Folklore; Manners and customs; Mythology; Religion
Other missionaries make old Wounded Knee a good sort of being on the
whole, who fights Gaunab, a bad being. Dr. Moffat heard that 'Tsui
Kuap' was 'a notable warrior,' who once received a wound in the knee.
Sir James Alexander[192] found that the Namaquas believed their 'great
father' lay below the cairns on which they flung boughs. This great
father was Heitsi Eibib, and, like other medicine-men, 'he could take
many forms.' Like Tsui Goab, he died several times and rose again.
Hahn gives (p. 61) a long account of the Wounded Knee from an old
chief, and a story of the battle between Tsui Goab, who 'lives in a
beautiful heaven,' and Gaunab, who 'lives in a dark heaven.' As this
chief had dwelt among missionaries very long, we may perhaps discount
his remarks on 'heaven' as borrowed. Hahn thinks they refer to the red
sky in which Tsui Goab lived, and to the black sky which was the home
of Gaunab. The two characters in this crude religious dualism thus
inhabit light and darkness respectively.
* * * * *
As far as we have gone, Tsui Goab, like Heitsi Eibib among the Namas,
is a dead sorcerer, whose graves are worshipped, while, with a common
inconsistency, he is also thought of as dwelling in the sky. Even
Christians often speak of the dead with similar inconsistency. Tsui
Goab's worship is intelligible enough among a people so credulous that
they took Hahn himself for a conjurer (p. 81), and so given to
ancestor-worship that Hahn has seen them worship their own fathers'
graves, and expect help from men recently dead (pp. 112, 113). But,
while the Khoi Khoi think that Tsui Goab was once a real man, we need
not share their Euhemerism. More probably, like Unkulunkulu among the
Zulus, Tsui Goab is an ideal, imaginary ancestral sorcerer and god. No
one man requires many graves, and Tsui Goab has more than Osiris
possessed in Egypt.
If the Egyptians in some immeasurably distant past were once on the
level of Namas and Hottentots, they would worship Osiris at as many
barrows as Heitsi Eibib and Tsui Goab are adored. In later times the
numerous graves of one being would require explanation, and
explanations would be furnished by the myth that the body of Osiris
was torn to pieces and each fragment buried in a separate tomb.
Again, lame gods occur in Greek, Australian, and Brazilian creeds, and
the very coincidence of Tsui Goab's lameness makes us sceptical about
his claims to be a real dead man. On the other hand, when Hahn tells
us that epical myths are now sung in the dances in honour of warriors
lately slain (p. 103), and that similar dances and songs were
performed in the past to honour Tsui Goab, this looks more as if Tsui
Goab had been an actual person. Against this we must set (p. 105) the
belief that Tsui Goab made the first man and woman, and was the
Prometheus of the Hottentots.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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