Tsuni-Goam: the Supreme Being of the Khoi-khoi

Theophilus Hahn

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781136373008
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

First Published in 2000. This Volume III of three of a series on Africa. Written in 1881, using the evidence of history and language, this text looks at the South African people of the Khoi-khoi or Hottentots and their Supreme Being, Tsuni-Goam.

CHAPTER II.

The religious instinct should be
honoured even in dark and con-
fused mysteries.—SCHELLIN G.

SACRED FRAGMENTS AND RELICS.

IN this chapter I propose to give extracts from the accounts of former travellers as much as my own observations, reserving for my next chapter the inferences I have drawn from them.

Worship of Heitsi-eibib.

Corporal Müller, travelling with the Hottentot interpreter Harry along the False Bay, east of the Cape, in October, 1655, says:

“ We were marching generally in a S.E. direction ; after marching half an hour one morning we saw a strange proceeding of the Hottentot women on the side of our path, where a great stone lay. Each woman had a green branch in her hand, laid down upon her face on the stone, and spoke words, which we did not understand ; on asking what it meant, they said, ‘ Hette hie,’ and pointed above, as if they would say, ‘ It is an offering to God.’ ”—(“Sutherland Memoir respecting the Kaffers, Hottentots, and Bosjesmans,” vol. ii. p. 88.)

As will be seen from the sequel of this chapter, the word “ Hette hie “ is only a distortion of “ Heitsi-eibib” and the form of worship, described here at the cairn, is nothing else but the Heitsi-eibib worship, as it is practised still up to this day all over Great Namaqualand and in !Koranalaiid, where Heitsi-eibib has changed names, and the worship is offered to |Garubeb or Tsüi-||goab.

Worship of Tsũi-||goab (Dawn), ||Khah (Moon) and Heitsi-eibib (Dawn-tree).

Dapper, as early as 1671, speaking of the Khoikhoi at the Cape of Good Hope, says :

“ They know and believe that there is One, whom they call humma or summa (i.e., in Nama or ꜟKora |homi, heaven), who sends rain on earth, who makes the winds blow, and who makes the heat and the cold

“They also believe that they themselves can make rain, and can prevent the wind from blowing

“ It appears also that there is a certain superstition about the new moon. For if the moon is seen again (the new moon) they crowd together, making merry the whole night, dancing, jumping, and singing ; clasping their hands together, and also murmuring some words (singing hymns)

“ Nay, their women and children are seen to kneel before erected stones and bow before them.”—(0. Dapper, “ Umbständliche und Eigentliche Beschreibung von Africa.” Amsterdam, 1671, pp. 626, 627.)

Heitsi-eibib, or Tsũi-||goab, Worship.

Nicolas Witsen, burgomaster of Amsterdam, communicates to his learned friend Jobst Ludolf, in Germany, the following interesting letter, dated Cape of Good Hope, February 19, 1691, forty years after the landing of Governor Jan van Riebeeke at the Cape :

“ Nobilissimus vir miscebat sermonem cum aliquot Hottentottis, qui pro sua erga ipsum familiaritate docebant nihil dissimulando ¹ ‘ se adorare Deum eertum aliquem ‘ cuius caput manus seu pugni magnitiidinem haberet ; grandi eundem esse et deducto in latitudinem corpore ; auxilium vero eius implorari tempore famis et anonae carioris aut alterius cuiuscunque necessitatis. Uxores suas solero caput Dei conspergere terra rubra, (torob) Buchu et aliis suave olentibus herbis, oblato quoque eidem sacrificio non uno. Ex quo demum intelligi coeptum est, Hottentottos colère etiam aliquem ² Deum !

Tsũi-||goab, !Guru-·, and ||Gaunab.

Valentyn, a very trustworthy authority, who was a man of high education and of a classical training, and who had an eye to observe what many others overlooked, tells us in the fifth volume of his great work “ Keurlyke Be- schryving van Choromandel, &c. &c.._M vol. v. p. 109 : “I heard from the chieftains and various others that they call ‘ God’ in their language not only the ‘ Great Chief in saying, if it thunders, the Great Chief is angry with us ; but they generally call ‘ God’ in their language Thukwa or Thik-qua (Tsũi-||goab) ; but the Supreme Ruler they call Khourrou ; the Devil, Dangoh and Damoh ; a Spectre whom they fear very much, somsoma” And p. 158 our author continues : “ I must say, that I really ob- served many things amongst them which looked like religious worship....

