cacadores
16-01-2009, 12:56 AM
Credo Mutwa, the Genocide & the Reptiles
In the earlier Credo Mutwa videos, his references to lizards and reptiles are tangental. He tells stories about them, in a manner very similar to the myths and stories heard from other native peoples....and it is David Icke who links these to to our experience in the west. Could he be right: is there evidence that reptile-people existed or exist? Why are the stories so elusive but the descriptions so detailed? Perhaps we can, dimy, see something of them if we remove our pre-conceptions.
Who are these men that turn into reptiles?
Are they real? I hope to prove (even to a rational sceptic) that indeed you know them. And that there are people who have shown us.
Credo Mutwa and the First Peoples on Earth
When I first heard about Credo Mutwa's beliefs, I was struck how similar the themes he spoke about, were to the stories told by the Bushmen from the same region, southern Africa & who had been there for 8,000 years.
Especially the stories about the lizards. What intrigued me, was this: if a Zulu shaman ('spirit' seeker) like Mutwa has legends which could give us insights to the past, how much more so would the Bushmen shamen: the little people who pre-date almost any other race in that part of the world. If we could see Adam today, he would look like a Bushman.
http://www.safaris-direct.net/safari-pictures/large/Bushman_hunter.jpg
The noble hunter. Pure-blood Bushmen now in the desert sometimes have greyish skin: it is from the dust they cover themselves with to protect themselves against the foliage-free skys.
Who were the first people, and where did they go?
The ORIGINAL peoples of Southern Africa, were the slight, small-built San people, i.e. Bushmen hunter-gathers. As common with hunter-gatherers, the preservation of the wildlife and landscape was and is strong in their beliefs. Like the western Red Indians or Australian aboriginals they hold large natural features to be sacred and have various taboos on the killing of animals in certain places and a strong belief in the transferance of the spirit. They imbue the animals with life and spirit. In particular, they link the small animals that hide in the earth to their buried dead, and ascribe to them powers of divination and prophecy.
Before we go any further, we need to describe the genocide. If I refer to 'negros' it's to enable us to keep in mind the immence size difference between these peoples and the (pure) Bushmen who stand about as tall as a European 11 year-old.
The Genocide in recent history
The small-bodied Stone-age Bushmen hunter-gatherers inhabited the region along side Khoi-Khoi (Hottentot negros). At some period before 300 AD, communities of (negro) Bantu groups – were living in the interior. What happened next was paralled all over the world: The Bantus discovered or were shown iron tools and began to farm. The larger (negro) Hottentots took up iron knives and the farming too and the Bushmen were pushed towards the hostile desert areas. We should be clear what 'pushed' means. It means ethnic clensing and genocide. The reason we can be so precise is that this was still going on within living memory - is still going on.
http://www.becci.com/images/Misc/bushman-stalking-pair-journ.jpg
In Natal, in the 19th century, a military genius, Shaka, had moulded the formerly insignificant (negro) Zulus into a powerful Zulu fighting force and developed an economy of war. This involved wiping out other tribes and taking their women. As they expanded, other negro tribes were put under pressure again, and again they moved south and again they took the lands from the Bushmen, killed the men and raped their women: activities witnessed by white settlers in the 20th centuary. And just as in America, or Tazmania, the stronger and larger incomers (both Bantu and Hottentot) killed and enslaved the weaker and recalcigent aboriginal hunters, devastated their game, diverted their water, raped their women and stole their land for farming and cattle. From the 17th Century, the incoming white settlers developed a ranching-centred style of agriculture just like the Bantu peoples and, as their numbers grew, more and more Bushmen were enslaved, left to die or to escape to the desert: their forests cut down, their lands gone.
Who are the forest people?
