{"id":895,"date":"2025-03-19T15:43:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-19T15:43:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/?page_id=895"},"modified":"2025-03-19T15:54:52","modified_gmt":"2025-03-19T15:54:52","slug":"elementor-895","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/index.php\/elementor-895\/","title":{"rendered":"Elementor #895"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Paul lives on a community farm not far from the south west corner of Etosha National Park,\u00a0<\/span>Namibia. He is around 61 years old (2009). He moved onto his third of an acre plot in 1998. He\u00a0<\/span>farms cattle and goats but because his land is so small he has to take them to his brother-in-law\u2019s farm for grazing. When he was younger he worked \u00a0on white owned farms, riding horses and moving cattle. As a boy he had to teach himself to hunt because his grandfathers were dead and\u00a0<\/span>his father was busy working on the farm. Both his father and grandfather were healers.<\/p>

Paul treats many kinds of sicknesses, but when I first asked him what he treats, \u00a0he replied \u2018sticky pain\u2019 and problems walking. Sticky pain is a term used amongst Damara and Hai\/\/om. It is applied to\u00a0<\/span>different scenarios involving sharp pain, like that caused by the jabbing of a needle. It might, for\u00a0<\/span>example, be used in the context of pain caused by the !arab being dislocated (!arab seems to equate to the aortic artery, see Low \u2018 Finding and Foregrounding Massage\u2019, 2007). It is more commonly used in cases of chest pain and joint pain. Paul believes sticky pain is often caused by \u00a0<\/span>tendon problems. Paul elaborated on his treatment for walking difficulties that, \u00a0if someone is very\u00a0<\/span>sick and he is not treated, then their \u00a0joints become \u2018loose\u2019. The association between loose joints\u00a0<\/span>and illness is a common one amongst Damara and Hai\/\/om healers and certain conditions are diagnosed by the ability of a healer to insert their finger into the \u2018gap\u2019 of joints, a confirmatory\u00a0<\/span>sign that they are loose. This particularly applies to diagnosis of spinal trouble. Paul noted that\u00a0<\/span>loose joints illness is caused by God and \u2018people who \u00a0bring these loose joints together work with\u00a0<\/span>God because everything is from God and if that God helps then the person can walk, \u00a0if he does\u00a0<\/span>not answer, the person can die, can ‘lie down\u2019. Lying down is a typical KhoeSan idiomatic reference to death.<\/p>

The God that Paul speaks of is the God of the local Christian churches and the missionaries that have had a presence in the area for over a century. Despite this longevity\u00a0<\/span>of contact though, and Paul\u2019s ready talk of God and praying to God, his relationship with\u00a0<\/span>Christianity, like that of many rural KhoeSan, retains a distinctive unfamiliarity and distance from\u00a0<\/span>that of literate educated Namibians.<\/p>

Paul determines what is causing a person\u2019s sickness by listening to them, reading his beads,\u00a0<\/span>garas (possibly a variant of karas), or by holding a healing dance during which he can \u2018see\u2019 the\u00a0<\/span>cause of sickness within a person. He sees how \u2018big\u2019 the problem is when dancing, and if the\u00a0<\/span>problem is too big for him he will tell the person and suggests they attend an alternative\u00a0<\/span>\u2018traditional doctor\u2019 or visit a medical clinic or hospital. He cannot treat the \u2018new sicknesses\u2019 such\u00a0<\/span>as AIDS. Paul charges a small amount for healing, in the region of $60.00 N. for a healing dance.<\/p>

When I was with Paul he reported treating problems by sucking the body of the afflicted person\u00a0<\/span>or giving them a herbal remedy. As part of the sucking procedure he also beseeched dead\u00a0<\/span>people to \u00a0leave the afflicted person alone. \u00a0I suspect, however, that he will equally use animal\u00a0<\/span>based cures and incorporate a range of rural folk remedies that draw mainly on Afrikaans commercial medicines and medical practices he has encountered amongst his family circle and\u00a0<\/span>from working and living amongst other farm workers from a range of backgrounds and ethnic\u00a0<\/span>groups.<\/p>

If someone complains of sticky pain in their joints Paul will not just suck where the problem is but\u00a0<\/span>will suck over the body according to what he sees. Paul observed that often leg or knee pain\u00a0<\/span>must be treated by sucking over the back or chest. Paul relied largely on ideas of tendons as both the cause of local joint problems and as something that might explain pain that is remote\u00a0<\/span>from the cause.<\/p>

If Paul is typical of other KhoeSan healers, ideas of how the body is connected\u00a0<\/span>by God-given motive force revolve around blood, wind ( see Low \u2018KhoiSan Wind\u2019, 2007), tendons\u00a0<\/span>and ligaments. Pathology is often attributed to \u2018dirtiness\u2019 \u00a0in the blood or knots or other blockage\u00a0<\/span>in the tendons and ligaments. He, like all the other \u2018uneducated\u2019 KhoeSan I have met, does not\u00a0<\/span>seem to have a concept of a \u2018nervous system\u2019.<\/p>

