infinitetruth
11-08-2007, 09:41 AM
I wanted to post this, I found the article HERE (http://dancehallreggae.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117572)
A friend of mine recently asked me why Rastafari do not eat meat and it made me think that although many Rastas follow this doctrine they do not know the reasons why; the below may help clarify for those of you who are not yet completely brainwashed.
Earth Spirit of Africa
Based on a presentation by
Wayne Visser
to the Parliament of the World’s Religions
1-8 December 1999, Cape Town
with Acknowledgements to Vasamazulu Credo Mutwa
Reported on by
In this article, I wish to explore traditional African attitudes, folklore and rituals which have governed the relationships between the people of Africa and the environment. In particular, I want to counteract a widespread perception of Africans as degraders of the environment. Most of what is contained in this article echoes the words of Vasamazulu Credo Mutwa – a South African sangoma (healer), high sanusi (clairvoyant and lore-master, or keeper of the ancient wisdom) and a great storyteller.
And this ancient wisdom is desperately needed. For we have become a civilization like the legendary monkeys, who, according to one African story, were placed by the great Earth Mother on a sacred fig tree to guard it. They developed such appetites that they not only ate all the figs but also devoured the bark and the wood of the tree. When the great Earth Mother returned, she found the tree reduced to a rotting stump and the skeletons of all the monkeys who had died of starvation after eating their own tree.
The African tradition
Cosmic outlook
We are taught by ancient Africans that we are part of God (as a little pebble is part of a great mountain), and because of this, we should beware of doing anything against the teaching and the nature of God. In old Africa, we did not regard ourselves as superior to the animals, the trees and the fishes and the birds. We regarded ourselves as part of all these living things. We believed that far from being specially created, we were, in fact the weakest of all the creatures that God had created. This feeling of weakness instilled in our souls deep dependence upon the living nature around us.
We believed that human beings could not exist without animals, birds and fishes, or the greenery that whispers all around us. We used to believe that in every one of us lay a spiritual animal, bird or fish with which we should keep contact at all times, to anchor our family upon the shifting surface of this often troubled planet. We believed that within us were the oceans, the rivers, the sky and the mountains. We believed that we had nature within and beyond ourselves.
African earth deities
For this reason, many African gods were depicted as part animal and part human. For instance, the great Earth Mother, whose Zulu name is Nomkhubulwane, or simply ‘Ma’, is often depicted with only one human leg, while her other leg is that of an animal – an antelope, elephant or rhinoceros. At other times she is depicted as having one fully human leg and another, usually the left leg, with roots where one would expect to find toes.
The great Earth Mother, together with other lesser goddesses, was believed by African people to be capable of changing her shape to that of any animal, bird or fish whenever she chose, and this is why Zulus call her Nomkhubulwane, a name which means ‘she who chooses the state of an animal’ – in short, ‘the shape-changer’.
Initiation schools still exist in scattered parts of Africa, where one learns about the deepest spiritual mysteries of our people and our country. We are taught that the reason that our forefathers told us that our gods and goddesses were capable of changing shape, or were part animal and part human being, is that they wanted to instill in the minds of their descendants the oneness of the human being, the animal and the Deity. By making us believe that the highest gods were part animal and part human being, we were taught to look upon animals with great reverence, love and respect. If you are taught that God often has the head of a lion and the body of a human being, you will treat all lions with respect.
Conservation and game reserves
When you talk of wildlife conservation nowadays, many people assume you are talking about something new, a miracle born of our supposedly enlightened era, a sign that human beings are beginning to care about the world in which they live, and about animals and other forms of life. But wildlife conservation is as old as Africa.
When white people came of this land, they found the plains and valleys of the so-called Dark Continent teeming with wildlife. From the Cape to Central Africa and beyond the land was alive with millions of animals. Great herds used to migrate the length and breadth of Africa. Millions of springbok, wildebeest, zebra and buffalo swarmed across the land, life bees around a beehive.
What many people do not realize is that these huge, wild herds existed because the native people of Africa regarded them as a blessing from the gods – as something unbelievably sacred and vital for the continued existence of human beings. Black people believed that animals were the blood of the Earth and that as long as there were migrations criss-crossing the country, human existence on Earth was guaranteed. No-one ever interfered with these great migrations because they really believed that wildlife was the soul, the very life-blood of Mother Earth. African kings rejoiced every time migrating animals thundered through their kingdoms.
