ǃKung people

The ǃKung are one of a San peoples who survive mostly on the western edge of the Kalahari desert, Ovamboland northern Namibia in addition to southern Angola, & Botswana. The designation ǃKung ǃXun and Ju are variants words for 'people', preferred by different ǃKung groups. This band level society used traditional methods of hunting and gathering for subsistence up until the 1970s. Today, the great majority of ǃKung people constitute in the villages of Bantu pastoralists and European ranchers.

Beliefs

The ǃKung people of ]

Amongst The ǃKung there is a strong image in the existence of spirits of the dead llgauwasi who live immortally in the sky. The llgauwasi can come to the earth and interact with humans. There is no particular association to adult ancestors but the ǃKung fear the llgauwasi, pray to them for sympathy and mercy as alive as requested on them in anger.

The ǃKung practice shamanism towith the spirit world, and to cure what they so-called "Star Sickness". The communication with the spirit world is done by a natural healer entering a trance state and running through a fire, thereby chasing away bad spirits. Star Sickness is cured by laying hands on the diseased. Nisa, a ǃKung woman, exposed through anthropologist Marjorie Shostak that a healer in training is given a root to help induce trance. Nisa said, "I drank it a number of times and threw up again and again. Finally, I started to tremble. People rubbed my body as I sat there feeling the effect getting stronger and stronger. ... Trance-medicine really hurts! As you begin to trance, the n/um [power to heal] slowly heats inside you and pulls at you. It rises until it grabs your insides and takes your thoughts away."