South African ArchaeologicalBulletin 53: 9-15, 1998
9
SELECTIVE BORROWING? THE POSSIBILITY OF SAN SHAMANISTIC
INFLUENCE ON SOUTHERN BANTU DIVINATION AND HEALING
PRACTICES*
W.D. HAMMOND-TOOKE
Rock Art Research Unit
Department of Archaeology
~sion',
Vniv ~of the Witwatersrand
University ofthe Witwatersrand
o
Pn 0oiveity(
Wits 2050
Johannesburg
email. 031WDHT@muse. arts.wits.
ac.za
email:
031W T us.rtwis.acof
ABSTRACT
Two problems are
addressed:
possible San
Two
adresed:the
roblms re the nature
atue of
ofposibleSan
influence on the mediumistic divinatorypractices ofNguni,
and the reason for the uniqueness of the Nguni system
among Southern Bantu generally. It is suggested that borrowing from San was highly selective and indeed only
influenced the nature of the thwasa initiatory period, not
divination as such. The reasonfor the Nguni adoption of
mediumistic divination (rather than divination by the
dice, as in all other groups) is to be found in
divining
divinin dice,
ther grups) isto be fund in
female reactionto the strongly patrilineal(and patriarchal)
*Received January 1998, revised March 1998
Introduction
A long-standing question in southern African archaeology has been the nature and extent of cultural borrowing
from Khoisan by Bantu-speaking agropastoralists. This
question must be approached with some caution. Rock art
studies would seem to promise insights, but the highly
symbolic nature of San art poses traps for the unwary. Inevitably recourse must be had to what linguistic, historical
and ethnographic evidence there is. This also has its pitfalls,
especially the latter. Ethnographic elements, torn from their
context, can be grossly misleading - so that the use of
such evidence demands a certain degree of anthropological
background and sophistication. What follows is intended as
an essentially anthropological contribution to an archaeological debate, which attempts to demonstrate the importance of making finer analytical and conceptual distinctions
when approaching southern African ethnographic data. Too
frequently there has been an uncritical reliance on (especially earlier) anthropological authors who themselves
failed to appreciate the complexity of the material with
which they were confronted, thus leading subsequent
scholars to dubious conclusions. Examples of this have ineluded an uncritical use of the concept 'lineage', an
inappropriate application of 'class' to the relationship of
fathers to their sons, the finding of non-existent 'segmentary lineage systems' among Southern Bantu, and
(especially relevant to the context of this study) a fairly
loose use of such critically important concepts as 'ritual',
'spirit', 'worship' (see Hammond-Tooke 1978), 'posses'ancestor' and 'divine kingship'. In this, of course,
the archaeologists and precolonial historians are not to
blame, but they do need to be on their guard. This paper
seeks to sensitise, especially, Iron Age researchers to these
dangers, with special reference to one cultural domain divination. As Prins and Lewis comment,"... [the development of] theoretical models concerning an understanding
the dynamics between Nguni agropastoralists and their
southern Bushman neighbours is still in its infancy, and has
mostly concentrated on the influence of agropastora!ists on
Bushman hunter-gatherers and not vice versa" (Prins &
Lewis 1992:133).
This paper addresses two related problems. The first is
pape.inaddresses
two related
The first is
the This
presence
Nguni culture
of a problems.
form of mediumistic
e presence in Nguni culture of a form of mediumistic
divination, based on a specific form of trance experience,
which differs significantly from the divination practised by
other southern African Bantu-speaking groups, all of whom
utlised a more 'objective' system involving the interpretation ofthe fall of divining dice, or 'bones'. The fact that
healing, at least among San hunter-gatherers employed a
shamanistic system involving trance dance seems, on the
face of it, to point to this as the origin of the practice, yet
atu y
face ofrt to pin to thns s the Sananof the p
the enormous differences between San and Southern Bantu
social and cosmological systems demand a more nuanced
consideration of the possibility and nature of such borrowing. Relevant factors here (among others) are the fact that
San shamans did not engage in divination - and also the
very different conceptualization of the healing process of
these two cultural groups.
