Stories That Float from Afar

by Lewis-Williams, J. David

• ISBN13: 9781585441129
• ISBN10: 1585441120
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-02-01
• Publisher: Texas A & M Univ Pr

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	ix
Orthography and pronunciation	xi
Introduction	1	(46)
Part I: Daily life in /Xam-ka !au
Life and death in /Xam-ka !au	47	(34)
A litany of death	49	(3)
Death on the hunting-ground	52	(26)
Starvation from drought	78	(3)
The /Xam-ka !ei and animals	81	(14)
How ≠Kasin's eldest brother was carried off by a lion	83	(1)
A day of adventure and tragedy	84	(6)
Leopard-hunting: the fatal adventure of !Kwai-kwa and his companion	90	(2)
Adventure with a family of baboons	92	(3)
The giving of names	95	(6)
How Mansse obtained the name !Kau /noan	97	(1)
Why Dia!kwain's brother Tho-bbo was so named	98	(3)
Artefacts and poisons	101	(12)
Arrow-making	103	(4)
The arrow barb	107	(1)
Poisons	108	(2)
Stone artefacts	110	(3)
Porcupines	113	(6)
Sharing porcupine meat	115	(1)
The porcupine's tail	116	(3)
The Koranna	119	(6)
The escape of /Kannan from the Koranna commando	121	(2)
How the approach of a commando was foretold by the mist	123	(2)
Relations with colonists	125	(18)
Sir Bartle Frere returns to Cape Town	127	(2)
Letter from Dia!kwain to his sister !Kweiten-ta-//ken and her family	129	(2)
Dreams of home, and life with the magistrate	131	(2)
Gui-an and her mistress, Trina de Klerck	133	(2)
Hunting ostriches and bartering their feathers for tobacco	135	(8)
Part II: Myth, Ritual and Belief
/Kaggen and his family	143	(20)
How the Ichneumon discovered what the Mantis (/Kaggen) did with the honey	145	(8)
The Mantis's fight with the Cat and the Ichneumon's rebuke	153	(5)
The Ichneumon argues with the Meerkats	158	(3)
/Kwammang-a is found by crows	161	(2)
Animal tales	163	(44)
The lion and the jackals	165	(3)
A gemsbok becomes a lion	168	(1)
The old woman who was carried off by a hyena	169	(2)
The /Kain-/Kain, the girls and the Mantis	171	(3)
The first /Xam man brings home a young lion	174	(33)
The Early Race	207	(20)
A man put into a mouse skin turns into a lion	209	(2)
People of the Early Race hunt lions	211	(4)
About a moth called !kum !kum and said to pour lice upon them	215	(2)
The fox and the Koranna commando	217	(2)
The youth of the Early Race who warned those at home of the approach of a Koranna commando	219	(3)
How the rain in the form of an eland was shot by one of the Early Race of people	222	(2)
The woman who was killed by the baboons	224	(3)
Ritual relations with animals	227	(18)
The Mantis tries to save the hartebeest	229	(4)
The killing of a white springbok	233	(1)
The springbok's tongue	234	(1)
When game has been shot	235	(2)
The ≠Nuturu	237	(8)
The moon	245	(10)
The moon not to be laughed at	247	(1)
Hunting with a dog and asking the moon for luck	248	(1)
The moon, moths and game	249	(4)
The moon and the hare	253	(2)
Shamans	255	(12)
Shamans and swallows	257	(2)
Karosses must not be beaten upon the ground	259	(2)
A rock painting	261	(2)
//Kabbo causes rain to fall	263	(4)
New maidens	267	(14)
A ceremony performed by /Xam girls at puberty	269	(2)
Men turned into trees by the glance of a new maiden	271	(2)
New maidens and the rain	273	(4)
The girl who made locusts	277	(1)
New maidens and frogs	278	(3)
References and suggested reading	281