The age-old term that the hearth is one's home is especially true of the Bushmen of Botswana, who build the rudimentary shelters of sticks and straw of perennial nomads, buy who every night congregate, share, dance and heal around an open fire.
Sharing is essential for survival in this World of barrenness and the hearth is the place where the glue of the social fabric is re-applied each day through singing, dancing and Story-telling.
There is no space for secrets or duplicity in such close confines. There is usually much mirth, even a ritualised form of ridiculing one another that avoids offence.' As the evening fire crackles into life there is much chatter and laughter, the resonant clicks in their language sounding like bird calls. In complete contrast, hunting needs to be done in absolute silence.
For this the Bushmen have developed a second language that consists as much of head and hand signals as subtle body language. One sudden sound or movement could startle the extremely wary and keen sensed game of the Kalahari. But the rewards for a skilled tracker and bowman are great. No greater than slaying eland, the most cautious of all animals, which disappear like the flames of a runaway wildfire licking the tops of the shimmering dunes at midday.
When an animal is killed every part is used. Whoever provided the killing arrow will have first choice of cut — which is why hunters are so free in offering their arrows for use. Even more prized than meat are the fat and organs. Bone, sinew and skin — everything has a use, even the gall that is a binding agent. Most of the organs are eaten at the kill, except for the stomach, which is made into a blood pudding and presented to the women of the clan as their special treat.
Probably the most celebrated event in the lives of the Bushmen is the trance dance. Each clan will have a principal shaman who is responsible for their well-being. He will be their conduit between the physical world and the supernatural world of gods, animal spirits and the spirits of the ancestors. Iris not just a social event but also an important ritual of healing.
The shaman will decide when a trance dance is needed - at a time of healing or conflict or to call on supernatural help or advice. Although the shaman will lead the dance around the communal fire, any man in the clan may participate while the women and children sit in an outer circle, clapping and singing to keep up a steady rhythm. As the dancers stamp their feet, shaking their ankle rattles, some start to tremble with n/um energy, the hypnotic tempo seeming to trigger convulsions and cause a final state of transcendence or !hia.
Not all men are capable of inducing a trance state, and as some enter fits that look like seizures, often throwing themselves into the fire, those not affected will make sure that they do not do permanent harm to themselves. States of altered consciousness can be accelerated with cannabis and other natural hallucinogenics.
With the help of n/ um the dancers ascend the western (dying) sky on a thread of electric-like energy. There they commune with the animal spirits and this is then shared with the clan and facilitates healing. Heaven and earth, birth and death, plants, animals and humans are all linked in a cosmic vision of life in which harmony binds all.