The second problem to be addressed is why only the
Nguni adopted mediumistic divination. After all, San hunting and gathering groups (unlike Khoikhoi pastoralists)
were found all over precolonial southern Africa, and were
therefore, to varying degrees, in contact with other Bantuspeakers, so that borrowing from them was presumably an
option that was never generally taken up - until selectively
introduced from Nguni sources during the second half of
the nineteenth century. The Tswana, for instance, were in
close contact with San for centuries, yet spirit mediumship
involving states of dissociation (as among Nguni) was
never part of their traditional divination system. What was
it in Nguni social organization that made the borrowing of
elements of San shamanism both attractive and possible?
Khoisan Influence on Nguni
The question naturally arises as to whether the Nguni
obtained their unique (in the southern African context)
divinatory practice from further north. This is, of course,
possible, but the only African examples of mediumistic
divination resembling (somewhat) that of the Nguni that I
could find - as opposed to possession (essentially a form
of affliction) - are those of the Yaka of the former Zaiire,
now the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Devisch
10
1991), the Zambian Tonga and the Nilotic Alur of Uganda
(see articles in Beattie & Middleton 1969). Here there are
indeed some striking similarities with Nguni practice, especially in the psychophysical symptoms experienced by
diviners, but also major differences. There is, for instance,
no trance dance - and among the Yaka the slit-gong is an
important divinatory adjunct. On methodological grounds a
San provenance is to be preferred. There is no evidence that
Khoikhoi medicine men tranced.
The influence of certain aspects of San (and possibly
Khoisan) culture on that of the Nguni is incontrovertible.
The most striking evidence for this is linguistic - the presence in both Xhosa and Zulu of the characteristic 'click'
consonants, unknown in other Bantu languages (although
South Sotho has adopted the palatal click in a few words,
possibly borrowings from Nguni, e.g. qala, to begin; qeta >
Z. qeda, to finish). One sixth of all Xhosa words contain
clicks. The earliest archaeological evidence for the presence
of Nguni-speakers in KwaZulu-Natal has been dated to
c. AD 1100 (Huffman 1989), although Bantu-speaking
agropastoralists, possibly with a language containing clicks,
were in the area by c. AD 400 (calibrated) (Whitelaw &
Moon 1996). Clicks occur in both Bushman and Khoi languages, but the Khoikhoi were more or less confined (in the
period that concerns us) to the coastal regions between the
Orange River in the north and the Kei River in the east
(Elphick 1985). Khoi influence was thus probably confined
to the westernmost Xhosa-speakers. This is seen in the frequency of Khoi-derived names for the colours and horntypes of cattle in Xhosa, as well as the general Southern
Bantu term for cattle (iinkomo < Kh. gomab). Eastern Cape
rivers all have essentially Khoi names (Gouritz, Gamtoos,
Xoonap, Kouga, Keiskamma, Tyolumnqa, Kei, Mbashe)
until the Mthatha is reached. It would thus appear that linguistic influence on westernmost Cape Nguni was both San
and Khoi: it is argued here, though, that the borrowing of
divinatory practices (if it indeed occurred) was essentially
from the San.
it is almost certain that the /Xam (San) term for shaman,
!gi:xa, was adopted by Xhosa-speakers for diviners (igqirha
- Zulu use isangoma). In passing, there is also some slight
evidence that the /Xam of the central Cape and the //Xegwi
of the eastern Transvaal (originally from the south-eastern
Free State) Spoke related languages. This is based on the
fact that //Xegwi believed in a Supreme Being whom they
called /A'am, which is almost certainly cognate with the
/Xam deity, /Kaggen (Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1989:
131). Did these San also use !gi:xa for their diviners? If so,
it was not adopted by their Swazi and Zulu neighbours
across the Drakensberg. Prins and Lewis (1992), in an interesting paper, have suggested a number of other elements
in Cape Nguni divination that seem to indicate borrowing
from San, not all of which are convincing. For instance,
they relate the term for the calling by the ancestral spirits
for a person to become a diviner (thwasa) to the Xhosa
word for San (baThwa) (p. 140), whereas, in fact, thwasa is
a pure Bantu term meaning "to become visible, appear (of
moon and stars); to commence (of the seasons)" (Kropf &
Godfrey 1915:438; Doke & Vilakazi 1953:812), and, by
extension, to becoming initiated into a new status, as in
and to the diviner's role
initiation to adulthood (uku)thwasa kwegqirha (Hirst 1990:90).
