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Dxui: Myths Passed Down by the Bushmen
| Article
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12069 |
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Section : |
CULTURE
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1987 |
2,791 Words |
| Author
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Laurens van der Post
Born in South Africa in 1906 to parents of Dutch and French
Huguenot descent, Laurens van der Post is best known for his
passionate love of Africa, particularly its aboriginal people.
The Bushmen had nearly vanished from their native land,
exterminated by invaders both African and European. In 1975
van der Post began a journey through the Kalahari Desert to
search for remnants of the legendary hunters and rock-
painters, a journey he later immortalized in film and
literature. |
Editor's note: In The Heart of the Hunter, van der Post relates not only the story of his journey out of the Kalahari, but also many of the myths of the Bushmen. But since the Bushman's images and idioms would be utterly incomprehensible to a modern audience, van der Post draws deeply on his experiences and provides interpretations. Thus he attempts to provide a "kind of improvised rope-bridge over the deep abyss between the modern man and the first person of Africa." Probably no one was better suited for the task.
In the beginning, St. John says, was the Word. I believe that is a way of saying that in the beginning there was meaning. This word, this meaning according to the bible was with God and indeed was God. The ancient Chinese said something similar when they defined meaning as that which has always existed through itself. Somehow this meaning demanded also to be lived. As St. John puts it again, the word was made flesh. A similar intimation of its beginnings seems to me present in the first spirit of Africa. It is true the Bushmen I had just met in the Kalahari were not very communicative in this respect. I think it needed more time, more trust and patience that than I commanded to elicit from them the full image in which this intimation moves over the mystery of the beginning in their spirit in search of some conscious thought to contain it--like the first bird let out of the ark searching over the dark waters of the Old Testament flood for some tangible fact of earth or rock to light upon. When I pressed them to talk to me about he beginning they seemed to lose their power of speech, and the only significant answer was given to me one night by my favorite hunter. Distressed by my persistence and his inability to satisfy my curiosity, he said, "But you see, it is very difficult, for always there is a dream dreaming us."
It was a pregnant hint. Quite apart from its likeness to the Shakespearian assertion: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on," it confirmed the observation of the French man, who was among the first to examine the life of primitive people with no feeling of superiority or abhorrence that "the dream is the true God of primitive man." Believing as I do that the dream is not a waste product of the mind expelled through some sewage system of the spirit but a manifestation of first and abiding meaning, I thought I should enlarge St. John's theme to include the idea that in the beginning there was a dream. This dream was with God and indeed was God. Somehow this dream demanded that it should be lived. As St. John might have put it, "the dream was made of flesh."
Fortunately I did
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