Thrower-Down of the Pit

Khoekhoe · numen · ancestral / culture hero age · numen

Ga-gorib, 'the thrower down', sat at the edge of a deep pit and dared all who passed to throw stones at him; each stone rebounded and struck the thrower dead, and the body fell into the pit. When Heitsi-eibib came he refused the dare, drew the monster's eyes aside, and hurled a stone that caught him beneath the ear, so that Ga-gorib tumbled into his own pit. In another telling the two chased one another around the pit until Heitsi-eibib himself slipped in, escaped, and after a long struggle threw the monster down at last. His destruction is the chief victory credited to the hunter-hero, and the felling blow beneath the ear so closely echoes the stroke with which Tsui-ǁgoab felled ǁGaunab that some scholars have read the two combats as one myth in different dress.

Domains

death

Powers

to turn stones thrown at him back upon the thrower
to goad passers-by into a fatal stone-throwing contest at his pit

Sources

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