San Bushmen: The Mantis and Creation - The Trickster God of the Kalahari

BY NICOLE LAU

The San people (also known as Bushmen) are among the oldest continuous cultures on Earth, with a lineage stretching back over 20,000 years in southern Africa. Their mythology, preserved through oral tradition and rock art, centers on /Kaggen (also spelled Cagn or Kaang)—the Mantis, a trickster creator god who brought the world into being through cunning, magic, and often comical misadventures. Unlike the omnipotent creator gods of many traditions, /Kaggen is fallible, mischievous, and deeply connected to the natural world, reflecting the San understanding that creation is not a perfect divine plan but an ongoing, improvisational dance between order and chaos.

The Mantis God: /Kaggen the Creator-Trickster

/Kaggen is a praying mantis—a small, seemingly insignificant insect elevated to the status of supreme creator. This choice is profoundly significant: the San do not imagine the divine as distant, transcendent, or anthropomorphic, but as intimately present in the natural world, embodied in the smallest creatures. The mantis, with its alien appearance, predatory nature, and uncanny stillness, becomes the perfect symbol for the mysterious creative force that animates reality.

/Kaggen possesses immense magical power. He can transform himself and others, create animals and humans, bring the dead back to life, and manipulate the forces of nature. Yet he is also foolish, vain, easily tricked, and often causes problems through his impulsive actions. He is married to Hyrax (a small rock-dwelling mammal) and has a family that includes his adopted daughter Porcupine and his troublesome son-in-law Kwammang-a (the Rainbow).

This combination of creator and trickster in a single figure represents a sophisticated theological understanding: the force that creates the world is not separate from the chaos and unpredictability within it. Creation and mischief, order and disorder, wisdom and foolishness are not opposites but complementary aspects of the same divine reality.

The Creation of the Eland: Sacred First Animal

One of the most important /Kaggen myths describes how he created the eland—the largest antelope in Africa and the most sacred animal in San cosmology. According to the story, /Kaggen found a piece of an eland's hoof and took it to a pool of water. He rubbed it with honey (a substance with magical properties in San belief) and told it to grow.

Each day, /Kaggen returned to the pool and found the eland growing larger. He sang to it, fed it honey, and watched it develop from a tiny creature into a magnificent animal. When the eland was fully grown, /Kaggen was so proud that he called his family to see his creation.

However, his son-in-law Kwammang-a killed the eland to eat it, enraging /Kaggen. In his anger, /Kaggen struck Kwammang-a with his shoe, and Kwammang-a rose into the sky as the rainbow. From the eland's blood and fat, /Kaggen created all the other animals, and from its bones, he created the first humans.

This myth contains profound themes: creation through nurturing rather than command, the sacredness of the eland, the introduction of death and conflict into the world, and the origin of the rainbow as a consequence of divine anger. The eland becomes the archetypal animal, the template from which all other life emerges, and its sacrifice becomes the foundation of existence.

The Eland in San Spirituality and Rock Art

The eland is central to San spiritual practice. Eland fat is used in healing rituals, coming-of-age ceremonies, and trance dances. The eland represents potency (n/om)—the spiritual power that shamans harness during trance states to heal, communicate with spirits, and travel to the spirit world.

San rock art, found throughout southern Africa and dating back thousands of years, frequently depicts elands in elaborate detail. These paintings are not merely artistic representations but are understood as portals to the spirit world, created during or after trance experiences. The eland in rock art often appears alongside shamanic figures in trance, therianthropes (human-animal hybrids), and geometric patterns representing altered states of consciousness.

The act of painting the eland is itself a spiritual practice, a way of capturing and channeling the animal's potency. The rock surface is understood as a permeable membrane between the material and spirit worlds, and the painted eland can move between these realms, serving as a bridge for shamanic consciousness.

The Trance Dance: Entering the Spirit World

Central to San spirituality is the trance dance (also called the healing dance or medicine dance), a communal ritual that can last all night. Women sit in a circle, clapping and singing healing songs, while men dance around them in a rhythmic, stamping pattern. As the dance intensifies, some dancers enter a trance state called !kia, in which they experience n/om (spiritual potency) rising up their spines like a boiling energy.

In this trance state, shamans (n/om-kxaosi, "owners of n/om") can:

• See and extract illness from people's bodies
• Communicate with spirits and ancestors
• Travel to the spirit world
• Transform into animals (particularly the eland)
• See distant events and people
• Retrieve lost souls
• Control weather and game animals

The trance experience is described as both ecstatic and terrifying. Shamans report feeling their bodies transform, experiencing death and rebirth, traveling underwater or through the earth, and encountering powerful spirit beings. The physical signs of trance include trembling, sweating, bleeding from the nose, collapse, and apparent unconsciousness.

This practice represents one of humanity's oldest continuous spiritual traditions. Rock art depicting trance experiences dates back thousands of years, suggesting that the San have been entering altered states and communicating with the spirit world for millennia.

/Kaggen's Other Creations and Adventures

Beyond the eland, /Kaggen is credited with creating many aspects of the world, often through trickery or accident:

The Moon: /Kaggen created the moon from an old shoe, throwing it into the sky to provide light at night. This humble origin for the moon reflects the San understanding that the sacred can emerge from the mundane, that divinity is not separate from ordinary life.

The Stars: In some versions, /Kaggen's daughter threw ashes from the fire into the sky, creating the stars. In others, the stars are the eyes of dead people watching over the living.

Death: Death entered the world through /Kaggen's actions or inactions. In one story, the Moon sent a message to humans that they would die and return like the moon (which waxes and wanes), but the message was garbled, and humans became subject to permanent death.

