The Healing Land: The Bushmen and the Kalahari Desert [Paperback]

Rupert Isaacson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 24, 2004

Brought up on stories and myths of the Kalahari Bushmen, Rupert Isaacson journeys to the dry vast grassland — which stretches across South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia — to find out the truth behind these childhood stories. Deep in the Kalahari, Isaacson meets the last groups of Bushmen still living the traditional way, caught between their ancient culture and the growing need to protect and reclaim their dwindling hunting grounds. Little by little he is drawn into the fascinating web of ritual and prophecy that make up the Bushman reality. He hears of shamans who turn into lions, sees leopards conjured from the landscape as though by magic. He attends trance-inducing dances and witnesses incredible healings. But he also sees the heart-wrenching social problems of a dispossessed people. What follows is an adventure of an intensity he could never have predicted. The Healing Land records Isaacson's personal transformation amid these extraordinary people, and his passionate contribution to their political struggle. It captures his enchantment with the character, corruption, kindness, and confusion of a place that has wrenched itself from the Stone Age into the new millennium.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The son of a South African mother and a Rhodesian father but raised in London, travel writer Isaacson felt a longing for the Bushmen of his mother's stories and of Laurens Van Der Post's The Lost World of the Kalahari. Things are different today; in postapartheid South Africa, the question of the survival of the Bushmen is framed by their struggle to gain back their land. Dispossessed from their wide roaming areas by a series of foreign invaders over the course of the 20th century, Bushmen have gradually been moved to reservations where they can't hunt or heal in traditional ways. Alcohol abuse and domestic violence have become common. At first, Isaacson looks for the mythical Bushman, who rises before dawn to track and kill wild animals, stops for a reflective pause in the shade to offer spiritual parables and caps the day by a campfire barbecue with singing and dancing into the small hours of the night. But as Isaacson struggles with drunk villagers, broken-down vehicles and petty scamming by people accustomed to living off the stupidity of tourists, he loses his na‹vet‚ and finds his real Bushmen, eventually forming his own bond with them. This isn't spiritual tourism; Isaacson's account is too funky and too honest about the very human weaknesses of real-life Bushmen. Still, readers come away with respect for the struggles of all indigenous people, coupled with an awareness that they may not live particularly pretty lives themselves.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This heart-wrenching story has connections worldwide with indigenous peoples' struggle for survival and identity. Isaacson's personal journey with the Bushmen of southern Africa brings you up close to the urgency of their present displacement, even as he connects it with their long heritage of "death, disaster, and despair." The Bushmen were there first, but as hunters and food-gatherers they threatened the settlers and farmers, black and white, who came later and drove out the Stone Age people. Is there a place now for the Bushmen in the game parks and eco-tourism industry? Can their land claim succeed in the new South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana? How much must they change? The writer's personal transformation and mystical healing experience are less interesting than his passionate viewpoint as journalist, anthropologist, and lobbyist. He's honest about the alcoholism, breakdown, and violence among the people he gets close to in the resettlement camps, and he offers no easy answers--especially now that diamonds have been discovered where the Bushmen live. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (February 24, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802140513
• ISBN-13: 978-0802140517
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #236,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #75 in Books > History > Africa > South Africa

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This author knows his subject, May 14, 2003

By 

D Swaney (Big Lake, AK USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Healing Land: The Bushmen and the Kalahari Desert (Hardcover)

After getting used to mystical experiences over the past 12 years in Botswana's Tsodilo Hills and in Bushmanland, in north-eastern Namibia, I can attest that this author has been there and seen a world that's magical beyond most Westerners' imaginings. Anyone who wants to know the real Southern Africa - that is, the incredibly harsh yet enigmatic environment that thrived prior to both the Bantu and Colonial influences - will find this book a most satisfying introduction.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just a book, a fight against genocide, September 27, 2004

By 

Persephone "sasadsea" (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Healing Land: The Bushmen and the Kalahari Desert (Hardcover)

Rupert Isaacson took an amazing journey when he went to the Kalahari to re-discover the colonial roots of his anscestors and found what he didn't expect--that his family had unwittingly contributed to the demise of a great and important people--the Bushmen. Upon meeting this hidden and displaced culture, he began a crusade to to right his inherited Karma. This book is the beginning of his journey of discovery of a remarkable people and their fight to survive in a world, that like many others, would choose to eliminate their indiginous peoples for money and power. He now, as I understand it, runs an organization called "The Indiginous Peoples Fund", helping the Bushman to reclaim their land rights and their culture. This book was the beginning of that journey. I hope h e writes a follow up book as he fight grows more successful. The book is written with great heart and love and remarkable insight into a culture so misunderstood. I have never been to South Africa and because of the book's in depth description, I felt as if I now can taste some of what it must be like. Truly a journey worth taking.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book about African spirituality, nature and people, March 13, 2003

By 

Christian Von Bogdandy (Austin) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Healing Land: The Bushmen and the Kalahari Desert (Hardcover)

This is the amazing story of Rupert Isaacson's own family story and his quest into the African mystic. His search for a healer amongst the Kalahari bushman takes the reader into the African heartland with all with breathtaking descriptions of nature and people. It was astonishing to me to learn about the beauty and mystic in these places when all you hear in the news about Africa is war and famine.