“ It is certain, when the new moon reappears, they have that whole night a great merry-making and clasping of hands. They also, ten or twelve of them, sit on the banks of a river together, and throw some balls or dump- lings, made of clay, into the water.... It also is certain that I often heard them speaking of a Great Chief who dwells on high, whom they call in their own language Thikwa or Thukwa, and to whom they showed respect, especially during great storms of thunder and lightning. They also know of a Devil, whom they call Damoh, a black chief, who does much harm to them ; they avoided speaking of him, as he often persecuted them ; but in carefully examining this, it is nothing else but their somsomas and spectres. Some of them also call the Supreme, Lord (Nama !Khūb) from which it is evident that they believe in more than one ³ Khourrou.”

⁴ Valentyn then continues telling us that he had a conversation with a Hottentot who had been trained by the Dutch clergyman van Kalden, and he (Valentyn) found the man so well informed about the Christian religion and discovered in him such an understanding of religious matters that it was quite a pleasure to hear him speaking. As to Valentyn, he touched on his return voyage from the East Indies, in 1705, at the Cape. He has been a minister of the gospel in Amboina, &., for mor than twenty years, and took a great interest in native customs and manners, of which he had acquired a great knowledge.

||Khũb, the Moon, and !Khūb, the Lord.

The missionaries Plütschau and Ziegenbalg, sent by the King of Denmark, Frederic IV. to India in the commencement of the eighteenth century, touched at the Cape, where they had an opportunity of intercourse with the Hottentots (Khoikhoi).

Plütschau saw how the natives danced in the moonlight, singing and clasping their hands together. The missionary asked whether they worshipped the Moon ? The answer was, that they could not exactly say this, but it was the old custom of their ancestors to do so. They worshipped a Great Chief.—(W. Germann, Ziegenbalg und Plütschau, Erlangen, 1868, pp. 62.)

||Khã, the Moon, and !Khūb, the Lord.

Another traveller of the seventeenth century, Wilhelm Vogel, tells us about the Khoikhoi he met at the Cape : “ Of God and His nature they know very little or nothing, although one can observe that they have some worship of the moon. At new moon they come together and make a noise the whole night, dancing in a circle, and while dancing they clasp their hands together. Sometimes they are seen in dark caves, where they offer some prayers, which, however, a European does not understand. While doing this they have a very curious behaviour, they turn their eyes towards the sky and one makes to the other a cross on the forehead. And this is, perhaps, a kind of religious worship.”—(Wilhelm Vogel, “ Ostindiauische Reise,” p. 67.)

||Khãb, the Moon ; Tsũi-||goab, the Dawn; |Khūb, the Lord ; ||Gaunab, the Destroyer.

We now come to the worthy German Magister, Peter Kolb, whose reports have been repeatedly doubted by European writers, but without any good reason. Any traveller or missionary who is well acquainted with the manners and customs of the Bergdamaras, a black tribe in Great Namaqualand, which entirely has adopted Namaqua manners and language, and which preserved these elements even much better than the Namaquas themselves, will endorse the greater part of Kolb’s book on the Hottentots. The good and kind-hearted old Magister bore no hatred against the natives, and he is a great admirer of their simple and unvarnished manners. He has paid special attention to the religion and worship of these savages, and his observations on this subject deserve well to be noticed. Kolb quotes first from other authors, and gives last, but not least, his own observations :—

“ Saar, an officer of the Dutch Government (p. 157), distinctly says : ‘ One does not know what kind of religion they have, but early, ⁵ when the day dawns, they assemble and take each other by the hands and dance, and call out in their language towards the heavens. From this one may conclude that they must have some idea of the Godhead.’ ”—(Peter Kolb, p. 406. German edition. Nüremberg, 1719.)

From Father Tachard, Kolb also quotes : “ These people know nothing of the creation of the world .... nothing of the Trinity in the Godhead .... but they pray to a God.”—(Kolb, p. 406.)

