Personal spirits with Karo warriors

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Pora, a Karo elder, explains their personal god is similar to Hamar tribe.

“All humans have his own personal god,” explains Pora. “If I travel this road,” pointing to the path which leads out of our camp, “I don’t know if there is an enemy or not. My personal god tells me not to go there. The god provides safety. I feel the god telling me something. My heart says this is not a good road, go back. The message feels like a shock throughout my body, from head to toe. It feels like sharp blades. It’s powerful.”

Shapo, another Karo elder, amplifies what Pora said. “But sometimes the personal god could be asleep or not watching.

“For example, if I go on this path where there is something sharp or dangerous. The two people ahead of me have already passed. When I arrive, there is a snake. The other people’s gods were looking out for them. My god was looking back and did not warn me. The snake bit me.”

Chief's save the orphans dream

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Suri (Surma) tribe, Omo Region, Ethiopia

In his dream, Chief Bologadong’s father told him to take care of the orphans.

I’m not sure about the Suri tribe orphan situation, but in some other African countries relatives will steal possessions of orphans and throw them out to fend for themselves with nothing.

Dead ancestor advises through dream

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Aerbore tribe
Omo Region, Ethiopia

Elder Bule Va´ge talks about dreaming: “Sleeping is like becoming dead. So when you sleep you have already died. During that time some people come close to talk about very important things. But if a person tries to lie or cheat in the dream, that person’s face changes. So when a person talks the truth, you see that person as a human. But if the person doesn’t tell the truth, his face becomes like an animal, not human.

“Some believe that the person who talks to you in the dream is God.

“Sometimes in the dream he gives me hope that something will happen. It gives me first hope. A few months after my dream, the thing happened as in the dream. Then my dream has come true. Then I know that this is God talking to me.”

Cattle boy with personal god

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From my Africa’s Undiscovered Myths Journal
Hamar tribe, Omo Region, Ethiopia
January 19, 2001

Haska Galede, the Hamar tribe shaman, seemed quite knowledgeable about the spiritual world.

“Each person has his own personal god,” he explained. “Say the wife has a baby. The baby’s god is created inside the mother. When the baby is born, the personal god comes out at the same time. And the god grows up with the baby.

“The personal god takes care of the baby for the rest of his life. When someone is hurt, the god is also wounded.”

“While the personal god looks like the person, you can’t touch the god because your hand would go through god,” Haska explained.

Shaman's stealing white cattle dream

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Hamar tribe, Omo Region, Ethiopia
Haska Galede, a powerful Hamar tribe shaman, interviewed first time January 18, 2001

“One day I went to the Mursi tribal area in the mountains. At night I went to sleep in the bush," explains Haska Galede. "Many people were walking in the area during the night. I placed the gun so that it was ready for everything.

“As I was sleeping, in my dream these cows started coming in a single file line. When they came near to me, I saw a man standing among the cows. I took my gun and pointed at him. Then in the dream, my dead father said to me: ‘Don't kill the man. Take the cows only’.

"When I woke up, I hear cows' voices near me. The cows were coming in the same direction as in
the dream. But there was no man, only two children. I respected my father's word; so I did not kill the children but took all the cows to my home.

"In the dream all the cows were white. In reality, the cows had orange, white, red, and black colors but there bodies were mostly the white color of the cows in the dream."

That night by flashlight in my backpacking-sized tent, I wrote: Besides the predictive content, Haska’s father advises him not to kill the herder. Among the Omo Tribes, stealing cattle and killing are accepted behavior, even glorified with scarification badges for killing “enemies”.

When man became a meat eater

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Aerbore tribe
Omo region, Ethiopia

With the dramatic gestures of an experienced storyteller, Bule Va´ge explained how early man and cattle both ate grass. “But there was not enough grass for man and cattle.”

The cows complained to god, “the humans ate our grass, so there is no more grass.

“Then the god called to the cows and people. The god said to the people, now you do not need to eat grass any more. You cows will be under the control of humans, even if the humans eat your meat and get your milk from your breast and take blood to drink.

“The god said to the cattle, all the grass is for you to eat. And he said to the people, all the cows are for you to eat.

“Problem solved.”

Three and a half days later, I'm in the Ethiopian Anthropological Museum in Addis Ababa studying the famous bones of Lucy, the missing link between ape and early man. I see that she had flat teeth of a vegetarian. The Aerbore myth had it right. Early man was a grass eater.

In that hushed museum room, in front of Lucy’s 3.2 million year-old bones, it struck me: The Aerbore myth was more accurate than my early images of caveman cooking big hunks of meat over the fire. Lucy, and now others, clearly show that early man was a vegetarian. The Aerbore myth was scientifically correct. Mine was wrong.

The Shaman’s world, Himba tribe

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Himba tribe Shaman
Namibia

I’m told that the most powerful shamans often have some injury or deformity. When Mbahuma went into a trance, he traversed into another world, telling of events that happened on my Namibia trip that only my driver and I knew. My driver wasn’t at my meeting with Mbahuma.