Abstract
The Ju/’hoan Bushman origin myth is depicted as providing a contextual frame that orchestrates and gives meaning to their puberty rites, storytelling, and healing dance. These performances are shown to be an enactment of a reentry from Second into First Creation, the latter an imagined time when the original people could change into animals, communicate with all living forms, and have eternal life without sickness. Here n/om, or the presumed vitality of life, change, and creation, is infused into the community. Empowerment of adolescent passage into adulthood, renewal of mythological potency, enhancement of community relations, and healing of sickness take place inside the performances that dramatize reentry into First Creation. Bushman religion and ceremonial life are shown to highlight the importance of experiences that enact the way changing forms are given primacy over any subsequent naming or indication that stills movement. The latter is regarded as Second Creation. This recurrent passage between First and Second Creation sets the stage for Bushman transformative experience.
Published Version
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