The contemporary of Kolb and Ziegenbalg, was also a Danish missionary, Böving, who says : “ There are some rudera and traces of an idea (perception) of a God. For they know, at least the more intelligent among them, that there is a God, who has made the earth and heavens, who causes thunder and rain, and who gives them food and skins for clothing, so that also of them may be said what St. Paul says, Rom. i. 19.”—(Kolb, p. 406.)

Kolb’s own experience runs thus : “ It is obvious that all Hottentots believe in a God, they know him and confess it ; to him they ascribe the work of creation, and they maintain that he still rules over everything and that he gives life to everything. On the whole he is possessed of such high qualities that they could not well describe him .... Then our author continues, that nobody has given better information on the subject than the above-mentioned Böving.

“ Because the station of a chief is the highest charge, therefore they call the Lord ⁶ Gounia, and they call the moon so, as their visible God. But if they mean the Invisible, and intend to give him his true name, they call him Gounia Tiqũaa—i.e., the God of all gods. He is a good man and does not do any harm to them, and therefore they need not be afraid of him ?” Kolb affirms that his own experience, gathered during a long residence among the natives, is, “ that the Khoikhoi give the moon the name of the Great Chief.” He had observed how they performed dances in honour of the new moon, and how they address the moon in singing : “ Be welcome, give us plenty of honey, give grass to our cattle, that we may get plenty of milk.” In offering this prayer they look towards the moon.

After our author has described the whole performances, and all the rites connected with the religious worship of the Hottentots, he exclaims : “ And who now dares to deny that this dancing, singing, and offering invocations at the time of the full moon and new moon, is not a religious worship?” (P. 412.)

I need not quote any more authorities on this subject. It may suffice to state, that I have observed the same dancing and singing towards the moon, and that I fully can endorse Kolb’s statements. As will be seen in another pageof this essay, the moon really is considered to be a deity, who comises men immortality.

But to return to our worthy Magister, he speaks also of another being, whom he calls the other Captain of less power, from whom some of the natives (the sorcerers, !gai-aogu) have learnt witchcraft. He never does good to men, but always harm. They, therefore, must fear him, show respect to him, and serve him.

This coincides, according to my own experience, with the ||Gauna worship of the ‡Auni tribe, close to Wale-fish Bay and Sandwich Harbour, who offer prayers to ||Gauna, although they call him an evil-doer, who even kills them when they are out hunting. If Kolb says the name of this being is Tonqũoa, then he is mistaken ; he has simply misunderstood his informer.

On pages 416, 417, and 418, Kolb speaks of the worship of the Mantis insect. This has been doubted by various authorities. But from what I often had occasion to observe, Kolb’s remarks are quite correct. The Nama-quas believe that this insect brings luck if it creeps on a person, and one is not allowed to kill it. Strange enough, they call it also ||Gaunab, as they call the ⁷enemy of Tsũi-|| goab.

At the conclusion of his remarks on the religion of the Khoikhoi, Kolb supplies us with some valuable informa-tion about the places of worship. He says : “ These Hottentots have neither churches nor chapels, made with the hands of men, but they consider in their mind that certain places are sacred, because their ancestors have received great luck at such spots. Those places are to be found in the deserts, and consist of stone heaps, others are rivers, .... and they never pass such a deserted spot or hill without offering worship to the saint who, according to their belief, inhabits the place, and who has done so much good to so many of them.” (P. 418.)

“ Once on an occasion,” says Kolb, “ a Hottentot ||Kamma, whom I caught in the act of dancing and singing round such a spot, told me, that he, on a journey, slept at this place, and was not devoured by a lion who approached him during the night at a few yards distance only. He, the Hottentot, could not help thinking that a saint (ghost) inhabited the spot, and had protected him, and he considered it his duty not to forget this⁸ kindness.” (P. 419.)

Tsũi-||goab, and |Khunuseti, the Pleiades.

The first Khoikhoi missionary, George Schmidt, was sent in 1737 by the Moravian Mission to the Cape. He settled amongst the Hessaquas, a tribe inhabiting the present Caledon district, on the banks of the Zonder-einde River. The place formerly called Baviaanskloof, now Genadendal, is still occupied by the United B...

Table of contents

• Cover
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT
• DEDICATION
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• THE FACTS OF LANGUAGE
• THE RELIGIOUS INSTINCT
• I SHALL INDEED INTERPRET