The Bushmen of the Kalahari

The Bushmen of the Makgadikgadi Pan are the "First People" of the Kalahari and were happy to share some of the mysteries of their culture. They hunt game with bow and arrow coated with a poison similar to that of the Black Momba snake. They eat roots, berries, and fruits true to the land and wander from place to place; always moving wild and free.

Bushman Cobra

They are in harmony with nature and respect Mother Earth; they speak with a clicking sound and walk with bare feet. They share all possessions and come together in the evenings to enjoy the "Holy" fire and dance to call to spirits and ancestors beyond.

Building a Holy Fire

We made new friends here named Cobra, Cava, and !Kai. The ! stands for the click sound of their name. We tasted roots and trance berries and cleaned eyes of scorpions, then ended our day chanting with women while the shaman did a trance dance around the "Holy Fire". The chanting and round and round movements of the dances are mesmerizing. The men are lean and sinewy, glistening with a thin film of sweat as they continue to dance around the fire.

Shaman Bushman

As we leave and walk into a night bright with stars; one cannot help feeling how wonderous this world is...and feeling much as a poem by Wayne Visser so apply says:

"We call you Hunter, Bushmen, San

You sowed the seed of primal Man

A gentler race we have not known

See how your legacy has grown...

You chose the way of archer's bow

Of hunter's grace-the art of flow:

to give and take and see the whole

To honour life and feed the soul."





Child of a Bushman



Women of the Bush