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KAQECE |KAECE

Kaqece was born in the village of Makuri. When he grew up, his father was the only n|om-kxao there. “He taught me about curing and hunting. He would tell me about the ropes. When I first went up a rope I told him and we discussed climbing them. There are two ropes—one is thin and the other is thick. The thick one takes us up quickly to the sky where we are taught what we need to know about n|om.

“The first time I saw the big rope was in a kabi. I floated up the rope and saw the ancestors. They danced and sang for me. After that they would come to me and visit, saying, ‘Hello, my friend. I want you to go hunt something.’ They would help me hunt. Sometimes they would simply visit and say, ‘Good-bye, I’ll come to you tomorrow.’

“Though my father told me about the ancestors, I discovered them myself. The first time I went up the rope they danced with me a lot. They put me in the fire and I felt burned throughout. I still have the burn marks.

“At times, my body has felt like a cloud, or a fire, or wind whenever I am hot with n|om. The ancestors are always there to help me. I have seen the rope to God three times. It is not something we see often, though we will feel it in each dance after we have seen it. After I saw it, I owned the feeling for it. The rope became my own thing.

“When many of us first received an arrow of n|om it hurt. Then later the n|om-kxao would come back and take it out so we’d feel better. A strong healer can keep doing this over and over until it no longer hurts. Those arrows can come from the giraffe, eland, oryx, or other sources.”

Kaqece’s father was always singing and dancing the giraffe, oryx, and eland songs. He also owned the honey song. His songs were given to him from God. When he received a song during the night he’d start singing it and the people would wake up and learn it that evening. Kaqece remembers this happening when he was a boy. He and his family would wake up and listen to their father’s song and then start singing with him. Sometimes it turned into a big dance.

It happened to Kaqece later when he became an adult. “For example, my ancestral father once gave me a song in a kabi. My family woke up and sang it with me. Now our whole family owns the song. We are better with that song. When we all sing together, we also dance together as a family. We make a small fire and there we sing and dance, celebrating the newly arrived song.”

Kaqece went up the rope three times. “It was like a wind taking me up. When I got to the village, I looked at the ancestors and learned from them. They gave me powerful nails. I also saw God and he gave me some nails. When I received those nails I also received knowledge and wisdom. It all happened automatically. The more nails we receive in our life, the more we know about the most important matters.

“God gave my father a nail and my father gave it to me. The nail can be passed on like this. It is delivered by a n|om song. When such a song opens your heart it can help you receive a nail.

“The hearts of the spears teach that when we get fully cooked, we might see God’s ostrich egg as we shake. This is when we feel like we are becoming a cloud. As we are able to turn into a luminous cloud, we become more like the luminous egg. The perfectly formed cloud is the egg. We return to the source from which we came.”