Human Rights Day

I am still in Johannesburg!
Probably for another week or so...as mentioned before the news is always thatwe should be going to Mozambique "the middle of next week"...so no changes in other words.

Today is "Human Rights DAy" here in South Africa, a day of National Holiday, so I only worked half day for a change.

I think I might have said already that last Sunday I went to an Anthropology Museum specializing in San's rock paintings. The sans are the original Bushmen of southern Africa. The people who include tongue clicking in their language...anyway, I bought a book of "Ancestral Folklore Stories", here is one short one for you....I copy it straigth from the book.

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A man - I do not know his name, but he was one of the "Early Race" - once hunted the Rain, as the Rain was grazing there. The Rain was like an eland. He hunted, approaching the Rain, and he came and lay down. He shot the Rain, and it sprang to one side. The Rain did this: it ran away, as he walked on.
He went to pick the arrow. He intended to go and put it back. He went and picked up his bag, the bag which he had taken hunting with him. He had put it down. That was the bag that he picked up. He put in hte bag the arrow with which he had shot the Rain. He returned. He lay down to sleep.
Early next morning he told the people that he had shot the Rain. And they follow up the Rain. They went to track its footsprints.
They were following them when a mist came up. They cnotinued to follow the Rain's footprints. They followed the footprints right up to the Rain. They caught sight of the Rain lying down, and they went up to it.
They cut the Rain. They kept cutting off meat. They kept putting it to roast, but the meat kept vanishing, being burnt up in the fire. This is what they did: they went to take out hte meat. They turned over the ashes looking for the meat at the place where it had been roasting, but it was burnt up. They went on roasting, and all the meat vanished from the fire. The fire burnt out; thefire died down.
Then an old man said. "I thought I would go whenthis eland's meat was finished, butI have not eaten it, even though I roasted it. So now I will go while its meat sits here."
And another answered, "We will all do so, because we did not know what sort of eland it was. Let us go, because it is an eland whose meat we do not eat."
As they walked away, the Rain shut them in. When the Rain saw that they were preparing to go, it shut them in. The Rain's navel shut them into the hut, and they sat waiting for the Rain' navel. And they worked at a pond. They worked. They became frogs. They hopped at the hut, the people who had followed the spoor hopped away. He made a pond; he had been on hte hunting-ground; he worked, making a pound.
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As you can see an unusual way of telling stories.
Of course these people have a very specific set of beliefs with a strong relationship to the rain and the animals they hunted.

Enough for today...I'll try to find on the internet some photos of some of the painting that show the ways of the rainmakers and I'll pass on some of what the museum exhibits explained about those paintings and the ways of the rainmakers.