Neither the early white farmers, nor the Bantus understood the Bushmen. Why did these little people insist on their belief in the spirit and their stone age way of life? Why did they tread so delicately on the land and insist on preserving so much of it? Why do they feel the need to make reparations and give gifts of flowers if they kill an antelope? Why, when they talk of themselves, do they hardly seem to recognise the difference between themselves (the 'San'; the 'people' or 'the first') and the land they live on? Cutting down a great tree was and is, to the Bushmen, like losing a limb. They could no more be expected to pen their animals than a Bantu could be expected to pen himself. Of course some fought back, with their bows - there are some inspiring but sad stories of 'last stands' into historical times. But these sort of Bushmen are long dead and the present survivors prefer hiding.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/01/Laurens.van.der.Post.Storyteller.jpg/150px-Laurens.van.der.Post.Storyteller.jpg
Laurens Van der Post described the Bushmen as the original natives of southern Africa, outcast and persecuted by all other races and nationalities. He said they represented the "lost soul" of all mankind, a true noble savage.
And the genocide continues - these gentle people are not only being pushed further into the Kalahari desert interior, but just last year, the Botswanen government passed new laws prohibiting more hunting, making life impossible for the few that are left.
The drip drip genocide of a people continues.
Reptiles and people
So, what of the reptiles?
Bushmen believe that coming from the ground, they carry the spirit of the earth and should be treated with immense respect.
Bushmen beliefs and the Reptiles:
A snake which is near a grave, we do not kill, for, it is our other person, our dead person, the dead person's snake. And we do not kill it; for we respect it. When our "other one", who is a man, dies, he becomes a snake; and his snake is a spirit.
Another day, (if) we see a lizard, we follow the lizard's spoor; if the lizard has gone to the earth or grave of our other person, we respect the lizard, we do not kill the lizard, we let the lizard alone.
When we see an antelope, an antelope which is near our other person's place, that place where our other person has died, we respect the antelope; for, the antelope is not a mere antelope. Its legs seem small, it is the person who has died, and is a spirit antelope. It is a male antelope; it is not a female antelope.
Uncanny: almost a mirror opposite of the Zulu's attitude to reptiles. Where to the Zulu, they must kill as they flatten their environment for farming and destroy the Bushmen's animal spirits.... the Bushmen see these as reptillian embodiments of a mysterious earth and as a part of themselves. Did the Zulus know this? Did they fear the reptiles for this reason?
http://www.south-africa-tours-and-travel.com/images/Bushman-family.jpg
http://www.bonasafari.com/files/PICT0135.jpg
A Bushman woman dancing - similar dances at night are meant to induce trance.
We know, that when the Nguni (including Zulu, Xhosa and Swazi peoples) came to dominate modern southern Africa: just like the later Boers, they killed the Bushmens' spirit game, they cut down the great forests covering the Bushmans' sacred hills and ploughed the sacred ground;
http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/12515/wm/pd1119404.jpg
they drew over the cave paintings that give the Bushmen their history and which carried the voice of their ancesters from the beginning of time. Like drink did for the soul of the Australian Aboriginals, the killing of their spirit animals killed the souls of the Bushmen. In other words, with their history gone, with their ancestors messages no longer readable, with their land taken, with their concept of past and present in tatters they loose all self-esteem. Bushmen who enter the world of the Bantu or white man, to work on a farm for example, often never take a wife and call themselves 'the Empty'. Many Bushmen have been seen to sit and simply wait for death.
Shaka Zulu and the destruction of the forest people.
Farmers fight the Hunters
Now put the Zulu in the position of the white man in Australia or the Cape, and the riddle of the 'reptiles' comes out of the fog of pre-history and starts to live in our world. Farming produces a surplus in food, it allows more time for thinking and fighting. Food makes the generations larger and stronger and they push out the weaker hunters. There came a time, when many Zulus, like many white man, also became sentimental about their own past. Their own legends contain stories of the past when, not so long ago, their ancestors fought the hunter-gatherers . Even contemporary Irishmen tell the country tales of the 'little people' who fought the big people and were banished to the 'raths' (burial hills), and live there still. I've spoken to modern Irish students, who will tell you these are silly tales, but who still believe 'there's something creepy' about the raths and that it's unlucky to disturb them. The Irish tale of Cucullen has also been interpreted as the great battle between cattle ranchers after the indiginous people have been pushed to the margins.