Many hundreds of years ago, a wise old man called Pinda Moleli prophesied that one of the first indications that the end of the world had come would be the disappearance of herds from the African plains. The herds have almost disappeared so perhaps Pinda Moleli’s prophesy is coming true.
Today, there are many South African game reserves set aside to protect wild animals. What is amazing to a student of tribal history is that many of these game reserves were established by white operatives in areas which had already been claimed as lands of animals by some of our greatest kings, hundreds of years ago.
For example, everyone knows about South Africa’s Kruger National Park, but very few realize that it was a sacred land where great Shangani kings forbade all hunting without royal permission. In KwaZulu Natal, the Umfolozi Game Reserve and the Ndumo Game Reserve were claimed by Shaka as far back as 1823, when that great and far-sighted, though fiercely warlike, Zulu monarch set aside areas where animals were to exist without interference by human beings.
A game reserve was not just a place where animals dwelt in peace, it was set aside with gods and animals in mind. A game reserve was regarded as the sacred place of the gods where no hunting or shedding of blood was allowed. In the Umfolozi area, only the king was allowed to hunt animals and then only on very sacred occasions. Africans did not hunt animals for fun. They were hunted for food and for religious reasons. In many instances a religious hunt was conducted by the king once, and only once during his lifetime.
Totems
In old Africa, every tribe had an animal that it regarded as its totem, an animal after which the tribe had been named by its founders. It was the sacred duty of this tribe to ensure that the animal after which it was named was never harmed within the confines of its territory. In addition, Africans knew that certain wild animals co-exist with others, and that they therefore were also required to protect those animals with which the sacred one co-existed.
In KwaZulu Natal, for example, there is a tribe, the Dube people, for whom the zebra is the totem. These people not only protect vast herds of zebra in their tribal land, allowing them to roam wherever they choose, but they also protect herds of wildebeest because they realize that zebras co-exist with wildebeest.
The zebra has very good eyesight during the day but very poor eyesight at night. The opposite is true for the wildebeest. And so these two very dissimilar animals are always found grazing together in the bush for mutual protection. The old Africans knew that to protect the zebra effectively one had to protect the wildebeest, the warthog, the bushpig, the eland, the kudu and other animals sometimes found grazing with zebra in the bush.
But the old Africans knew that it was not enough simply to protect those animals which grazed with their tribal totem. It was essential to protect those animals which preyed upon the sacred animals. Thus, those who protect the zebra and all other grass-eating animals that graze with it must also protect the preying lion. People knew that although the lion was the zebra’s enemy, it was a natural and necessary enemy that would weed out the weaker zebra and ensure the survival of the fittest.
One of the most important pillars upon which the traditional religion of African people rests is a belief in reincarnation and the transmigration of souls. There is the belief that when you die, you are reincarnated immediately after death as that type of animal which your people regard as their totem.
The Zulu people had twelve totems, among which were the elephant, the lion, the leopard and the fierce snake that is known as the mamba. Zulu people believe that when one of their kings died, he would be reincarnated as a mamba. If, after the death of a king, a mamba was seen entering the king’s kraal, this was taken as a signed that the king had returned to his people, inside the body of the mamba. While the mamba was in the hut, that hut and several others next to it would be evacuated of all human life. The mamba was allowed to stay in peace inside the hut for as long as it chose.
Zulu people never willingly killed a lion, as it was the symbol of their king and his surrogate. In old Zululand, any stranger who killed a lion lived to regret it! There were tribes who had certain birds as their totem and who protected them with their lives, if necessary. Some tribes who had particular trees as their totem also guarded these with their lives.
Hunting and taboos
The hunt was always governed by very strict rules and taboos. Elders kept a close watch on all the hunters to make sure that no-one brought down more animals than was necessary for meat and for skins. You were not allowed to leave the carcass rotting in the bush. This was regarded as very unlucky. In other words, you were not allowed to bring back more that you could carry or more than your family could use within a given time.
Hunting was always preceded and followed by elaborate rituals: a knot was tied in the tail-hairs of the animals which had been brought down, as a gesture to the soul of the dead animal requesting it to forgive the hunters for robbing it of its living home and wishing it a speedy rebirth.
Africans carefully studies the animals’ way of life and all hunting was forbidden when it was mating season and when animals were pregnant with young. It was regarded as the blackest of bad luck for a hunter to bring down a pregnant antelope. If this happened, it was believed that one of the hunter’s wives would die during childbirth.
