ITCHY FEET TRAVELS

Khwe Living Museum, Namibia

May 26, 2024

 Known as the Bushmen of the Kalahari, the San called much of central and western Botswana and central and eastern Namibia, home. Theirs was a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, attuned to the desert and nomadic when the weather conditions demanded. Today they have largely been settled into towns and villages and the inevitable loss of ancestral knowledge. The seven settlements called Living Museums scattered around Namibia are where youngsters learn the old ways from their elders. And curious travelers come to see and learn. Going to Khwe was one of my primary reasons for choosing the route I did from Botswana to Namibia.

I had met another traveler who was one of the rare ones not welded to a group at the Rainbow River Lodge and having talked her into it, Angie and I set off for the village. A couple of young men greeted us, promptly disappearing to shed their normal clothes and reappearing dressed in traditional skins. A whole new persona seemed to have been donned as well. We were first going on a bush walk, the two men and a couple of women. The hunter, complete with a bow and arrow first paid respects to their ancestors at a tree, asking for a good hunt. And then we trooped into the bushes, single file. Hunting is of course forbidden now but the skills of tracking are very much alive.

Who knew the lines and squiggles in the sand held such a wealth of knowledge? We learned to tell which animals went by, the direction in which they went, how old they were, how many were in their group and even how long ago they had passed by. Sherlock Holmes could well have learned a thing or two! The different dung piles too had stories to tell. I was having a fantastic time! We learned about the various trees and shrubs – which to use when and how. I was reminded of how astonishing this had been in the Amazon Rainforest  and here in a different environ, it was just as spellbinding.

Back to the clearing, we saw it full of others all dressed in skins and busy at various tasks. We learned that there are schools for men and women. Youngsters around puberty come to learn the typical tasks expected of them. A woman sitting with an ostrich egg shell had small sticks next to her, indicating a school for women.

And we watched as the older women wove palm fronds into bowls and platters and baskets. The patterns are natural pigments making for bold and striking patterns. The tight weave is so tight, it can apparently hold fluids. Yet another woman was pounding an animal skin, peeling it as a first process of making it wearable. Others were making beads from ostrich shell, grinding the edges to smoothen them.

Then came the magical part. We were treated to how they make fire the old way. They rubbed a stick of a certain kind of wood long and hard into a shallow depression in another stick. The men take turns, this being a laborious process. Sure enough, in a few minutes we saw the faint tendrils of smoke. This was then transferred to a pile of kindling and a small pile of elephant dung. Before long there were bright orange flames licking their way up. Magic!! The toddlers were watching and learning, trying to copy their elders. The traditional ways seem to be in no danger of dying, at least in this community.

But there was more. The group formed a semicircle as they sang and danced. Small pieces of wood clapped together was the music as both the men and women sang. The men danced, taking small shuffling steps, their upper bodies jiggling like jello. I had a flashback to Ethiopia where both sexes dance with only their upper bodies. The effect almost shimmers, so fast do the muscles move! Muscles that I did not know humans have.

Most of the stories in the songs were related to animals, akin to Aesop’s fables. But we were also treated to a mock healing ceremony complete with rattles but strangely no drums. I came away determined to see if I could visit other living museums to see the skills of other tribes.