South African Archaeological Bulletid
The Nature of Southern Bantu Kinship
Before discussing the nature of the influence of Sai
shamanism on Nguni divination something must be said o
Southern Bantu divination in general, and the uniquenes:
(in this context) of the Nguni form. But first a wider poin
of view must be adopted to place matters in context.
Although all southern African Bantu-speaking people,
had broadly similar social and cultural systems, there werc
significant differences in the way this common heritage was
played out in practice (A. Kuper 1982; Hammond-Tooke
1993a). Indeed these differences may be looked upon as
'variations on a theme'. But one aspect is striking from a
comparative point of view - the way in which the Nguni
stand out from all the others as somehow different, not only
in respect of divination but also, significantly, in the areas
of kinship and descent. Indeed kinship and descent, in their
turn, had far-reaching effects on the nature and working of
the ancestor cult, central to Nguni divination (HammondTooke 1974, 1985, 1993b).
Briefly, all Nguni had patrilineal exogamous clans large categories of people who shared a common clan name
and believed themselves to be descended from a common
clan founder. Such a founder was believed to have lived far
in the past and, in the absence of writing, it was quite impossible to prove relationship, either to him or to fellow
clan members. Within clans there were lineages. These
were also categories of people, but whose members could
actually demonstrate genealogical relationships to one another on a common family tree of about six generations in
depth. In the past, these lineages were possibly also local
units, but the rapid expansion of population through polygyny meant that they tended to disperse fairly widely and
soon to lose the characteristics of an interacting social
group. In reality, therefore, the effective Nguni social group
beyond the family was the segment of a lineage actually
occupying a particular area and forming the congregation of
the ancestor cult (Hammond-Tooke 1984, 1985). Appeal to
the clan ancestors was always in male hands (the agnatic
seniors of the lineage segments). These appeals were
addressed, not only to the lineage dead, but, more
especially, to those of the entire clan, who were all believed
to be present whenever a local segment blood sacrifice was
performed. Nguni ancestors, then, were conceived of as a
vast, undifferentiated category of patrilineal forebears, who
were essentially depersonalised and august. This impersonality and transcendence of Nguni ancestors also led to the
greater solemnity of Nguni rituals (Berglund 1976:230;
Hammond-Tooke 1985, 1993b).
These 'pure' patrilineal descent groups of the Nguni
were not found among Sotho, Venda and Tsonga.
Although, among these peoples, the patrilineal principle
was indeed fundamental, lineages were either absent or of
very shallow depth, or the wider group also contained other,
non-agnatic, kin, thus 'contaminating' an exclusively patrilineal recruitment. Among Sotho, for instance, the
essentially patrilineal local groups of agnatically related
families (Schapera's 'family group'; Schapera 1938:89-91)
also included relatives of other categories, such as affines
and maternal kin, or even families of unrelated dependents
(A. Kuper 1975; Kooijman 1978; Hammond-Tooke 1993b).
These descent systems, in stark contrast to that of the
Nguni, exhibited a marked bilaterality, shading from that of
South African Archaeological Bulletin
the Sotho-Tswana of the highveld, where the bilaterality
was perhaps least in evidence, through the lowveld Vendainfluenced Sotho (Sotho-Venda), to that of the Venda of the
Soutpansberg and the Tsonga of the sub-tropical lowlands
and Mozambique. Among Sotho-Tswana, Sotho-Venda and
Venda the bilateral balance was associated with a fairly
strict application of the preferential marriage rule that a
man should marry his maternal cross-cousin, and with the
custom of linking brother and sister so that the marriage
cattle of the latter established the homestead of the former
(Stayt 1931:175; Krige & Krige 1943; Hammond-Tooke
1981). This led to the importance of the father's sister as a
figure of authority and the main officiant in the ancestor
cult. This emphasis on both sides of the family appears to
have reached its extreme form among Venda and Tsonga.
