Tricksters and Trancers: Bushman Religion and Society

Title: Tricksters and Trancers
Subtitle: Bushman Religion and Society
Genre: Anthropology, Religious Studies
Author: Mathias Guenther
Publisher:‎ Indiana University Press
Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1999
ISBN 9780253213440 / ISBN 978-0-25-321344-0
Softcover, 16 x 24 cm, 288 pages

Condition:

Fair. Wear to the softcover, inside clean, some slight pencil markings. Spine is light stained.
Handwritten dedication by the author to a well known contributor.

About: Tricksters and Trancers: Bushman Religion and Society

The trickster and trance dancer are the guides through Bushman (or San) religion, a world of ambiguity and contradiction, and of enchantment. The two figures, who in Bushman belief are symbolically equivalent and mystically linked, embody these antistructural traits. The trickster, who in Bushman belief is both protagonist and divinity, elicits feelings of profound ambivalence, exacerbating the figure's ambiguous state. Both the trickster and trancer are ontologically fluid, ever ready to transfer who, what, and where they are.

In hunting and gathering societies such as the Bushmen, these characteristics pervade all the other cultural domains. An experience-rooted analysis of Bushman society and religion is contrasted with other anthropological approaches to ambiguity which are biased toward a rational structure and, as a result, fail to grasp a culture's antistructural tendencies. This study presents information on Bushman groups from all over southern Africa, derived from both recent ethnographic studies and early missionary writings.

Mathias Guenther, Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, is author of The Farm Bushmen of the Ghanzi District, Botswana; The Nharo Bushmen of Botswana: Tradition and Change; and Bushman Folktales: Oral Traditions of the Nharo of Botswana and the Xam of the Cape.

Content: Tricksters and Trancers: Bushman Religion and Society

PREFACE
Introduction: The Challenge of Bushman Religion
1. Bushman Society
2. Values and Individuals
3. Bushman Religious Belief and Cosmology
4. The Bushman Trickster
5. Stories, Storytelling, and Story Gathering: The Case of the Moon and the Hare
6. Myth and Gender
7. Initiation Rites
8. The Trance Curing Dance
9. Missionaries and Bushmen
Conclusion: Bushman Religion and the Tolerance for Ambiguity
NOTES
REFERENCES CITED
INDEX
MAPS
1. Bushman Linguistic Groupings in Southern Africa
2. Nineteenth-Century Mission Stations to Bushmen