Rain Stories: Interpreting Water Beings in the Folklore of the Southern African Khoisan and Their Descendants

Abstract

The importance of rain and rain animals in the lore of San-and Khoe-speaking peoples in southern Africa is well-known, especially via studies of rock paintings. The figure of the 'Rain Bull', !Khwa, in the nineteenth century oral narratives of the /Xam is therefore of considerable interest. Interpreting this being, especially via recent interviews with Khoisan descendants, presents various difficulties. Conclusions depend significantly on the methods employed by analysts of the texts, and pre-existing ideas about the nature of San religious belief and practice. This paper outlines a different reading of and approach to understanding the figure of !Khwa to that presented by De Prada-Samper (2018) and highlights the need for a more rigorous approach to the materials, especially with regard to methods and assessments of historical continuities.

Water, justice, and wellbeing in the Kamiesberg, Namaqualand: Reflecting on local histories in the context of the Anthropocene

“…Archeological, historical, and ethnographic literatures strongly suggest that in Namaqualand, and across much of south-western Southern Africa, people have long conceived of water not as an inert thing or substance but as sentient, agentive, and alive. From the southern coast, and at least as far north as Namibia and Botswana, this sentience has often taken on concrete presence in the form of various animal-like beings (de Prada-Samper, 2018;Hahn, 1881;Hoff, 1997Hoff, , 1998Hoff, , 2007Hoff, , 2011Lewis-Williams, 1981Low, 2012;Schmidt, 1979Schmidt, , 2018Skotnes, 1996Skotnes, , 2005Skotnes, , 2007Siegel, 2008;Solomon, 2019;Sullivan & Low, 2014;Woodhouse, 1992). Stories of powerful water snakes are common in accounts across the whole region at least from the 19th century to the present day (de Prada-Samper, 2018;Hoff, 1997, Sullivan & Low, 2014.…”