Stayt (1931) indeed maintained (incorrectly) that a Venda
person belonged to both a matrilineage and a patrilineage:
here too the father's sister played a major social and ritual
role. The Tsonga also lacked lineages and clans (Felgate
1982:110) and seem to have had 'matrilineal' elements. A
man was under a life-long obligation to render aid to his
wife's father, a rule reminiscent of the wife-service of some
matrilineal societies, an impression strengthened by the role
of the mother's brother in sacrificing on behalf of his
nephew to the boy's mother's agnatic ancestors, whereas
the boy's father did the same for the ancestors on the paternal side (Junod 1927:122; Felgate 1982; De Heusch 1985).
The effect of this bilaterality on the ancestor cult of
these groups was fundamental. In place of the unilateral
pantheon of agnatic ancestors of the Nguni, the ancestors of
both father's and mother's sides of the family were invoked, but only as far back as grandparents. They were thus
people who had been known personally in life, strikingly
different from the impersonal Nguni clan ancestors. There
is evidence of a far more relaxed relationship towards them
on the part of their worshippers. Striking, too, is the ritual
importance of women among Sotho-Venda and Venda
(Hammond-Tooke 1974, 1981, 1993b).
Divination among the Southern Bantu
The need for a system of divination among all precolonial Southern Bantu was due to a basically tripartite theory
of the causes of illness and misfortune (Hammond-Tooke
1989). Although there was a concept of a Supreme Being,
he was a vague figure who had created the world but who
no longer played a direct role in human affairs. No rituals
were directed to him and he was only quoted as an agent if
no other cause could be found - in fact an acknowledgement of ignorance (rather like the English expression: 'God
only knows!'). Misfortune, in all its more serious forms,
was believed to be caused either by ancestral wrath, witchcraft or pollution, and it was urgent that the exact cause be
pin-pointed and appropriate action taken. This was the
essential work of diviners. Healing was another matter, of
extreme importance, but which could be practised without a
extent, and had an extensive knowledge of medicines, but
illness sent by the ancestors was not amenable to treatment
by medicines and demanded propitiatory sacrifices (or
libations) to the ancestors by the worshipping groups
themselves. Healing of ancestorally-caused illness (and, to
some extent, pollution states) could only be effected by the
ancestors: witchcraft attacks had to be guarded against or
repulsed by protective medicines.
Among Sotho, Venda and Tsonga the roles of diviner
and herbalist were not clearly differentiated in the terminology. All were called by a single term (So. ngaka; V.
nyanga and Tso. nyanga). When, in the last decades of the
nineteenth century, Nguni-type divination was adopted by
some groups as an additional system, most terms used for
mediumistic diviners were based on the root ngoma (drum)
(So. mokoma, mukome; V. mugome; Ts. mugome; cf. Z.
isangoma). The technique used by non-Nguni was the
casting of the 'bones', basically a set of four incised tablets
(or divining dice), usually supplemented by an assortment
of astralagi bones, shells and stones. Such diviners, predominantly male, appear to have been ordinary herbalists
who had learned the use of the bones through apprenticeship. In a general sense, the fall of the bones was believed
to be influenced by the ancestors. The diviner would pray
briefly to the ancestors for aid, but there was not the dramatic, life-changing, ancestral call to the profession found
among Nguni (see below). Yet non-Nguni diviners considered themselves in some way guided by their ancestors.
Pedi diviners would never operate at noon, when the sun
casts no shadows, since the ancestors were then said to be
'resting' (Monnig 1967:95). Essentially, though, the interpretation of the fall of the bones was governed by complex
rules and was a combination of 'objective' interpretation,
inspirational 'feel' and a subtle and shrewd judgement of
the dynamics of the divinatory situation. Diviners wore skin
caps, and other fantastical regalia, to symbolise their status.
This was the basic pattern of precolonial non-Nguni
divination. It must not be confused with the possession cults
(molopo, ndau, indiki), involving alien spirits, that were introduced to Sotho, Venda, Tsonga and (some) Zulu from
Zimbabwe in the second half of the nineteenth century
(Junod 1927; S.G. Lee 1969; Krige & Krige 1943; Ngubane
1977; Stayt 1931; Hammond-Tooke 1981, 1986:162), nor
with the actions of faith-healing Zionist prophets in the
twentieth.
