Folklore; Manners and customs; Mythology; Religion
So far Dr. Hahn has given us facts which entirely fit in with our
theory that an ancestor-worshipping people, believing in metamorphosis
and sorcery, adores a god who is supposed to be a deceased ancestral
sorcerer with the power of magic and metamorphosis. But now Dr. Hahn
offers his own explanation. According to the philological method, he
will 'study the names of the persons, until we arrive at the naked
root and original meanings of the words.' Starting then with Tsui
Goab, whom all evidence declares to be a dead lame conjurer and
warrior, Dr. Hahn avers that 'Tsui Goab, originally Tsuni Goam, was
the name by which the Red Men called the Infinite.' As the Frenchman
said of the derivation of _jour_ from _dies_, we may hint that the
Infinite thus transformed into a lame Hottentot 'bush-doctor' is
_diablement changé en route_. To a dead lame sorcerer from the
Infinite is a fall indeed. The process of the decline is thus
described. _Tsui Goab_ is composed of two roots, _tsu_ and _goa_.
_Goa_ means 'to go on,' 'to come on.' In Khoi Khoi _goa-b_ means 'the
coming on one,' the dawn, and _goa-b_ also means 'the knee.' Dr. Hahn
next writes (making a logical leap of extraordinary width), 'It is now
obvious that _//goab_ in Tsui Goab cannot be translated with
knee,'--why not?--'but we have to adopt the other metaphorical
meaning, the _approaching_ day, _i.e._, the dawn.' Where is the
necessity? In ordinary philology, we should here demand a number of
attested examples of _goab_, in the sense of dawn, but in Khoi Khoi we
cannot expect such evidence, as there are probably no texts. Next,
after arbitrarily deciding that all Khoi Khois misunderstand their own
tongue (for that is what the rendering here of _goab_ by 'dawn' comes
to), Dr. Hahn examines _tsu_, in _Tsui_. _Tsu_ means 'sore,'
'wounded,' 'painful,' as in 'wounded knee'--Tsui Goab. This does not
help Dr. Hahn, for 'wounded dawn' means nothing. But he reflects that
a wound is red, _tsu_ means wounded: therefore _tsu_ means red,
therefore Tsui Goab is the Red Dawn. Q.E.D.[193]
This kind of reasoning is obviously fallacious. Dr. Hahn's point could
only be made by bringing forward examples in which _tsu_ is employed
to mean red in Khoi Khoi. Of this use of the word _tsu_ he does not
give one single instance, and, in fact, does give another word for
'red,' or 'bloody.' His etymology is not strengthened by the fact that
Tsui Goab has once been said to live in the red sky. A red house is
not necessarily tenanted by a red man. Still less is the theory
supported by the hymn which says Tsui Goab paints himself with red
ochre. Most idols, from those of the Samoyeds to the Greek images of
Dionysus, are and have been daubed with red.[194] By such reasoning is
Tsui Goab proved to be the Red Dawn, while his gifts of prophecy
(which he shares with all soothsayers) are accounted for as attributes
of dawn, of the Vedic _Saranyu_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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