Paul described a series of extraordinary events in his life that eventually led him to recognise his\u00a0<\/span>transformation into a healer. He believes being a healer is a difficult thing, it can be painful and\u00a0<\/span>frightening but there is nothing he can do about it. His transformation started when he was a\u00a0<\/span>teenager and was out \u00a0one day hunting after dark. Whilst walking about he passed a tree in\u00a0<\/span>which he noticed an animal, a khai dow (?), that was like a baby oryx. As he passed by the tree\u00a0<\/span>he became lost but kept walking through the night until he saw a fire, which he approached\u00a0<\/span>thinking it would be by a house. It was not, however, a house, but the khai dow. When he\u00a0<\/span>approached it, the animal attacked him and threw him over. As he fell the animal \u2018grabbed him\u00a0<\/span>under the arm and ran and left him at the gate of a farmhouse\u2019. From that time on he became\u00a0<\/span>unwell. To help him his mother took him to traditional doctors who told him he had a \/gais (see\u00a0<\/span>Low \u2018Khoisan Healing: Understandings, Ideas and Practices\u2019, (DPhil thesis, 2004) ). Afraid of this\u00a0<\/span>news he fled to Outjo where he stayed until the police came to find him at the behest of the white\u00a0<\/span>farmer. The police took him to stay on another farm.<\/p>

On this second farm further events heralded\u00a0<\/span>the onset of his \u2018seeing things like a dream\u2019 and his becoming a traditional healer.<\/p>

Similarly to his previous encounter with the khai dow, not long after arriving at this second farm\u00a0<\/span>Paul was out with the goats when he became lost in country he knew very well. Whilst wondering\u00a0<\/span>where he was he encountered a lion. Paul \u2018didn\u2019t want the lion\u2019 but the lion came over to Paul and pushed him with his head. Paul stood their crying with panic when a voice came to him saying,\u00a0<\/span>\u2018why don\u2019t you just follow the lion?\u2019. At the same time the lion pushed Paul, encouraging him to\u00a0<\/span>hold onto his tail. Paul didn\u2019t want to and resisted. Nonetheless he took the tail and held onto it,\u00a0<\/span>whereupon the lion guided Paul back home. Paul knows lion do not live in that area. This was,\u00a0<\/span>however, a \u2018real\u2019 lion and he thought things particularly started to happen after this encounter.<\/p>

On another occasion, whilst \u00a0living on this same farm, Paul was once out with the goats when he\u00a0<\/span>was struck by lightning. The lightning struck because Paul had a \/gais, \u2260nubis. It was this \/gais\u00a0<\/span>that lay behind his lion encounter. He contrasted this \/gais with the !Kung (Ju\/\u2019hoansi) \/gais that\u00a0<\/span>stand up ( mabis). His \/gais sits down. \u00a0Other Damara and Hai\/\/om reported that, the more\u00a0<\/span>lightning strikes a healer has undergone, the stronger they become. Paul went on to describe\u00a0<\/span>that he was subsequently struck by lightning a number of times and he currently has three \/gais.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

These \u00a0\/gais seemed to have different names and the relationship with his \u2260nubis \/gais was\u00a0<\/span>unclear. This increase in number may be attributable to these successive lightning strikes. His\u00a0<\/span>\/gais live in the body the whole time and in places where they\u2018touch onto things\u2019. Paul\u2019s \u00a0three\u00a0<\/span>\/gais respectively lived, one each side of the lower chest and one at the base of the spine.Typically \/gais refer to attributes or animal helper spirits.<\/p>

This early time was difficult for Paul and he asked local people if they could help him but nothing\u00a0<\/span>made it easier. On the recommendation of others he \u00a0went to dance with the Ju\/\u2019hoansi at\u00a0<\/span>Tsumkwe to learn how to deal with his \/gais. The Ju\/\u2019hoansi are known by many northern\u00a0<\/span>Namibians to be the strong healers. The Ju\/\u2019hoansi were singing and dancing another way and\u00a0<\/span>they could not help him. They just opened him and helped him deal with the ringing in his earsthat he sometimes gets while walking in the bush. Whilst his ears ring he just runs madly in the\u00a0<\/span>bush. \u00a0Whilst searching for a way of handling his \/gais, Paul increasingly recognised that he must\u00a0<\/span>dance his own steps and heal in his way. Characteristically what he now does carries elements\u00a0<\/span>common to healing across northern Namibian KhoeSan.<\/p>

During a \u2018healing dance\u2019 Paul sees the illness in a person. With the clapping of the\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

accompanying group the back \/gais becomes warm and as he sucks the \/gais in his chest make\u00a0<\/span>his whole body warm. Sometimes when he is dancing \u2018naughty\u2019 people try and steal his \/gais as a\u00a0<\/span>way of testing him or to have it for themselves. At these times he says he rides a kudu and may\u00a0<\/span>travel long distances, even as far as the sea. Sometimes when he is sucking he doesn\u2019t feel well\u00a0<\/span>and he splits blood and even wants to die. The tokolosie, black magic, witchcraft (machite)\u00a0<\/span>things, like the ones from Alexandria in South Africa, are the ones that really make him ill. Then\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

he needs the help of the \/\/gawa, the rain spirits, or more idiomatically, rain devils, and they will\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

enable him to cough the sickness out.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paul lives on a community farm not far from the south west corner of Etosha National Park,\u00a0Namibia. He is around 61 years old (2009). He moved onto his third of an acre plot in 1998. He\u00a0farms cattle and goats but because his land is so small he has to take them to his brother-in-law\u2019s farm […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-895","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/895\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thinkingthreads.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}