The everyday life of the African of old was governed by scores of taboos, many of which related to the protection of nature, the environment and wildlife, and the protecting of domestic animals against acts of cruelty by human beings. Certain trees were not allowed to be cut down for any reason whatsoever, and there were others which could be cut down only on special occasions or for very serious reasons.
Among the Batswana people, for example, there is a type of acacia tree known as the moosu tree which is only cut down when a local chief dies. It is used to make firewood for the ritual fire that is lit outside the king’s home, to light the king’s soul to the next world. No-one, even today , is allowed to cut down a moosu tree. If you do, the Batswana will publicly accuse you of wishing for the death of their king and you will be severely punished for this crime.
Traditional healers used the bark of different trees in their battle against disease, but when a traditional healer went into the bush to source medicinal bark or roots, he or she was not allowed to take so much bark that it could cause the tree’s destruction. The traditional healer believed that if the tree from which he or she obtained the bark was destroyed, all the patients treated with the bark from that tree would die. So it was in the interests of the traditional healer to keep the tree from which he or she had taken medicinal bark alive and well. No ring-barking was allowed, and only bark from very old branches could be taken.
Rituals
It is not an exaggeration to say that African people had more laws governing people’s behaviour towards the Earth, plants and animals than they had governing other acts of human behaviour. When crops were planted, we conducted rituals not only with the aim of ensuring a good harvest, but also to thank the Earth Mother and to apologise for injuring her sacred flesh in order to plant food.
When we hoed to get rid of weeds, rituals were performed as a form of apology to the weeds for having to remove them to save our crops. We understood that weeds were not evil, but were plants which had the misfortune of growing where we had planted our food crops.
At harvest time, we left some of our corn standing so that passing birds could share in the bounty of our fields, and, by sharing, bless us and ensure us of plenty of food. Sometimes large fields of corn and millet were planted. These were sacred to the goddess and were offered to the vast armies of birds to eat. No human being could enter the sacred cornfield.
These sacred fields were ploughed far from the ordinary millet, maize and corn, and they were left unfenced. Over the centuries, people had discovered that the star gods sometimes communicated with the human beings through these sacred fields. Time and again, strange circular depressions were seen in the center of these fields. These depressions were called izihoze zamatongo, the great circles of the gods. These are the same as the so-called crop circles discovered elsewhere in the world.
Whenever a circle appeared in the fields, the people rushed to erect a fence of poles around the circle. They would dance and perform other sacred rituals honouring the star gods and Earth Mother. All the kings and chiefs awaited the arrival of these circles. The appearance would be cause for celebrations which lasted several days. These celebrations were accompanied by prayers to the gods to watch over the people and to talk to them through the sacred circles.
When Africans ploughed the sacred and the ordinary grainfields, they never raked out the stumps of the previous year’s corn. They were ploughed under to feed the soil and keep it fertile. Many tribes practiced a strange ritual, especially during the winter, when they gathered all the left-overs from their meals in grass baskets every two or three days and took them to the cornfields where they were ceremonially buried. This was done while the fields were fallow and was called ‘feeding the grandmother’.
Proverbs
If you want to learn about the true greatness of the black people of Africa, you must examine hundreds of wise sayings of every tribe and nation. Here, you will discover the depth of African traditional wisdom and knowledge. If you study these proverbs you will find, for example, that Africans knew about the importance of a healthy clean environment long before other people.
The African people knew, just as the native American people knew, that if you destroy the environment, you will ultimately destroy the human race. Among many African proverbs to do with the environment and with animals is this one: ‘That which scratches the wild animal, also scratches the human being.’ This proverbs means that if you do evil to wild animals, evil will ultimately rebound on your fellow human beings.
A remarkable Tswana proverb states that ‘He who buries the tree will next bury the wild animal and after that bury his own ox, and ultimately bury his own children.’ This saying indicates that people were aware, even in ancient times, of the interdependence of all living creatures upon this Earth, and that if you harm one, you harm others, and in the end yourself. A lesson we would do well to heed today.
References
Brenda Sullivan, Spirit of the Rocks, Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1995.
Vasamazulu Credo Mutwa, Song of the Stars: The Lore of a Zulu Shaman, New York: Barrytown Ltd, 1996.
Credo Mutwa, Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs and Religious Beliefs, Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1998. (First published in South Africa in 1964 by Blue Crane Books).