Nguni divination was something quite different. In addition to herbalists (Xh. amaxhwele; Z. izinyanga; cognate
with S. ngaka), who operated in much the same way as
Sotho, Venda and Tsonga non-divining dingaka, there was
the class of diviners proper (Xh. amagqirha;Z. izangoma),
who were specially called to their profession by their
ancestors through the sending of a specific illness, referred
to as thwasa. In 1868 Bishop Henry Callaway recorded the
symptoms of diviners he had known and studied since
1854, a mere thirty years after white settlement had been
established in Natal: "He begins to be particular about food
knowledge of divination, especially in connection with
.
minor ailments. Herbalists were specialists in medicines
(usually of vegetable origin) that were also used for the
magical protection of the homestead against witchcraft and
lightning, the crops and cattle from disease, and, at the
chiefdom level, the doctoring of the chief and the making of
rain. All diviners were also healers, to a greater or lesser
complaining of pains in different parts of his body. And he
tells them that he has dreamt that he was being carried away
by a river. He dreams of many things, and his body is muddied and he becomes a house of dreams" (Callaway 186870). A contemporary anthropologist, himself a trained
diviner, lists the 'characteristic signs' experienced by Xhosa
..
,
because it makes him ill .
.
. he is continually
12
diviners as "dreams, visions and psychic experiences in
general; various aches, pains, anxiety and madness; leaving
the homestead to subsist off wild roots and berries in the
bush; and spontaneous immersion in a river pool" (Hirst
1990:89).
The state of thwasa, strongly suggested through the
constant dreamings, but which had to be confirmed by divination, was believed to be sent by the ancestors. Among the
Xhosa-speaking Mpondo, it was caused, in a man, not only
by his paternal ancestors, but also by those of his mother
and father's mother, and, in a woman, not only by the
ancestors of her father or husband, but also those of her
mother. The amathongo of a man's father or a woman's
father or husband, however, were always mainly responsible; indeed the only occasion on which the mother's
ancestors were thought to influence a person was in thwasa.
Ancestors had power over their own children, real or classificatory, and descendants in the male line. Only in special
cases were they thought to influence descendants of the
female line (Hunter 1936:233, 324). Among Zulu, Berglund
found that "A woman can be called to divination by either
her family lineage shades or, if she is married, by her husband's shades" but could not find any particular tendency
either way. "Older informants, however, say that previously
it was usually in the woman's own (paternal) lineage that
the responsible shade was to be found." His informants told
him that the present influence of the husband's ancestors in
the calling of a female diviner was due to the frequent
absence of men away on migrant labour (Berglund
1976:139).
TIhe 'consecration' of a Nguni diviner involved two aspects: the curing of the thwasa condition and the formal
training in techniques of divination and curing. The two
were intimately connected. To achieve the first of these the
patient apprenticed herself - by far the great majority of
Nguni diviners were women: of 68 Zulu diviners known to
Berglund, 61 were women (Berglund 1976:139) - to a
practising diviner, usually the one who had diagnosed her
condition, and went to live at her homestead. As ancestorsent, thwasa had to be treated through rituals directed to
them - in this case a series of ritual killings and the use of
special 'medicines of the home' as well as frequent seances
(called intlombe) through which the troubling spirit could
be accommodated by means of dancing (xhentsa) in a hut
until a trance-like state was achieved. Accompaniment to
the dance was provided by the clapping of ailing clients and
their support groups, local women and children, or by the
beating of a rolled cow-hide. Each dancing episode was of
short duration: the novice then stopped and proceeded, in a
rapid fashion, to divine any illness present. Hunter provides
a graphic description: "Only those ukuxhentsa who are or
have ukuthwasa [dance] . . . The dance is properly a solo,
but several people may dance at once, performing their own
solo. The audience sits round the wall, and the performer
gives them the time to clap, and possibly a phrase to chant.