Now these British (and Irish) and Hougonots enter South Africa. And they hear from people like Van der Post about these living reminents of the 'noble savage' from their own past. And so this mythos of the Bushmen inspired the colonial government to create the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 1961 to guarantee their survival, which became a part of settled law when Botswana was created in 1966.
The Transformation of the Spirit Animals
So with the expanding Zulu, looking for new farmland: their extermination of the Bushmen is in their legends: and naturally, the Bushmen and the Bushman's spirit animals are their enemy, and they fear them and have to kill them. But what is most disturbing of all, is that the stone-age Bushmen, of course, represent the Zulu's own recent past, when they, the Nguni, were also noble savages, covered in grey dust to keep off the suns rays as their forests were sut down, when they also lived with the land and the land was their spirit world. And their is wistfulness, for the loss of their own innocence, and for the genocide of the original little people.
__________________________________________________ _____________
So listen to Credo Mutwa again, please. Listen to the stories of the lizards, with dust-grey skin who live in the earth mounds and caves, who come up and go into the sky.....who used to run the world above ground and who now live below it, who can be killed....who we fear and admire and resent because we feel guilty at the same time because, after all............long ago......
http://www.diebergers.at/KHB%20Bushmen%20near%20Hammerstein.jpg
http://www.south-africa-tours-and-travel.com/images/Bushman-family.jpg
They were us.
http://www.exittoafrica.com/albums/a02_album/a02-d-bushman.jpg
Twee & his brother-in-law
San (Bushmen) of Northeast Namibia. Both Twee (left) and his brother-in-law are local experts on the flora and fauna of the region. Bushman have lived as egalitarian nomadic hunter-gatherers for thousands of years. Their language is considered one of the most complex and ancient of languages that are still spoken today and the race itself is considered to be one of the oldest on earth. Unfortunately population pressures (first from Bantus, then Europeans, and now modern society) has almost completely wiped Twee's people out.
www.exittoafrica.com/html/eta_friends.html
__________________________________________________ _____________
Be intereted in your comments or questions.
Cheers
In the earlier Credo Mutwa videos, his references to lizards and reptiles are tangental. He tells stories about them, in a manner very similar to the myths and stories heard from other native peoples....and it is David Icke who links these to to our experience in the west. Could he be right: is there evidence that reptile-people existed or exist? Why are the stories so elusive but the descriptions so detailed? Perhaps we can, dimy, see something of them if we remove our pre-conceptions.
Who are these men that turn into reptiles?
Are they real? I hope to prove (even to a rational sceptic) that indeed you know them. And that there are people who have shown us.
Credo Mutwa and the First Peoples on Earth
When I first heard about Credo Mutwa's beliefs, I was struck how similar the themes he spoke about, were to the stories told by the Bushmen from the same region, southern Africa & who had been there for 8,000 years.
Especially the stories about the lizards. What intrigued me, was this: if a Zulu shaman ('spirit' seeker) like Mutwa has legends which could give us insights to the past, how much more so would the Bushmen shamen: the little people who pre-date almost any other race in that part of the world. If we could see Adam today, he would look like a Bushman.
http://www.safaris-direct.net/safari-pictures/large/Bushman_hunter.jpg
The noble hunter. Pure-blood Bushmen now in the desert sometimes have greyish skin: it is from the dust they cover themselves with to protect themselves against the foliage-free skys.
Who were the first people, and where did they go?
The ORIGINAL peoples of Southern Africa, were the slight, small-built San people, i.e. Bushmen hunter-gathers. As common with hunter-gatherers, the preservation of the wildlife and landscape was and is strong in their beliefs. Like the western Red Indians or Australian aboriginals they hold large natural features to be sacred and have various taboos on the killing of animals in certain places and a strong belief in the transferance of the spirit. They imbue the animals with life and spirit. In particular, they link the small animals that hide in the earth to their buried dead, and ascribe to them powers of divination and prophecy.
Before we go any further, we need to describe the genocide. If I refer to 'negros' it's to enable us to keep in mind the immence size difference between these peoples and the (pure) Bushmen who stand about as tall as a European 11 year-old.
