 Boiling Energy
Community Healing Among the Kalahari Kung
By Richard KatzThis is not a new publication. It was published in 1982 and copyrighted by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Richard Katz lived among the Kalahari Kung for several months while researching their healing practices and most notably their healing dances. The Kalahari Kung are a former gathering and hunting society living in the Kalahari Desert of South Africa. They have been intensively filmed, studied and interviewed by anthropologists for now over 50 years. What is their special appeal? For one they are among the last of the few remaining societies where foraging is a way of life. One of the most important areas of their lives is the ritual of the healing dance and it is one that was not highly researched until Richard Katz pursued this course of research through the Harvard Kalahari Research Group. His introduction of these somewhat mysterious but yet simple, gentle peoples is very direct and his sharing of the details of the dance is present throughout the pages of this very engaging story. The Kung’s understanding of what they call “num”, is an energy which they consider drives the dance.
My interest in this particular book, though it was written in 1982, is the exploration of how the Kalahari Kung have survived through all these centuries. And, more importantly, how the more current encroachment of “civilized”, and organized people has impacted their healing powers and the nature of how they see their relationship to their community. This is a powerful book and one I recommend for anyone who is interested in trance dance as a way of accessing shamanic healing powers. I know it is available on Amazon. |
