Bushman psychological construction of worldview is based largely on causality and consequence- both everyday action and mythology/folklore is structured in terms of human and non-human beings' actions as a cause of an event. Take, for example, the Early Race Narrative concerning the baboon's short, crooked tail. When baboons were like people, in the Early Race times, a child went hunting with a baboon. When they returned to a group of people, the baboon told them he had brought them gemsbok meat to cook and eat. The meat did not smell like gemsbok but the baboon insisted that it was just that. They became suspicious and asked the child what type of meat the baboon had provided. In answer, the child responded that it was in fact human flesh.
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However, Dowson, it seems, wants to replace one theoretical position with another without apprehension of their equivalence. Dowson appears not to completely apprehend, or perhaps simply articulate, the complexity of the animist condition. Marshall Sahlin's 'hierarchical animism' the admixture of Descola's analogism and animism, seems to accord well with what we know about 'spiritual stratification' within Bushman worldview. Bernd Brabec de Mori (2013) expounds this stratification in reference to shamans of the Shopibo of Peru. Here, other non-shaman community members do not share the exclusive spiritual access accorded to shamans. Shamans have tasks which it is their duty to perform, and that other members cannot perform. However, since community members share relational frames of interaction between human and non-human persons in everyday life it is also the duty of the shaman to relate what he/she has achieved to the people, who fully appreciate the kinds of interactions. A statement such as this is not in any way new or surprising. Both Megan Biesele (1978) and Lewis-Williams (1988) emphasize Bushman shamans, once a trance state has been achieved and necessary tasks undertaken within the spirit realm, recounting their experiences to the members of their community. These recollections "no matter how …show more content…
Their focus is on 'taming' of game animals for the practice of hunting. 'Tameness' is said to have been desirable in prey; that shamans could manipulate relationships between themselves and other species in order to exact from them this quality (McGranaghan & Challis 2016) This process of taming made up a not insignificant portion of rock art production, and can be demonstrated in the art itself. Far from being in opposition to the broad shamanic model, McGranaghan & Challis argue that animic relationships (and the carrying out of taming magic) form an integrated part of this framework. It is with this argument that McGranaghan and Challis
However, Dowson, it seems, wants to replace one theoretical position with another without apprehension of their equivalence. Dowson appears not to completely apprehend, or perhaps simply articulate, the complexity of the animist condition. Marshall Sahlin's 'hierarchical animism' the admixture of Descola's analogism and animism, seems to accord well with what we know about 'spiritual stratification' within Bushman worldview. Bernd Brabec de Mori (2013) expounds this stratification in reference to shamans of the Shopibo of Peru. Here, other non-shaman community members do not share the exclusive spiritual access accorded to shamans. Shamans have tasks which it is their duty to perform, and that other members cannot perform. However, since community members share relational frames of interaction between human and non-human persons in everyday life it is also the duty of the shaman to relate what he/she has achieved to the people, who fully appreciate the kinds of interactions. A statement such as this is not in any way new or surprising. Both Megan Biesele (1978) and Lewis-Williams (1988) emphasize Bushman shamans, once a trance state has been achieved and necessary tasks undertaken within the spirit realm, recounting their experiences to the members of their community. These recollections "no matter how …show more content…
Their focus is on 'taming' of game animals for the practice of hunting. 'Tameness' is said to have been desirable in prey; that shamans could manipulate relationships between themselves and other species in order to exact from them this quality (McGranaghan & Challis 2016) This process of taming made up a not insignificant portion of rock art production, and can be demonstrated in the art itself. Far from being in opposition to the broad shamanic model, McGranaghan & Challis argue that animic relationships (and the carrying out of taming magic) form an integrated part of this framework. It is with this argument that McGranaghan and Challis