Moon Who Dies and Rises Again

Early travellers at the Cape repeatedly described the Khoekhoe as worshipping the moon, and dances were held through the night at new and full moon, times also associated with rain rites; both Theophilus Hahn and Isaac Schapera concluded that the moon held a genuine place of veneration in Khoekhoe religion. The moon's central myth explains the origin of death: seeing that he himself dies away and returns, the Moon sent word to humankind — in the old Nama version written down by Krönlein, first by an insect, then by the hare who outran it — that as the moon dies and rising lives again, so people too would rise from death. The message was delivered wrongly as a sentence of final death, and the enraged Moon split the messenger's lip, while the hare in turn scratched the Moon's face, marking it darkly. The Khoekhoegowab noun ǁkhâb ('moon; month') is grammatically masculine, though some English renderings of the tales make the Moon 'she'.

Domains

• moon
• death and renewal
• rain

Powers

• to die away and return to life again each month
• to decree the pattern of death and return for humankind

Relations

• enemy: Hare, False Messenger of the Moon

Sources

• Theophilus Hahn, Tsuni-ǁGoam: The Supreme Being of the Khoi-Khoi (London: Trübner & Co., 1881)
• I. Schapera, The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa: Bushmen and Hottentots (London: Routledge & Sons, 1930)
• I. Hartmann & M. Sukdaven, 'The interrelatedness between the Nama Khoikhoi supreme being and celestial objects', HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 80(2), a9299 (2024)