She stands in the centre of the hut, lifts her feet alternately
in time to the clapping, comes lightly down on her toes,
stamps her heels, and quivers every muscle up her body to
her cheeks and arms. The time gets faster and faster, the
dancer lifts her feet higher till after five minutes she stops
abruptly, panting and dripping with perspiration. The clapping stops. After a bout of dancing the novice addresses the
company, thanking them for being present and confessing
South African ArchaeologicalBulletin
her dreams, and then addresses her ancestors, thanking
them for her recovery from sickness (partial if not cornplete) . . Often amagqiraaddress the novice and tell her to
confess everything she sees (in sleeping or waking dreams)
... During the seance the emotional pitch was terrific ...
both audience and dancers were intoxicated by the rhythm.
The audience listened to the confessions of the initiates in
strained silence . . . Aesthetic appreciation was submerged
in reverence" (Hunter 1936:325, 328).
Between seances the novice accompanied the tutelary
diviner on her travels and was instructed in the healing
properties of medicines and charms. After a year or two
there was an elaborate initiation ritual at which the ancestors were formally advised of the successful completion of
the novitiate.
The actual divination procedure practised by a fullyfledged diviner differed somewhat from the emotionallycharged atmosphere of the intlombe seances. It did not
normally involve dancing and consisted basically of the
diviner's making statements which were responded to by
set responses of 'We agree!' or 'Put it behind you!', the
belief being that these pronouncements emanated, in fact,
from the ancestors. H. Kuper writes that the 'most admired'
of Swazi diviners divined without any conversation with the
audience. The famous diviner Mahube described his sensations and perceptions to her: "I think. I eat medicines that
work in my body like matches to dry wood. Behind the
shoulder blades I feel a shiver. I do not open my eyes. It is
not with my eyes that I see. My ancestors see for me. I see
in a dream. I speak as in sleep" (H. Kuper 1942:167-8). It
seems clear that the best diviners were psychics. But this
raises the question: In what sense are we here in the presence of spirit possession? Were these diviners 'possessed'
by their ancestral shades and, if so, what did this mean?
(The same question will have to be asked of San shamans).
Also, was trancing involved?
Hunter (1936:328) reports that "Ukuxhentsa always
works novices and some amagqira into an hysterical state;
some novices begin to tremble and weep when the dance
starts; others are faint after three minutes of it; frequently it
produces an hysterical hiccup". My own impression of
Bhaca novices is that the 'hysteria' did produce, in some
subjects, a dissociated state (fixed, glazed stare), which an
accompanying internationally-renowned clinical psychologist pronounced unequivocally as 'trance'. Lewis-Williams
suggests that, despite the great variety of phenomena that
occur (spatial disorientation, hallucinations, muscular
spasms, catalepsy, convulsions), the mere presence of an
'altered state of consciousness' is the best definition of the
condition described as 'trance' in most of the literature
(Lewis-Williams 1992:58). Nguni novices certainly hallucinate (the ityala spirit animals (see below), 'waking
dreams' and journeys under water) and experience muscular spasms and general disorientation.
As far as possession is concerned, Hunter (1936:322)
categorically states that among Mpondo "there is no idea of
an ithongo (ancestral spirit) entering the body of a patient"
[i.e., one with thwasa]. Instead, it is believed that a diviner
'has communication' with her ancestors both through
dreams and through her ityala, a spirit animal which Hunter
defines as "an ithongo which takes the shape of a wild animal - lion, leopard, elephant", to which she must show
respect. There is also the concept of an umshologu which,
South African Archaeological Bulletin
informants told her, was "the same thing as ithongo". It
would seem that we have to do here with spirit mediumship, rather than with spirit possession. The diviner's body
is merely a vehicle for transmitting the wishes of her ancestors. This differs fundamentally from the true possession
cults, involving alien spirits, introduced from the north
during the colonial period.
Bone divination is today found among Nguni groups, in
the same way as Nguni-type divination has been borrowed
by Sotho, Venda and Tsonga under conditions of contact.
The earliest mention in the literature for this is after 1850,
when the bones were seen in the Transkei amongst an immigrant Sotho group. Xhosa refer to the divining dice as
iindawule, obviously derived from the South Sotho taola
(Shaw & Van Warmelo 1988:809-10).
Nguni Divination and the Position of Women
The question now arises as to the origin ofNguni mediumistic divination. Why this emphasis on ancestral influence and trance-like state - quite different from anything
found among other Southern Bantu? Was it an endogenous
development, dictated by the influence of certain elements
of the original social system on cosmological thought - or
can we detect borrowing from San?
