison, Introduction to the History of Medicine, 4th edn. (Philadelphia; London, Saunders, 1929), p. 27; Collocot (1923) cited by E. Ackerknecht, ‘Natural Diseases and Rational Treatment in Primitive Medicine’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 19, 5 (1946), p. 478.

¹⁷ H. Schintz, Deutsch-Sudwest Afrika: Forschungsreisen durch die deutschen Schutzgebiete Gross Nama und Hereroland 1884–1887 (Oldenburg und Leipzig, 1891).

¹⁸ To which could be added, amongst others: L. Scheben, ‘Etwas über die Medizin der Eingeborenen Deutsch-Südwestafrikas’, Archiv für Schiffs- und Tropenhygiene, 14, 21 (1910), pp. 665–71 and L. Stahlhut, ‘Von den Krankheiten den Hottentotten’, Jahrbuch der Ärztlichen Mission (1914), pp. 113–18.

¹⁹ My translation, A. Lübbert, ‘Klein Nachrichten’, Globus, 80, 4 (July 1901), p. 67.

²⁰ L. Schultze, Aus Namaland und Kalahari (Jena, 1907), pp. 215–17.

²¹ A.W. Hoernlé, ‘Certain Rites of Transition and the Conception of !Nau among the Hottentots’, Harvard African Studies, 2 (1918), pp. 65–82.

²² University of Cape Town Libraries, Manuscript and Archives Dept., P.W. Laidler, ‘Manners, Medicine and Magic of the Cape Hottentots’ (unpublished thesis?, [1924?]), p. 173.

²³ V. Lebzelter, Rassen und Kulturen in Südafrika:wissenschafliche Ergebnisse einer Forschungsreise nach Süd und Südwestafrika in den Jahren 1926–1928, 2 Vols (Leipzig, K.W. Hiersemann, 1930–1934), Vol. 2, pp. 45–46.

²⁴ M. Schladt, Heinrich Vedder's The Bergdama: an Anotated Translation of the German Original with Additional Ethnographic Material by Adi Inskeep (Köln, Rüdiger Köppe, 2003), p. 64.

²⁵ H-J. Heinz and M. Lee, Namkwa: Life Among the Bushmen (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1979), p. 169.

²⁷ Katz, Boiling Energy, p. 51.

²⁶ M. Guenther, ‘The Trance Dancer as an Agent of Social Change among the Farm Bushmen of the Ghanzi District’, Botswana Notes and Records, 6 (1975), pp. 161–66; M. Guenther, The Nharo Bushmen: Tradition and Change (Hamburg, Helmut Buske Verlag, 1986); R. Katz, Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1982); R. Katz, M. Biesele, V. St Denis, Healing Makes our Hearts Happy: Spirituality and Cultural Transformation among the Kalahari Ju/'hoansi (Vermont, Inner Traditions, 1997); Biesele Women Like Meat; J.D. Lewis-Williams, Believing and Seeing: Symbolic Meaning in Southern San Rock Paintings (London, Academic Press, 1981); J.D. Lewis-Williams and D. Pearce, San Spirituality: Roots, Expressions and Social Consequences (Cape Town, Double Storey, 2004); B. Keeney, Bushman Shaman: Awakening the Spirit through Ecstatic Dance (Vermont, Destiny Books, 2005).

²⁸ R.B. Lee, The Dobe Ju/'hoansi (Australia, Wadsworth, 2003), pp. 133, 135.

²⁹ L. Marshall, Nyae Nyae !Kung: Beliefs and Rites (Cambridge, MA, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, 1999), p. 45.

³⁰ P. Carstens ‘Some Implications of Change in Khoikhoi Supernatural Beliefs’, in M. Whisson and M. West (eds), Religion and Social Change in Southern Africa (Cape Town, David Philip, 1975); R. Elphick, Kraal and Castle: Khoikhoi and the Founding of White South Africa (London, New Haven, 1977); B. Lau, Southern and Central Namibia in Jonker Afrokaner's Time (Windhoek, National Archives, 1987); S. Schmidt, ‘Present Day Trance Dances of the Dama in SWA/Namibia’, African Languages of Southern Africa, Khoisan SIG: Newsletter 4 (1986), pp. 3–14; M. Wallace, ‘Health and Society in Windhoek, Namibia’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1997). S. Sullivan, ‘People, Plants and Practice in Drylands’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1998); T.W. Lumpkin, Traditional Healers and Community Use of Traditional Medicine in Namibia' (Windhoek Ministry of Health and Social Services and UNICEF, 1994); D. Wagner-Robertz, ‘Ein Heilungsritual der Dama Südwestafrika/Namibia’, in M. Bollig and W.J.G. Möhlig (eds), History, Cultural Traditions and Innovations in Southern Africa, 12 (Köln, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, 2000); D. Le Beau, ‘Seeking Health: The Hierarchy of Resort in Utilisation Patterns of Traditional and Western Medicine in Multi-Cultural Katutura, Namibia’ (Ph.D. thesis, Rhodes University, 2000).

