Page 92 - Discover Botswana 2021

Right: Outwardly, our world is fast encroaching on the first people. Although this is inevitable, the Ju/’hoansi San still try and maintain a grip on the language and the information passed down over a large expanse of time. The elders, such as with this man depicted, carry the majority of the culture and language of the last hunter-gatherers on Earth today.
Back at the encampment, around a fire lit with rubbing sticks, nuts are broken open for roasting, and small snares are made to trap birds. The people tell stories about ancestors, and play mouth bows with great animation. Laughter echoes through the bush, for these people love to laugh and make jokes. All this happens as the sun sets and the darkness of night brings on what lies so central to the
people – the trance dance.
The fire, the chanting, the rhythmic
stamping of feet and clapping of hands will sweep you back to an all but forgotten past. Once re-connected through these people, one can only be humbled and grateful to these true pioneers of our species. Perhaps without their intriguing abilities, we may not have become what we are today.
STEVEN STOCKHALL has been involved in tourism, conservation and photography in Botswana for over 20 years. Guiding specialist photographic safaris across Africa, he feels that photography is the most powerful tool to promote wildlife conservation and the protection of the world’s wildernesses as well as the heritage of remote cultures. As the founder of Earth Ark Travel and the nonprofit organisation Cameras for Conservation (C4C), which hosts the country’s largest wildlife photography competition, Steven hopes to bring awareness to Botswana’s unique wilderness areas and cultures, which have had a huge influence in his life.
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Left: Central to the first people of the Kalahari is the trance or healing dance. All night rituals of singing, clapping and dancing under the Milky Way result in the elder shamans healing people of all sorts of ailments.