At first blush the latter seems improbable. The social
and cosmological differences between the two cultures
were too great. The nature of at least present day San shamanism is well known (R.B. Lee 1968; Marshall 1969;
Barnard 1979; Lewis-Williams 1981; Katz 1982) and need
not detain us here. San were hunter-gatherers, organised in
bilateral bands, and there were no wider descent groups,
thus placing them at the furthest remove from the Nguni in
terms of social structure. They had no cult of the ancestors,
nor did they have a system of divination. This was because
their beliefs about illness and misfortune were monocausal.
Sickness was caused by the spirits of the dead who,
malevolent and capricious, plagued the living. These spirits
were not necessarily ancestors. Healing was not practised
by full-time professional specialists but by a number of
trained male members of the band, whose spirits left their
bodies in dance-induced trance to do battle with the evil
spirits of the dead. This was not spirit possession. It is technically described as 'soul-loss'. Also, unlike the Nguni, the
healers were principally male. It is quite clear that, if there
was borrowing, it was not a simple transfer of a belief system - but something much more selective.
It is clear that Nguni mediumistic divination, as an institution firmly embedded in Nguni culture, cannot be
adequately explained by borrowing from San. The vast differences in general social organization, as indeed the basic
differences in religious beliefs between San and Southern
Bantu - especially ideas about the causes of illness and the
great emphasis on the ancestors - is much too great. What
seems to have happened is the adoption by Nguni of one
particular element - the ecstatic dance, with all its
psychological effects on a certain type of individual. Other
possible borrowings, such as the use of the term igqirha,the
emphasis on dreams, the wearing of dancing rattles, the
concept of the animal spirit ityala, the descent into river
pools, the use of special sticks and, perhaps, the adoption of
the image of/Kaggen as a witch familiar (Hammond-Tooke
1997), are comparatively minor. Any explanation for Nguni
13
uniqueness must address deeper causes - although the
direction that the change took may well have been influenced by San models. It is suggested here that a clue may
be found in the extraordinary preponderance of women in
the Nguni divinatory profession, itself a reciprocal of the
extreme patriarchal emphasis in Nguni culture when compared with other Southern Bantu groups.
This has already been alluded to, when the bilaterality
of the general Southern Bantu descent system (as opposed
to Nguni unilaterality) was discussed. This was reflected in
the importance of the father's sister in both Sotho-Venda
and Venda ancestor rituals, and, in turn, seems correlated
with a higher status of women in general in these societies.
Lobedu and Kgaga had female chiefs and Venda makadzi
played a determining role in the affairs of the royal family
and the selection of the new chief. This raised status of
women was perhaps less marked among Sotho-Tswana
(who were the 'nearest' to the Nguni in some ways), and
among Tsonga, among whom the (matrilateral) mother's
brother played an equal (Junod (1927) and De Heusch
(1985) suggest greater) role than the father in addressing
the ancestors on behalf of the nephew/son.
Lewis (1971), in an important study, has discussed in
detail the type of social situation in which forms of ecstatic
religious experience appear to flourish. It has long been
recognised by sociologists of religion that 'enthusiastic',
pentacostal-type cults tend to be found among the dispossessed and marginal sections of modemrn society. Lewis
makes a distinction between 'mainline' and 'peripheral'
ecstatic cults, which he typifies as "a wide-spread strategy
employed by women to achieve ends which they cannot
readily achieve more directly" (Lewis 1971:85). A major
ploy in this (found also in Victorian middle-class society)
was a (probably unconscious but socially sanctioned) resort
to illness and psychological symptoms, often explained, as,
for example, in China and Ceylon, as being caused by
demons or other spirits. In such cases, Lewis suggests, it is
not the women .themselves who are making wearisome
demands on their men, but external spiritual forces: this
allows men to defer to their wives without prejudicing their
position of dominance. This is reminiscent of Nguni female
diviners (often women of strong personality) who are at
liberty to travel freely in pursuit of their calling. The clue to
all this, says Lewis, is the peripherality of women: it is suggested here that, of all Southern Bantu, Nguni women are
the miost 'peripheral'. Nguni chauvinism is proverbial
(Hammond-Tooke 1980).
