DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49271#0135
80
A. W. Hoebnle
which is placed in front of the dead man’s house. In the old days they wailed and
writhed in lamentation. Nowadays they sing hymns. In Berseba where a man died
late in the afternoon, hymns were sung right through the night and all the morning until
the burial by the missionary took place. Meantime the man’s relatives slaughter animals
according to their means, and collect the blood separately into one or more pots. The
entrails are collected in other pots, and the meat in yet others; all the different families
who are taking part providing pots. The blood is heated to boiling point, and the herb
called //ganab is mixed in with it. A chopper, !op, which has been heated red hot is
then stirred round in it to make the steam rise. The immediate relatives of the man31—
men, women, and children — collect round the pots and cover their heads with their skins
so that they perspire (ausen). Then an old man, who is related neither to the man nor to
the woman, takes potblack and makes a line on the stomach of each person — “to prevent
their getting pains from eating the food ”, says lAmatis. The sweating is done in the dead
person’s hut, and so is the putting on of the black line and the eating. The relatives eat
only of the flesh, other members of the kraal eating the entrails, while the blood can be
used only by the officiating person and others of like age. In Berseba I was told that the
line on the stomach was made with the blood, not with the potblack. Some informers
say the sweating is done in the hut, others say outside. Unfortunately in the cases which
I witnessed myself the people were too badly off to have meat at all, and there was simply
coffee drinking. The widow takes no part in these rites at all. “She doesn’t belong to
the man’s family ”, one informant said indignantly when I asked.
How long the widow remained !nau, I do not know. One informant says, “Even to
this day, after the death of a husband, or child, a woman won’t use cold water for a few
days”. But the cleansing is often done immediately after the burial. Formerly, accord-
ing to Gottlief and others, it was done sometime after the burial when the hut had been
rebuilt in another spot. Other remarks show that even now some time may elapse between
the burial and the cleansing, for another informant tells me that if a widow were obliged
for some reason to go from the shore in Walfish Bay to an inland settlement, she would
on no account take the path through the valuable Inaras plants, but would go by the
desert path where no vegetation of any sort is to be found.
During the interval, whether it be long or short, the widow must not touch uncooked
meat or cold water, go among the cattle, or handle the pots. She is tended by one
or more elderly widows, not relatives of either man or wife, who take her through the
purification rites when the time comes. First she is cleaned from head to foot with #houp
or, on the Orange River, with a brew made from a species of euphorbia, or, in Walfish
31 None of the woman’s relatives take part in this ceremony.
A. W. Hoebnle
which is placed in front of the dead man’s house. In the old days they wailed and
writhed in lamentation. Nowadays they sing hymns. In Berseba where a man died
late in the afternoon, hymns were sung right through the night and all the morning until
the burial by the missionary took place. Meantime the man’s relatives slaughter animals
according to their means, and collect the blood separately into one or more pots. The
entrails are collected in other pots, and the meat in yet others; all the different families
who are taking part providing pots. The blood is heated to boiling point, and the herb
called //ganab is mixed in with it. A chopper, !op, which has been heated red hot is
then stirred round in it to make the steam rise. The immediate relatives of the man31—
men, women, and children — collect round the pots and cover their heads with their skins
so that they perspire (ausen). Then an old man, who is related neither to the man nor to
the woman, takes potblack and makes a line on the stomach of each person — “to prevent
their getting pains from eating the food ”, says lAmatis. The sweating is done in the dead
person’s hut, and so is the putting on of the black line and the eating. The relatives eat
only of the flesh, other members of the kraal eating the entrails, while the blood can be
used only by the officiating person and others of like age. In Berseba I was told that the
line on the stomach was made with the blood, not with the potblack. Some informers
say the sweating is done in the hut, others say outside. Unfortunately in the cases which
I witnessed myself the people were too badly off to have meat at all, and there was simply
coffee drinking. The widow takes no part in these rites at all. “She doesn’t belong to
the man’s family ”, one informant said indignantly when I asked.
How long the widow remained !nau, I do not know. One informant says, “Even to
this day, after the death of a husband, or child, a woman won’t use cold water for a few
days”. But the cleansing is often done immediately after the burial. Formerly, accord-
ing to Gottlief and others, it was done sometime after the burial when the hut had been
rebuilt in another spot. Other remarks show that even now some time may elapse between
the burial and the cleansing, for another informant tells me that if a widow were obliged
for some reason to go from the shore in Walfish Bay to an inland settlement, she would
on no account take the path through the valuable Inaras plants, but would go by the
desert path where no vegetation of any sort is to be found.
During the interval, whether it be long or short, the widow must not touch uncooked
meat or cold water, go among the cattle, or handle the pots. She is tended by one
or more elderly widows, not relatives of either man or wife, who take her through the
purification rites when the time comes. First she is cleaned from head to foot with #houp
or, on the Orange River, with a brew made from a species of euphorbia, or, in Walfish
31 None of the woman’s relatives take part in this ceremony.