Notebooks

Story: |kaggen (the Mantis) and the Moon (version 1)

Title

|kaggen (the Mantis) and the Moon (version 1)

Collection

Summary

The origin of the Moon is an episode in the story of the Mantis and his pet eland. When the Suricats, who were present at the cutting up of the eland, ill-treaded the mantis, he found upon a bush another eland’s gall-bladder, and this (as mentioned above) he pierced and broke, thereby creating a darkness into which he sprang; but, being inconvenienced by it, he took off one of his shoes and threw it into the sky, with the order that it should become the moon. Thus the moon is red, because the shoe of the Mantis was covered with the red dust of the Bushmanland, and cold, because it is only leather. We have two versions of this myth, a shorter one (LII.-24. 482-486), and a longer one, in which a good deal of conversation is introduced (BII. 379-390, 421-428, III.429-433), of which the final speech of the Mantis, as treating of the reasons for the changes of the moon, is referred to the latter heading. Whilst in the preceding myths of the Mantis, the Moon, according to its origin, is only a piece of leather (a shoe of the Mantis),–in Bushman astrological mythology the Moon is looked upon as a man who incurs the wrath of the Sun, and is consequently pierced by the knife (i.e. rays) of the latter. This process is repeated until almost the whole of the Moon is cut away, and only one little piece left; which the Moon piteously implores the Sun to spare for his (the Moon’s) children. (As mentioned above, the Moon is in Bushman mythology a male being.) From this little piece, the Moon gradually grows again until it becomes a full moon, when the Sun’s stabbing and cutting processes recommence.– This explanation of the Moon’s changes is given in four versions; the longest of which (although as yet unfinished) is in a speech made by the Mantis, when he had created the Moon. BIII. 434–437, 432a–437a, 438–460, 501–514, IV. 515–526, 528–584, V. 585–590, XVL. 1497–1590, XVII. 1591–1683, XVIII 1698–1711, 1725–1758) |kaggen fights with the Meerkats and pierces the gall of the dead eland (which was formerly |kaggen's pet). |kaggen creates the Moon from his veldskoen, which he throws into the sky to light the darkness. The story continues about the Moon and how it is stabbed by the Sun. The angry Sun follows the spoor of the Moon as it (the Moon) travels in the sky. The Sun intends to fight the Moon. The Moon is pierced by the knife or rays of the Sun. In pain, the Moon sets slowly and dies but is reborn the next night when it lights up the darkness. A part of the Moon remains in the sky and lives while its decayed and wounded part dies away. The part of the Moon that lives is joined to its head, its face and its thinking strings. As the Moon grows, so does its stomach which becomes full and gives light for the people on the ground.

Comments

1) p.422v: A note on the throat arteries, which house the thinking strings and are the instruments of thought, 2) p.547v: names of groups of |xam: Flat and Hartebeest River |xam, the |ka people, and the !khouga !ko [illegible] people; the names of trees (thorn), 3) p.576v: 'body' parts of the Moon (shoulder-flesh and neckhole), 4) Date on p.1496v: 21 March 1873 (notes added), 5) Date on p.1515v: March 1920 'DB' or Dorothea Bleek, 6) Insert found between pp.1549-1550 featuring |xam vocabulary, 7) This story is found in Books II-V and XVI-XVIII