Credo Mutwa, Isilwane The Animal: Tales and Fables of Africa, Cape Town: Struik Publishers, 1996
What do you think? The bit about the crops circles is VERY intriguing
A friend of mine recently asked me why Rastafari do not eat meat and it made me think that although many Rastas follow this doctrine they do not know the reasons why; the below may help clarify for those of you who are not yet completely brainwashed.
Earth Spirit of Africa
Based on a presentation by
Wayne Visser
to the Parliament of the World’s Religions
1-8 December 1999, Cape Town
with Acknowledgements to Vasamazulu Credo Mutwa
Reported on by
In this article, I wish to explore traditional African attitudes, folklore and rituals which have governed the relationships between the people of Africa and the environment. In particular, I want to counteract a widespread perception of Africans as degraders of the environment. Most of what is contained in this article echoes the words of Vasamazulu Credo Mutwa – a South African sangoma (healer), high sanusi (clairvoyant and lore-master, or keeper of the ancient wisdom) and a great storyteller.
And this ancient wisdom is desperately needed. For we have become a civilization like the legendary monkeys, who, according to one African story, were placed by the great Earth Mother on a sacred fig tree to guard it. They developed such appetites that they not only ate all the figs but also devoured the bark and the wood of the tree. When the great Earth Mother returned, she found the tree reduced to a rotting stump and the skeletons of all the monkeys who had died of starvation after eating their own tree.
The African tradition
Cosmic outlook
We are taught by ancient Africans that we are part of God (as a little pebble is part of a great mountain), and because of this, we should beware of doing anything against the teaching and the nature of God. In old Africa, we did not regard ourselves as superior to the animals, the trees and the fishes and the birds. We regarded ourselves as part of all these living things. We believed that far from being specially created, we were, in fact the weakest of all the creatures that God had created. This feeling of weakness instilled in our souls deep dependence upon the living nature around us.
We believed that human beings could not exist without animals, birds and fishes, or the greenery that whispers all around us. We used to believe that in every one of us lay a spiritual animal, bird or fish with which we should keep contact at all times, to anchor our family upon the shifting surface of this often troubled planet. We believed that within us were the oceans, the rivers, the sky and the mountains. We believed that we had nature within and beyond ourselves.
African earth deities
For this reason, many African gods were depicted as part animal and part human. For instance, the great Earth Mother, whose Zulu name is Nomkhubulwane, or simply ‘Ma’, is often depicted with only one human leg, while her other leg is that of an animal – an antelope, elephant or rhinoceros. At other times she is depicted as having one fully human leg and another, usually the left leg, with roots where one would expect to find toes.
The great Earth Mother, together with other lesser goddesses, was believed by African people to be capable of changing her shape to that of any animal, bird or fish whenever she chose, and this is why Zulus call her Nomkhubulwane, a name which means ‘she who chooses the state of an animal’ – in short, ‘the shape-changer’.
Initiation schools still exist in scattered parts of Africa, where one learns about the deepest spiritual mysteries of our people and our country. We are taught that the reason that our forefathers told us that our gods and goddesses were capable of changing shape, or were part animal and part human being, is that they wanted to instill in the minds of their descendants the oneness of the human being, the animal and the Deity. By making us believe that the highest gods were part animal and part human being, we were taught to look upon animals with great reverence, love and respect. If you are taught that God often has the head of a lion and the body of a human being, you will treat all lions with respect.
Conservation and game reserves
When you talk of wildlife conservation nowadays, many people assume you are talking about something new, a miracle born of our supposedly enlightened era, a sign that human beings are beginning to care about the world in which they live, and about animals and other forms of life. But wildlife conservation is as old as Africa.
When white people came of this land, they found the plains and valleys of the so-called Dark Continent teeming with wildlife. From the Cape to Central Africa and beyond the land was alive with millions of animals. Great herds used to migrate the length and breadth of Africa. Millions of springbok, wildebeest, zebra and buffalo swarmed across the land, life bees around a beehive.
What many people do not realize is that these huge, wild herds existed because the native people of Africa regarded them as a blessing from the gods – as something unbelievably sacred and vital for the continued existence of human beings. Black people believed that animals were the blood of the Earth and that as long as there were migrations criss-crossing the country, human existence on Earth was guaranteed. No-one ever interfered with these great migrations because they really believed that wildlife was the soul, the very life-blood of Mother Earth. African kings rejoiced every time migrating animals thundered through their kingdoms.
Many hundreds of years ago, a wise old man called Pinda Moleli prophesied that one of the first indications that the end of the world had come would be the disappearance of herds from the African plains. The herds have almost disappeared so perhaps Pinda Moleli’s prophesy is coming true.
