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'Mother! Sing Loudly for Me!': the Annotated Dialogue of a Basarwa Healer in Trance

1979; Volume: 11; Linguagem: Inglês

0525-5090

Polly Wiessner, Flemming T. Larson,

Music History and Culture

For years the Basarwa1 trance dance has intrigued many people in Botswana with its powerful performance, its involvement of the entire community and its positive approach toward healing. Although most communities of desert Basarwa use trance healing, the !Kung are generally known to possess the most powerful ability to cure. In trance, with the support of the women in the community, who sing and clap, a master of trance works himself into a state where he transcends himself and enters the realm of the supernatural where the ghosts of dead ancestors live. Here he struggles with the ghosts, arguing that they should not take the sick person away, that he is not ready to go yet (Katz, 1976; Lee, 1967). Although ideas of exactly how sickness is caused and healed do vary from person to person, the idea of transcendance and argument with supernatural beings is central to !Kung trance healing.2 The struggle is intense both physically and emotionally. As the energetic dance progresses, the dancer's veins bulge from the effort, he begins to sweat profusely and his healing energy, called 'n/um', boils up from the pit of his stomach, becomes vapour, travels up his spine to a point at the base of his skull, and then rushes to all parts of his body (Katz, 1976). He is overcome with pain and fear, afraid that he will lose himself in the realm of the supernatural and not return; only as he fights this fear and transcends himself can he share his n/um and use it to heal. Although many people can go into trance, not all can master this n/um and use it positively to heal. Throughout the dance, a master of n/um chants as he dances and heals, much of the time singing nonsense syllables, but other times telling about what he is feeling. To add another dimension to Katz's (1976) description of !Kung trance experiences, this paper will give translated excerpts from a n/um master's singing during a iKurig trance dance. The dance which was recorded took place at /Xai/xai, a small community of about 200 residents in western Ngamiland and included members from most Basarwa and Herero camps at /Xai/xai. It was held principally for curing a 13-year-old girl who had been bitten by a snake and had a painful, badly swollen foot. The dance was unusually large with 60-70 participants and onlookers in three groups the women sitting in a circle around the fire clapping and singing, some of the men dancing around them, and men, women and children onlookers. The women singing were very involved, as were the dancers, but the onlookers ranged from being totally enthralled to being completely casual, sitting in groups and talking. Since the night is long, people move in and out of these groups and only few 'hard core' sing or dance the entire night. The trance dance is a frequent event at /Xai/xai, sometimes held two or three times a week, so any one person may participate in one dance and casually watch another.