Rites, Rituals and Festivals
Both the San people and the Bantu speaking people had approximately four life cycle events that was usually celebrated ceremoniously, these events where seen as significant milestones and therefore a religious ceremony was required to acknowledge the event. These four life cycle events can basically be identified as birth, coming of age, marriage and death cycles. On special occasions there was also festivals, these festival were usually held annually and where concerned with rain or seasonal change.
At the birth of an infinite the naming of the child was important, the birth of a child were connected with certain properties or types of rain. Usually there were around 35 names put forward, these names was usually the names of relatives. The oldest member in the kinship had the authority to choose the name of the child. The birthing act was without much ceremony, as a woman only briefly left the tribe to give birth, and once the birthing was over she would return to the tribe. She was allowed to take other woman with her to help with the process. The life of the San was often very hard, during very difficult times, usually in a time of drought; a woman might decide to actually kill her infant immediately after birth. This was seen as a kindness, if the tribe did not have means to support another life, and it was done quickly before the mother could form an attached to the child.
Coming of age ceremonies where very important these ceremonies marked the transition of a child into adulthood for a San boy this transition was marked as his first kill during hunting.
The fist kill had to be an antelope and preferable an eland, the San greatly refereed the eland. Once the animal was caught it was ski...
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...fected (Author Unknown Accessed on March 24th of 2014) http://www.rebirth.co.za/san_tribe/way_of_life.htm ‘Sotho-Tswana Peoples’ Wikipedia (Authors Unknown accessed on April 4th of 2014) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sotho%E2%80%93Tswana_peoples Steve Connor ‘World’s most ancient race traced in DNA study’ The Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/worlds-most-ancient-race-traced-in-dna-study-1677113.html The Hunter Gather Society (Author Unknown website accessed at 2 April 20014 http://mycyberwall.co.za/sites/mycyberwall.co.za/files/content/history/grade-5/hunter-gatherers-herders-southern-africa/modulepdfthe-san-hunter-gatherers.pdf WMSA Annual Report 2004 – 2005 Page 58 (Unknown Author: Accessed on 27th March 2014)
http://evan.oribi.cc:50080/index.php?option=com_rokdownloads&view=file&task=download&id=19%3Awimsa-annual-report-04-05&Itemid=79
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