Today, there are many South African game reserves set aside to protect wild animals. What is amazing to a student of tribal history is that many of these game reserves were established by white operatives in areas which had already been claimed as lands of animals by some of our greatest kings, hundreds of years ago.
For example, everyone knows about South Africa’s Kruger National Park, but very few realize that it was a sacred land where great Shangani kings forbade all hunting without royal permission. In KwaZulu Natal, the Umfolozi Game Reserve and the Ndumo Game Reserve were claimed by Shaka as far back as 1823, when that great and far-sighted, though fiercely warlike, Zulu monarch set aside areas where animals were to exist without interference by human beings.
A game reserve was not just a place where animals dwelt in peace, it was set aside with gods and animals in mind. A game reserve was regarded as the sacred place of the gods where no hunting or shedding of blood was allowed. In the Umfolozi area, only the king was allowed to hunt animals and then only on very sacred occasions. Africans did not hunt animals for fun. They were hunted for food and for religious reasons. In many instances a religious hunt was conducted by the king once, and only once during his lifetime.
Totems
In old Africa, every tribe had an animal that it regarded as its totem, an animal after which the tribe had been named by its founders. It was the sacred duty of this tribe to ensure that the animal after which it was named was never harmed within the confines of its territory. In addition, Africans knew that certain wild animals co-exist with others, and that they therefore were also required to protect those animals with which the sacred one co-existed.
In KwaZulu Natal, for example, there is a tribe, the Dube people, for whom the zebra is the totem. These people not only protect vast herds of zebra in their tribal land, allowing them to roam wherever they choose, but they also protect herds of wildebeest because they realize that zebras co-exist with wildebeest.
The zebra has very good eyesight during the day but very poor eyesight at night. The opposite is true for the wildebeest. And so these two very dissimilar animals are always found grazing together in the bush for mutual protection. The old Africans knew that to protect the zebra effectively one had to protect the wildebeest, the warthog, the bushpig, the eland, the kudu and other animals sometimes found grazing with zebra in the bush.
But the old Africans knew that it was not enough simply to protect those animals which grazed with their tribal totem. It was essential to protect those animals which preyed upon the sacred animals. Thus, those who protect the zebra and all other grass-eating animals that graze with it must also protect the preying lion. People knew that although the lion was the zebra’s enemy, it was a natural and necessary enemy that would weed out the weaker zebra and ensure the survival of the fittest.
One of the most important pillars upon which the traditional religion of African people rests is a belief in reincarnation and the transmigration of souls. There is the belief that when you die, you are reincarnated immediately after death as that type of animal which your people regard as their totem.
The Zulu people had twelve totems, among which were the elephant, the lion, the leopard and the fierce snake that is known as the mamba. Zulu people believe that when one of their kings died, he would be reincarnated as a mamba. If, after the death of a king, a mamba was seen entering the king’s kraal, this was taken as a signed that the king had returned to his people, inside the body of the mamba. While the mamba was in the hut, that hut and several others next to it would be evacuated of all human life. The mamba was allowed to stay in peace inside the hut for as long as it chose.
Zulu people never willingly killed a lion, as it was the symbol of their king and his surrogate. In old Zululand, any stranger who killed a lion lived to regret it! There were tribes who had certain birds as their totem and who protected them with their lives, if necessary. Some tribes who had particular trees as their totem also guarded these with their lives.
Hunting and taboos
The hunt was always governed by very strict rules and taboos. Elders kept a close watch on all the hunters to make sure that no-one brought down more animals than was necessary for meat and for skins. You were not allowed to leave the carcass rotting in the bush. This was regarded as very unlucky. In other words, you were not allowed to bring back more that you could carry or more than your family could use within a given time.
Hunting was always preceded and followed by elaborate rituals: a knot was tied in the tail-hairs of the animals which had been brought down, as a gesture to the soul of the dead animal requesting it to forgive the hunters for robbing it of its living home and wishing it a speedy rebirth.
Africans carefully studies the animals’ way of life and all hunting was forbidden when it was mating season and when animals were pregnant with young. It was regarded as the blackest of bad luck for a hunter to bring down a pregnant antelope. If this happened, it was believed that one of the hunter’s wives would die during childbirth.
The everyday life of the African of old was governed by scores of taboos, many of which related to the protection of nature, the environment and wildlife, and the protecting of domestic animals against acts of cruelty by human beings. Certain trees were not allowed to be cut down for any reason whatsoever, and there were others which could be cut down only on special occasions or for very serious reasons.
