Healing Makes Our Hearts Happy: Spirituality and Transformation among the Kalahari Ju/'hoansi

Abstract

One of the world's oldest continuing societies, the Ju/'hoansi, or Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert offer profound insights into what is fundamental to human existence. In the face of outside pressures that threaten the complete disruption of their communal way of life, the Ju/'hoansi find deep spiritual resources in their traditional healing dance. Their indigenous method of healing individuals is also a powerful affirmation of the community, and has recently become a means of settling land and property disputes, problems that never existed in the old days. The healing dance promises to be the crucial factor that allows the Ju/'hoansi to preserve their culture into the 21st century. These inspiring people set an example for us to look beyond the false promises of modern technology in search of the spiritual healing that is so desperately needed in our own culture and within ourselves.

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