| Recent and Forthcoming publications and conferences |
| Papers: |
| Birds and KhoeSan: linking spirit and healing with day-to-day life. Africa 81 (2) 2011:295-313. Abstract It is not surprising that animals have played a significant role in KhoeSaˉn cosmology but identifying exactly what that role is and how it relates to different contexts of belief and action is more challenging. This article identifies a special role for birds in KhoeSaˉn thought and practice, which is tightly bound to matters of spirit and healing, seems relatively cohesive and is distinctive and widespread, both culturally and historically. Working out from a detailed KhoeSaˉn medical ethnography and using bird examples taken from a wide range of KhoeSaˉn, I argue that bird relationships are best understood by re-framing popular ideas of ‘supernatural potency’ within persistent habits of perception and the opportunities or challenges they present. I further highlight how KhoeSaˉn interaction with birds must be linked to particular relationships with knowledge in order to understand why birds are so salient. I conclude by emphasizing the dangers of explaining KhoeSaˉn bird relationships within potentially distorting categories of ‘metaphor’. |
| 'KhoeSan shamanistic relationships with snakes and rain'. Journal of Namibian Studies, 2012 (12): 71-96. Abstract In 1874 an article on Bushman rock art by colonial magistrate Joseph Orpen was published in the Cape Monthly Magazine. The article, which subsequently proved to be highly influential in Southern African rock art studies, contains intriguing references to charm medicine containing ‘burnt snake powder’. Despite Orpen’s work being widely known and the highly unusual nature of his references, they have not, as yet, been examined in greater detail. In this paper I look at what makes these references so distinctive, how they might relate to a KhoeSan healing dance and whether they reveal a distinct later nineteenth century relationship between Bushmen, Khoekhoe, snakes and rain. Both historically and in more recent times there is evidence of people amongst the KhoeSan known as ‘poison doctors’ who profess immunity to snake-bites. I explore connections between this immunity and snake charm medicine and ask whether poison doctors of the past may have been called upon to beseech the divine Water Snake to bring rain. Outlining the broader context of KhoeSan snake beliefs and snake relationships, I then go on to examine the connections between snakes, rain and KhoeSan divinity, which place the snake, and particularly the python, at the heart of KhoeSan ontology and epistemology. |
| Conferences / Seminars |
| Forthcoming: 'Kalahari Bushmen Osteopaths? Exploring overlaps between osteopathy and the shamanic medicine of African Bushmen hunter-gatherers'. A talk to be given on March 4th, 2014, 6.30-8.00 pm, Room G02 at: Manus Sinistra, British School of Osteopathy Student Osteopathic Society, British School of Osteopathy, 275 Borough High Street, London, SE1 1JE. Recent 'Bushman Relationships with Animals: New Interpretations of South African Rock Art'. Workshop on the history of relationships between humans and animals. Fellows Dining Room, St Antony's College, Oxford University, Friday 25th October, 2013, 10.30 am to 4.30pm. Programme ‘'The Role of the Body in Bushman Healing Dances' 10th Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies. Liverpool, 25-28 June 2013. Abstract This paper examines how the stylized and improvised practices of African Bushman ‘dancing’ relate to the creation, transformation and persistence of Bushman knowledge. Bradford Keeney argues that the Bushman healing dance may involve trancing but the key component and aim of these dances is to induce transformational states through shaking. I explore how the rituals and methods of dancing centre around mechanisms of stimulation, including shaking, rhythmic movement and sound, pain, blowing in the ears, heat, prodding, vibrational touching, smell and staring. Building on Keeney, I examine how this repertoire of techniques is utilized and how they configure and contribute to the ideational landscape that underscores Bushman life. My analysis draws on ethnography, personal participatory experience and physiological interpretation from a range of disciplines, including biomedical analysis, Batson’s cybernetics and osteopathy. 'We sometimes wish it had never happened’: Broken dreams, future directions and the Kalahari land claim of the ≠Khomani Bushmen’, CAS@50: Cutting Edges and Retrospectives, 6-8 June 2012, University of Edinburgh. |
| KhoeSan ethnography, 'new animism' and the interpretation of Southern African rock art. South African Archaeological Bulletin, 2014. Abstract In 2007 Thomas Dowson argued that interpretation of southern African rock art was hamstrung by discussion of the significance and role of the shaman. Dowson offered an alternative approach in which he sought to resituate the shaman in an animic hunter-gatherer ontology. At the core of his argument, Dowson proposed that the control of supernatural potency was not the exclusive preserve of the shaman and all humans and non-human animals circulated potency in activities that constituted their identities. In this paper I support Dowson's turn to anthropology and performativity, but I question the mismatch between the broad-brush theory of animism Dowson applies and the actual details of Bushmen ontology, their ideas of identity, their relationships with knowledge and the pragmatism and practicality that underpins their lives. I seek to re-orientate Dowson's interpretation towards a far more characteristic representation of Bushmen than that inherent in unfamiliar ideas of circulating potency. Drawing on detailed ethnography and extensive fieldwork, I explore Dowson's proposal in terms of Bushman hunting, Bushman relationships with animals and god and the role and meaning of potency in Bushman life. In a final section I assess the implications of these findings to the interpretation of southern African rock art. |