The Genocide in recent history
The small-bodied Stone-age Bushmen hunter-gatherers inhabited the region along side Khoi-Khoi (Hottentot negros). At some period before 300 AD, communities of (negro) Bantu groups – were living in the interior. What happened next was paralled all over the world: The Bantus discovered or were shown iron tools and began to farm. The larger (negro) Hottentots took up iron knives and the farming too and the Bushmen were pushed towards the hostile desert areas. We should be clear what 'pushed' means. It means ethnic clensing and genocide. The reason we can be so precise is that this was still going on within living memory - is still going on.
http://www.becci.com/images/Misc/bushman-stalking-pair-journ.jpg
In Natal, in the 19th century, a military genius, Shaka, had moulded the formerly insignificant (negro) Zulus into a powerful Zulu fighting force and developed an economy of war. This involved wiping out other tribes and taking their women. As they expanded, other negro tribes were put under pressure again, and again they moved south and again they took the lands from the Bushmen, killed the men and raped their women: activities witnessed by white settlers in the 20th centuary. And just as in America, or Tazmania, the stronger and larger incomers (both Bantu and Hottentot) killed and enslaved the weaker and recalcigent aboriginal hunters, devastated their game, diverted their water, raped their women and stole their land for farming and cattle. From the 17th Century, the incoming white settlers developed a ranching-centred style of agriculture just like the Bantu peoples and, as their numbers grew, more and more Bushmen were enslaved, left to die or to escape to the desert: their forests cut down, their lands gone.
Who are the forest people?
Neither the early white farmers, nor the Bantus understood the Bushmen. Why did these little people insist on their belief in the spirit and their stone age way of life? Why did they tread so delicately on the land and insist on preserving so much of it? Why do they feel the need to make reparations and give gifts of flowers if they kill an antelope? Why, when they talk of themselves, do they hardly seem to recognise the difference between themselves (the 'San'; the 'people' or 'the first') and the land they live on? Cutting down a great tree was and is, to the Bushmen, like losing a limb. They could no more be expected to pen their animals than a Bantu could be expected to pen himself. Of course some fought back, with their bows - there are some inspiring but sad stories of 'last stands' into historical times. But these sort of Bushmen are long dead and the present survivors prefer hiding.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/01/Laurens.van.der.Post.Storyteller.jpg/150px-Laurens.van.der.Post.Storyteller.jpg
Laurens Van der Post described the Bushmen as the original natives of southern Africa, outcast and persecuted by all other races and nationalities. He said they represented the "lost soul" of all mankind, a true noble savage.
And the genocide continues - these gentle people are not only being pushed further into the Kalahari desert interior, but just last year, the Botswanen government passed new laws prohibiting more hunting, making life impossible for the few that are left.
The drip drip genocide of a people continues.
Reptiles and people
So, what of the reptiles?
Bushmen believe that coming from the ground, they carry the spirit of the earth and should be treated with immense respect.
Bushmen beliefs and the Reptiles:
A snake which is near a grave, we do not kill, for, it is our other person, our dead person, the dead person's snake. And we do not kill it; for we respect it. When our "other one", who is a man, dies, he becomes a snake; and his snake is a spirit.
Another day, (if) we see a lizard, we follow the lizard's spoor; if the lizard has gone to the earth or grave of our other person, we respect the lizard, we do not kill the lizard, we let the lizard alone.
When we see an antelope, an antelope which is near our other person's place, that place where our other person has died, we respect the antelope; for, the antelope is not a mere antelope. Its legs seem small, it is the person who has died, and is a spirit antelope. It is a male antelope; it is not a female antelope.
Uncanny: almost a mirror opposite of the Zulu's attitude to reptiles. Where to the Zulu, they must kill as they flatten their environment for farming and destroy the Bushmen's animal spirits.... the Bushmen see these as reptillian embodiments of a mysterious earth and as a part of themselves. Did the Zulus know this? Did they fear the reptiles for this reason?
http://www.south-africa-tours-and-travel.com/images/Bushman-family.jpg
http://www.bonasafari.com/files/PICT0135.jpg
A Bushman woman dancing - similar dances at night are meant to induce trance.