Among the Batswana people, for example, there is a type of acacia tree known as the moosu tree which is only cut down when a local chief dies. It is used to make firewood for the ritual fire that is lit outside the king’s home, to light the king’s soul to the next world. No-one, even today , is allowed to cut down a moosu tree. If you do, the Batswana will publicly accuse you of wishing for the death of their king and you will be severely punished for this crime.
Traditional healers used the bark of different trees in their battle against disease, but when a traditional healer went into the bush to source medicinal bark or roots, he or she was not allowed to take so much bark that it could cause the tree’s destruction. The traditional healer believed that if the tree from which he or she obtained the bark was destroyed, all the patients treated with the bark from that tree would die. So it was in the interests of the traditional healer to keep the tree from which he or she had taken medicinal bark alive and well. No ring-barking was allowed, and only bark from very old branches could be taken.
Rituals
It is not an exaggeration to say that African people had more laws governing people’s behaviour towards the Earth, plants and animals than they had governing other acts of human behaviour. When crops were planted, we conducted rituals not only with the aim of ensuring a good harvest, but also to thank the Earth Mother and to apologise for injuring her sacred flesh in order to plant food.
When we hoed to get rid of weeds, rituals were performed as a form of apology to the weeds for having to remove them to save our crops. We understood that weeds were not evil, but were plants which had the misfortune of growing where we had planted our food crops.
At harvest time, we left some of our corn standing so that passing birds could share in the bounty of our fields, and, by sharing, bless us and ensure us of plenty of food. Sometimes large fields of corn and millet were planted. These were sacred to the goddess and were offered to the vast armies of birds to eat. No human being could enter the sacred cornfield.
These sacred fields were ploughed far from the ordinary millet, maize and corn, and they were left unfenced. Over the centuries, people had discovered that the star gods sometimes communicated with the human beings through these sacred fields. Time and again, strange circular depressions were seen in the center of these fields. These depressions were called izihoze zamatongo, the great circles of the gods. These are the same as the so-called crop circles discovered elsewhere in the world.
Whenever a circle appeared in the fields, the people rushed to erect a fence of poles around the circle. They would dance and perform other sacred rituals honouring the star gods and Earth Mother. All the kings and chiefs awaited the arrival of these circles. The appearance would be cause for celebrations which lasted several days. These celebrations were accompanied by prayers to the gods to watch over the people and to talk to them through the sacred circles.
When Africans ploughed the sacred and the ordinary grainfields, they never raked out the stumps of the previous year’s corn. They were ploughed under to feed the soil and keep it fertile. Many tribes practiced a strange ritual, especially during the winter, when they gathered all the left-overs from their meals in grass baskets every two or three days and took them to the cornfields where they were ceremonially buried. This was done while the fields were fallow and was called ‘feeding the grandmother’.
Proverbs
If you want to learn about the true greatness of the black people of Africa, you must examine hundreds of wise sayings of every tribe and nation. Here, you will discover the depth of African traditional wisdom and knowledge. If you study these proverbs you will find, for example, that Africans knew about the importance of a healthy clean environment long before other people.
The African people knew, just as the native American people knew, that if you destroy the environment, you will ultimately destroy the human race. Among many African proverbs to do with the environment and with animals is this one: ‘That which scratches the wild animal, also scratches the human being.’ This proverbs means that if you do evil to wild animals, evil will ultimately rebound on your fellow human beings.
A remarkable Tswana proverb states that ‘He who buries the tree will next bury the wild animal and after that bury his own ox, and ultimately bury his own children.’ This saying indicates that people were aware, even in ancient times, of the interdependence of all living creatures upon this Earth, and that if you harm one, you harm others, and in the end yourself. A lesson we would do well to heed today.
References
Brenda Sullivan, Spirit of the Rocks, Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 1995.
Vasamazulu Credo Mutwa, Song of the Stars: The Lore of a Zulu Shaman, New York: Barrytown Ltd, 1996.
Credo Mutwa, Indaba, My Children: African Tribal History, Legends, Customs and Religious Beliefs, Edinburgh: Payback Press, 1998. (First published in South Africa in 1964 by Blue Crane Books).
Credo Mutwa, Isilwane The Animal: Tales and Fables of Africa, Cape Town: Struik Publishers, 1996
What do you think? The bit about the crops circles is VERY intriguing