Notes Dobe Ju belief systems
Chapter 9: Coping with life: Religion, World View, and Healing
Uncertainty/Forces beyond their control = illness, misfortune, death -> counteract forces/gain some control over their lives = cultural meaning and sense of things (VERY important).
Dobe Ju system = forces beyond natural = high god, lesser god, animal spirits (bring luck, misfortune, success and failure).
Gangwasi = ghosts of the recently deceased = cause illness and misfortune.
Restore health/good fortune = herbs, spells, and magic spells and practices … n/um = magical medicine/energy given by the gods to enter in trances and heal people.
Plead, argue and battle the gangwasi to leave them alone.
Trances = in all-night dances, change, new manifestation, and revelation in dreams, trances and illnesses.
Pragmatic in other belief systems = African witchcraft and European medicine and practices.
Lee’s experience: Kasupe (Dobe member), curing ceremony, middle of the afternoon, women singing, healer rubbing body with sweat and moaning -> Kasupe fell into a lion’s trap set by the Herero hurting his ankle really bad -> wound really infected (dirt and blond and dirty bandages) -> healer said, “It’s not the leg killing him, it’s dead N=isa; angry, dead, N=isa”.
Healers = trance = change into something else = see things ordiary people can’t = mind goes blank, no pain, ground spins = ghosts themselves = see the dead (gangwasi).
Alive = good; when they die = turn bad.
God or the gangwasi can kill people.
Several origin myths -> eg. humans and animals lived together in a village led by an elephant.
Two major deities = high god (big big god) and low god (trickster god).
Different myths about the nature of gods = high-good, low-evil (or viceversa); high-creator, low-destroyer/death; high-creator&destroyer.
“Heaven ate him/her” if the person lived a long life and died peacefully, but if the person dies from an illness or accident then gangwasi are involved.
Healers interact with ganwasi differently
Uncertainty/Forces beyond their control = illness, misfortune, death -> counteract forces/gain some control over their lives = cultural meaning and sense of things (VERY important).
Dobe Ju system = forces beyond natural = high god, lesser god, animal spirits (bring luck, misfortune, success and failure).
Gangwasi = ghosts of the recently deceased = cause illness and misfortune.
Restore health/good fortune = herbs, spells, and magic spells and practices … n/um = magical medicine/energy given by the gods to enter in trances and heal people.
Plead, argue and battle the gangwasi to leave them alone.
Trances = in all-night dances, change, new manifestation, and revelation in dreams, trances and illnesses.
Pragmatic in other belief systems = African witchcraft and European medicine and practices.
Lee’s experience: Kasupe (Dobe member), curing ceremony, middle of the afternoon, women singing, healer rubbing body with sweat and moaning -> Kasupe fell into a lion’s trap set by the Herero hurting his ankle really bad -> wound really infected (dirt and blond and dirty bandages) -> healer said, “It’s not the leg killing him, it’s dead N=isa; angry, dead, N=isa”.
Healers = trance = change into something else = see things ordiary people can’t = mind goes blank, no pain, ground spins = ghosts themselves = see the dead (gangwasi).
Alive = good; when they die = turn bad.
God or the gangwasi can kill people.
Several origin myths -> eg. humans and animals lived together in a village led by an elephant.
Two major deities = high god (big big god) and low god (trickster god).
Different myths about the nature of gods = high-good, low-evil (or viceversa); high-creator, low-destroyer/death; high-creator&destroyer.
“Heaven ate him/her” if the person lived a long life and died peacefully, but if the person dies from an illness or accident then gangwasi are involved.
Healers interact with ganwasi differently