But Nguni divination can hardly be classified as a
peripheral cult. It is firmly locked into the 'mainline'
ancestor cult and is an intrinsic part of it. The true peripheral cults in South Africa are the molopo, ndau and indiki
possession cults, involving alien spirits, which, as we have
seen, arose during the colonial period as a response to
women's increasing sense of alienation and disempowerment. Mediumistic divination goes back much further, to
precolonial times. This would seem to point to a 'mutation'
in Nguni divination that took place far in the past, but
probably after contact with San. On the other hand, it could
have been a purely endogenous development. It does seem,
though, that, whatever the case, its genesis was basically
occasioned by a female reaction to extreme patriarchy. Its
mainline status was assured by its intimate accommodation
into the (mainline) Southern Bantu ancestor cult, of which it
14
became an essential part.
That said, it is of course possible (even probable) that
the ecstatic experiences of neighbouring San groups were
adopted as an appropriate, and dramatic, expression of the
deep-seated frustrations of Nguni women, which often led
to hysterical outbursts (cf. the amafufunyana behaviour of
Zulu adolescent girls, S.G. Lee 1969). The Dionysian
abandon of the trance dance was a perfect outlet for psychological tensions. Yet the borrowing was highly
selective. In effect it was confined to the incorporation of
aspects of the trance dance in the thwasa training period
(itself fraught with psychological tensions), and the adoption (among Xhosa-speakers) of the San term for medicine
man (!gi:xa) for the diviner's role itself.
Divination and Rainmaking
There thus seems no doubt that a certain amount of borrowing between San and, especially, Nguni took place.
Perhaps most striking is the linguistic evidence, but this
borrowing also occurred in the general area of ritual. The
limited nature of this must be appreciated. It seems that the
adoption of a (form of) trance dance was incorporated only
into the training of Nguni diviners, as part of the therapy for
the basically psychosomatic symptoms of the thwasa illness. Since thwasa was sent by the ancestors, its cure had to
be 'religious', and the intlombe seance was an appropriate,
and effective, addition to the series of ritual killings that,
together with it, worked to 'grow' the novice into her new
status. As far as actual divination was concerned, the most
effective examples of this were presumably related to welldeveloped psychic gifts which, in turn, derived from deepseated personality factors. Trance, at least in its extreme
San form, was not, as such, part ofNguni divinatory practice. Yet it is not surprising that, when searching for
symbols to express their crucial role in community life,
diviners adopted such striking San objects as fly-whisks,
dancing rattles and special sticks to effect this. These
objects were formally the same in the two cultures, but their
meanings were very different.
The other main borrowed element stressed in the literature was the employment of San shamans as rainmakers.
Commentators write as if this was general practice. In fact,
the only evidence for this refers to the Mpondomise (Jolly
1986; Lewis-Williams 1986; Prins 1990). Everywhere else
the all-important rainmaking was performed by specialist
Nguni raindoctors who were essentially herbalists, not
diviners (Hunter 1936:81-88; but see Soga 1931:175-176).
Among Mpondo the most famous rain-doctors came from
the Yalo clan: among Swazi the Motsa clan was wellknown for this (Hunter 1936:80; H. Kuper 1942:110). Rainmaking was the prerogative of chiefs, who appointed the
rain-doctor, but only after the approval of his councillors
had been obtained. Unsuccessful doctors were fined, or
summarily dismissed. Rainmaking involved the killing of a
black beast and the use of strong rain-medicines, and was
essentially magical. Recourse to the (chiefs) ancestors was
not normally made. This was because the roles of chief and
diviner/herbalist were mutually exclusive in Nguni society
- the Xhosa chief Gcaleka was an exception (Soga
1930:142-145) - and also because the raindoctor's ancestors could have had no influence over the affairs of the
chiefdom as a whole. Those San shamans who served as
South African ArchaeologicalBulletin
rainmakers to the Mpondomise chiefs presumably tranced
and, in that state, led the 'rain animal' over the land (LewisWilliams & Dowson 1989:92-99), a totally different
procedure that (temporally) supplanted, rather than modifled, Nguni practice.
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