Myth and Meaning

About this Publication:

J.D. Lewis-Williams, a leading South African archaeologist and ethnographer, examines the complex myths of the San-Bushmen to create a larger theory of how myth is used in cultures worldwide.

Exploring ethnographic, archival and archaeological lines of research, he extracts the ‘nuggets’, the far-reaching but often unspoken words and concepts of language and understanding that are opaque to outsiders, to establish a more nuanced theory of the role of these myths in the thought-world and social circumstances of the San.

The book   
● draws from the author’s own work, the unique 19th-century Bleek & Lloyd Archive, more recent ethnographic work, and San rock art
● includes well-known San stories such as The Broken String, Mantis Dreams, and Creation of the Eland.

Contents Include:

Chapter 1: Myth in its San incarnation         
Chapter 2: Bringing Home the Honey 
Chapter 3: The Mantis makes an Eland
Chapter 4: The Fight with the Meerkats
Chapter 5: A Visit to the Lion’s House
Chapter 6: The Mantis Dreams
Chapter 7: Narrating and Painting  
Chapter 8: People of the Eland
Chapter 9: The Broken String
Chapter 10: ‘They do not possess my stories’

Of Interest and Benefit to:

Academics, and the general reader, interested in Anthropology, African ethnography, First Peoples, Religion, Folklore, Rock Art and African Studies.