curious. It
consists of two words, which together mean the "wounded
knee." It is said to have been originally applied to a doctor
or sorcerer of considerable notoriety and skill amongst the
Hottentots or Namaquas some generations back, in consequence
of his having received some injury in his knee. Having been
held in high repute for extraordinary powers during life, he
appeared to be invoked even after death, as one who could
still relieve and protect; and hence, in process of time, he
became nearest in idea to their first conceptions of God.'

Other missionaries make old Wounded Knee a good sort of being on the
whole, who fights Gaunab, a bad being. Dr. Moffat heard that 'Tsui
Kuap' was 'a notable warrior,' who once received a wound in the knee.
Sir James Alexander[192] found that the Namaquas believed their 'great
father' lay below the cairns on which they flung boughs. This great
father was Heitsi Eibib, and, like other medicine-men, 'he could take
many forms.' Like Tsui Goab, he died several times and rose again.
Hahn gives (p. 61) a long account of the Wounded Knee from an old
chief, and a story of the battle between Tsui Goab, who 'lives in a
beautiful heaven,' and Gaunab, who 'lives in a dark heaven.' As this
chief had dwelt among missionaries very long, we may perhaps discount
his remarks on 'heaven' as borrowed. Hahn thinks they refer to the red
sky in which Tsui Goab lived, and to the black sky which was the home
of Gaunab. The two characters in this crude religious dualism thus
inhabit light and darkness respectively.

* * * * *

As far as we have gone, Tsui Goab, like Heitsi Eibib among the Namas,
is a dead sorcerer, whose graves are worshipped, while, with a common
inconsistency, he is also thought of as dwelling in the sky. Even
Christians often speak of the dead with similar inconsistency. Tsui
Goab's worship is intelligible enough among a people so credulous that
they took Hahn himself for a conjurer (p. 81), and so given to
ancestor-worship that Hahn has seen them worship their own fathers'
graves, and expect help from men recently dead (pp. 112, 113). But,
while the Khoi Khoi think that Tsui Goab was once a real man, we need
not share their Euhemerism. More probably, like Unkulunkulu among the
Zulus, Tsui Goab is an ideal, imaginary ancestral sorcerer and god. No
one man requires many graves, and Tsui Goab has more than Osiris
poss