Fire: /Kaggen stole fire from the Ostrich, who kept it hidden under her wing. Through trickery, /Kaggen obtained the fire and gave it to humans, enabling cooking, warmth, and protection from predators.

These myths portray /Kaggen as both benefactor and bungler. He brings essential gifts to humanity (fire, light, animals) but also introduces suffering (death, conflict, scarcity). This ambivalence reflects the San understanding that life is a mixture of blessing and hardship, that the creator is not all-good or all-powerful, and that humans must navigate a world that is both generous and dangerous.

The San Cosmology: Three Realms

San cosmology describes three interconnected realms:

The Upper World: The realm of the sky, where /Kaggen and other powerful spirits dwell. This is the source of rain, lightning, and celestial phenomena. The upper world is accessed by shamans during deep trance, often described as climbing threads or ropes to reach the sky.

The Middle World: The ordinary reality where humans and animals live. This is the realm of daily life, hunting, gathering, social relationships, and material existence. The middle world is permeable to the spirit world, especially at certain times (dusk, dawn, during trance) and places (waterholes, rock shelters, sacred sites).

The Underworld: The realm beneath the earth and underwater, inhabited by spirits, the dead, and powerful beings. Shamans travel to the underworld during trance to retrieve lost souls, communicate with ancestors, or obtain healing knowledge. The underworld is often described as an inverted version of the middle world, where the dead live much as the living do.

These three realms are not separate but interpenetrating. Shamans can move between them, spirits can manifest in the middle world, and the boundaries are fluid rather than fixed. This cosmology reflects the San understanding that reality is multi-layered, that the visible world is only one dimension of a larger, more complex existence.

The Rain Bull: Water and Fertility

In San mythology, rain is controlled by a powerful spirit being called the Rain Bull (or Rain Animal). This creature lives in waterholes and underground pools and must be approached with respect and ritual to release rain. Shamans in trance can travel to the Rain Bull's realm, negotiate with it, and lead it across the sky, where its movements create rain clouds and storms.

The Rain Bull is both benevolent and dangerous. It can bring life-giving rain or destructive floods. It can heal or harm. Shamans must have sufficient n/om (spiritual power) to control the Rain Bull, or it will overwhelm them. This reflects the San understanding that natural forces are not impersonal but conscious, that they must be related to rather than merely exploited, and that humans must maintain reciprocal relationships with the spirit world to ensure survival.

The Living Tradition: San Spirituality Today

The San people have faced immense challenges: colonization, displacement from their ancestral lands, cultural suppression, and marginalization. Many San communities have lost their traditional languages and practices. However, some groups, particularly in Botswana and Namibia, continue to practice trance dancing, maintain oral traditions, and preserve their spiritual heritage.

San rock art sites are now recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, acknowledging their cultural and spiritual significance. Researchers work with San elders to document and preserve traditional knowledge before it is lost. Some San communities are reclaiming their heritage, teaching younger generations the old stories, songs, and practices.

The San spiritual tradition offers profound insights for the modern world: the understanding that the divine is present in nature, that altered states of consciousness can access healing knowledge, that community ritual can transform suffering, and that humans are not separate from but deeply embedded in the web of life.

Lessons from the Mantis God

The mythology of /Kaggen and the San people teaches us:

The Sacred in the Small: Divinity is not found only in the grand and powerful but in the smallest creatures. The mantis, an insect, is the creator of the world. This teaches humility and attention to the overlooked.

Imperfect Creation: The creator is not omnipotent or infallible. /Kaggen makes mistakes, gets tricked, and causes problems. This reflects the understanding that the world is imperfect not because creation failed but because imperfection is inherent in the creative process.

Trickster Wisdom: The trickster is not merely a troublemaker but a teacher. Through /Kaggen's mistakes and mischief, important lessons are learned, boundaries are tested, and new possibilities emerge. Chaos is not the enemy of order but its creative partner.

Embodied Spirituality: San spirituality is not abstract theology but embodied practice. Trance dancing, rock painting, and ritual engagement with animals and landscapes are the means through which the sacred is accessed and experienced.

Shamanic Consciousness: Altered states of consciousness are not pathological but are valid ways of knowing and healing. The trance state provides access to dimensions of reality unavailable to ordinary consciousness.

Reciprocity with Nature: Humans are not masters of nature but participants in a reciprocal relationship with animals, plants, spirits, and natural forces. Survival depends on maintaining these relationships through respect, ritual, and restraint.

The Mantis in the Modern World

For contemporary spiritual seekers, the Mantis God offers an alternative to transcendent, all-powerful creator deities. /Kaggen is immanent rather than transcendent, present in the natural world rather than separate from it. He is accessible, fallible, and engaged with the messy realities of existence.

The San understanding that the divine can be encountered through trance, that healing comes through community ritual, and that the spirit world is accessible through altered states resonates with modern interest in shamanism, psychedelic spirituality, and embodied practices.

The eland, as the sacred first animal and the source of spiritual potency, reminds us that animals are not merely resources but are spiritual beings with whom we can have relationships. The San practice of honoring the eland, using its fat in ritual, and depicting it in sacred art offers a model for relating to the animal world with reverence rather than exploitation.

In recognizing /Kaggen, the Mantis God, we encounter a vision of divinity that is humble, playful, embedded in nature, and accessible through direct experience. The San teach us that the sacred is not distant but immediate, not perfect but beautifully flawed, not transcendent but intimately present in the smallest insect, the painted rock, the dancing body, and the trance-induced vision of the spirit world.