³¹ D. Le Beau: ‘Seeking Health: The Hierarchy of Resort in Utilisation Patterns of Traditional and Western Medicine in Multi-Cultural Katutura, Namibia’ (Ph.D. thesis, Rhodes University, 2000), p. 134.

³² J.D. Lewis-Williams and T.A. Dowson, ‘Aspects of Rock Art Research: A Critical Retrospect’, in T.A. Dowson and J.D. Lewis-Williams (eds), Contested Images: Diversity in Southern African Rock Art Research (Johannesburg, Witwatersrand University Press, 1994), p. 220.

³³ J. Janzen, The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaïre (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, 1978); J. Vansina, Paths in the Rainforest: Towards a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa (Madison, University of Wisconsin, 1990); G. Prins, ‘A Modern History of Lozi Therapeutics’, in J. Janzen and S. Feierman (eds), The Social Basis of Health and Healing in Africa (Berkeley; Los Angeles; Oxford, University of California Press, 1992), pp. 339–65; Lewis-Williams, Believing and Seeing; Lewis-Williams and Pearce, San Spirituality; Biesele, Women Like Meat.

³⁴ L. Marshall, ‘The Medicine Dance of the !Kung Bushmen’, Africa, 39 (1969), p. 351.

³⁵ //Aru (Xaru), near Tsumkwe, 23 August 2001.

³⁶ G. Silberbauer, Bushman Survey Report: an Official Report for the Bechuanaland Government (Gabarone, Bechuanaland Government Publication, 1965), p. 97.

³⁷ H. Vedder, South West Africa in Early Times: Being the Story of South West Africa up to the Date of Maherero's Death in 1890 (London, Oxford University Press, 1938), p. 88.

³⁸ Barnard notes Silberbauer and Eibl-Eibesfeldt have read /Gwi practices differently; one relates Bushmen as pulling out sickness arrows, the other pulling out ‘evil’. This could represent different interpretations or, as likely, inconsistent and inchoate /Gwi ideas. A. Barnard, Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 114.

³⁹ Guenther, The Nharo Bushmen, p. 216.

⁴⁰ Johannes Taurob, Sesfontein, 6 April 2001.

⁴¹ David Cisje Kgao, //Aru 28/8/01.

⁴² See E. Hsu and C.H. Low (eds), ‘Wind, Life, Health: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Special Issue, 2 (March 2007).

⁴³ See Katz et al., Healing Makes our Hearts Happy, p. 43; Low, ‘Khoisan Healing’, pp. 137 & 220.

⁴⁴ For example, Grevenbroek, ‘An Elegant and Accurate Account …’, in Schapera (ed.), The Early Cape Hottentots, p. 243.

⁴⁵ Lewis-Williams, Believing and Seeing, p. 51.

⁴⁶ R. Hewitt, Structure, Meaning and Ritual in the Narratives of the Southern San, Quellen zur Khoisan Forschung 2 (Hamburg, Helmut Buske Verlag, 1986), p. 294.

⁴⁷ See H.J. Heinz, ‘The Bushmen's Store of Scientific Knowledge’, in P.V. Tobias (ed.), The Bushmen: San Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa (Cape Town, Human and Rousseau, 1978), pp. 148–62.

⁴⁸ Johanna !Khachas, Swartdam, 22 May 2001.

⁴⁹ Paul Taseb, Hoachanas, 25 May 2001.

⁵⁰ Kolben, cited by Laidler, ‘Manners, Medicine and Magic of the Cape Hottentots’, p. 171.

⁵¹ C. Low, ‘Different Histories of Buchu: Euro-American Appropriation of San and Khoekhoe Knowledge of Buchu Plants’, Environment and History, 13, 3 (August 2007), pp. 333–61.

⁵² Near Tsumkwe, 26 August 2001.

⁵³ A. Sparrman, A Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope… from the Year 1772 to 1776 (London, 1786), p. 150.

⁵⁴ Katz, Boiling Energy, pp. 201 & 203.

⁵⁵ In the context of treatment of paralysis, Hoernlé noted the use of a plant ‘//autus heip’, literally ‘//autus plant’. See Hoernlé, ‘Certain Rites of Transition’, p. 78.

⁵⁶ W.H.G. Haacke and Eliphas Eiseb, Khoekhoegowab-English, English-Khoekhoegowab Glossasy/Mîdi Saogub (Windhoek, Gamsberg Macmillan, 1999), p. 94.

⁵⁷ Ibid., p. 102.

⁵⁸ Bertha, surname not given, Windhoek, 12 May 2001.

⁵⁹ Helena Muzorongondo, 19 May 2001.

⁶⁰ Feierman and Janzen (eds), The Social Basis; L. White, ‘Tsetse Visions: Narratives of Blood and Bugs in Colonial Rhodesia, 1931–9’, Journal of African History, 36, 2 (1995), pp. 215–45.

⁶¹ Low, ‘Khoisan Healing’.

⁶² Hsu and Low (eds), ‘Wind, Life, Health’.