The power brokers: potency-collection in the spirit realm, with special reference to the site of Cradock.

Abstract

San sh am an s are ‘power brokers’ — they manipulate and broker supernatural potencies or energies when interacting within the material realm and spirit world. Rich and varied ethnographic accounts show that these supernatural potencies permeate to the core of San cosmology yet some of them are not well understood in term s of their characteristics,their relationship to one another and their association with San rock art. There is also the problem of interpretation from what is meant by supernatural energy in th e ethnography to w hat interpreters take it to mean.

Through the context of social and spiritual interaction, the characteristics of supernatural potency are explored and placed within San metaphorical ‘states of being’. These four themes of supernatural energies, spiritual interaction, social interaction and metaphorical ‘states of being’ are brought together to explain the rock images at the site of Cradock.