The Kalabari Ekine Society: A Borderland of Religion and Art

Abstract

One of the pillars of traditional Kalahari culture is the Ekine Men's Society, otherwise known as Sekiapu—‘The Dancing People’. But although many Kalahari talk of Ekine as ‘one of our highest things’, it is an institution remarkably difficult to pin down and define. On the face of it, Ekine serves many disparate ends. At a superficial glance, it appears as a religious institution, designed to solicit the help of the water spirits1 through invocations and dramatic representations of them by masquerades. A second glance suggests that these masquerades are recreational as much as religious in their intent. Yet again, many of the masquerades seem to be important status-symbols. And finally, Ekine often appears as a significant organ of government. A day-to-day description of the society's activities in any one community would reveal these aspects as tightly woven or tangled together. In this paper, however, it will be our task not only to unravel them, but to attempt a distinction between those which are essential features of the institution, and those which are incidental.