We know, that when the Nguni (including Zulu, Xhosa and Swazi peoples) came to dominate modern southern Africa: just like the later Boers, they killed the Bushmens' spirit game, they cut down the great forests covering the Bushmans' sacred hills and ploughed the sacred ground;
http://img1.photographersdirect.com/img/12515/wm/pd1119404.jpg
they drew over the cave paintings that give the Bushmen their history and which carried the voice of their ancesters from the beginning of time. Like drink did for the soul of the Australian Aboriginals, the killing of their spirit animals killed the souls of the Bushmen. In other words, with their history gone, with their ancestors messages no longer readable, with their land taken, with their concept of past and present in tatters they loose all self-esteem. Bushmen who enter the world of the Bantu or white man, to work on a farm for example, often never take a wife and call themselves 'the Empty'. Many Bushmen have been seen to sit and simply wait for death.
Shaka Zulu and the destruction of the forest people.
Farmers fight the Hunters
Now put the Zulu in the position of the white man in Australia or the Cape, and the riddle of the 'reptiles' comes out of the fog of pre-history and starts to live in our world. Farming produces a surplus in food, it allows more time for thinking and fighting. Food makes the generations larger and stronger and they push out the weaker hunters. There came a time, when many Zulus, like many white man, also became sentimental about their own past. Their own legends contain stories of the past when, not so long ago, their ancestors fought the hunter-gatherers . Even contemporary Irishmen tell the country tales of the 'little people' who fought the big people and were banished to the 'raths' (burial hills), and live there still. I've spoken to modern Irish students, who will tell you these are silly tales, but who still believe 'there's something creepy' about the raths and that it's unlucky to disturb them. The Irish tale of Cucullen has also been interpreted as the great battle between cattle ranchers after the indiginous people have been pushed to the margins.
Now these British (and Irish) and Hougonots enter South Africa. And they hear from people like Van der Post about these living reminents of the 'noble savage' from their own past. And so this mythos of the Bushmen inspired the colonial government to create the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in 1961 to guarantee their survival, which became a part of settled law when Botswana was created in 1966.
The Transformation of the Spirit Animals
So with the expanding Zulu, looking for new farmland: their extermination of the Bushmen is in their legends: and naturally, the Bushmen and the Bushman's spirit animals are their enemy, and they fear them and have to kill them. But what is most disturbing of all, is that the stone-age Bushmen, of course, represent the Zulu's own recent past, when they, the Nguni, were also noble savages, covered in grey dust to keep off the suns rays as their forests were sut down, when they also lived with the land and the land was their spirit world. And their is wistfulness, for the loss of their own innocence, and for the genocide of the original little people.
__________________________________________________ _____________
So listen to Credo Mutwa again, please. Listen to the stories of the lizards, with dust-grey skin who live in the earth mounds and caves, who come up and go into the sky.....who used to run the world above ground and who now live below it, who can be killed....who we fear and admire and resent because we feel guilty at the same time because, after all............long ago......
http://www.diebergers.at/KHB%20Bushmen%20near%20Hammerstein.jpg
http://www.south-africa-tours-and-travel.com/images/Bushman-family.jpg
They were us.
http://www.exittoafrica.com/albums/a02_album/a02-d-bushman.jpg
Twee & his brother-in-law
San (Bushmen) of Northeast Namibia. Both Twee (left) and his brother-in-law are local experts on the flora and fauna of the region. Bushman have lived as egalitarian nomadic hunter-gatherers for thousands of years. Their language is considered one of the most complex and ancient of languages that are still spoken today and the race itself is considered to be one of the oldest on earth. Unfortunately population pressures (first from Bantus, then Europeans, and now modern society) has almost completely wiped Twee's people out.
www.exittoafrica.com/html/eta_friends.html
__________________________________________________ _____________
Be intereted in your comments or questions.
Cheers