!’Hurasi – Ju|’hoansi tortoise shell containers from the past and present in Omaheke, Namibia

“This little thing of ours”—beautifully ornamented tortoise shell containers filled with fragrant powdered herbs and plants—comprises an important part of Ju|’hoansi cultural practice in contemporary Omaheke, Namibia. Used for various purposes associated with potency and protection, the !’hurasi can be found back in time and throughout space, in the Kalahari ethnographies, ethnographic artifact collections, myths, narratives, and rock art, but it has seldom received any scholarly attention. In this article, we aim to document how aspects of a distinct San material culture are still made, used, and engaged with in the western Kalahari today, in ways that would, despite the popular belief in a general loss of traditions and ancestral knowledge in the area, be recognizable and meaningful for members of the ancestral communities a hundred years ago. Both ethnographic sources and present-day documentation strongly suggest, we argue, that the !’hurasi represents a continuation in practice, linking the Omaheke Ju|’hoansi with important San ontological concepts, and that they have played an important role in the preservation, resilience, and development of modern Ju|’hoan culture. In a first-of-its-kind study of San tortoise shell containers, the research data that form the empirical ground of our argument is gathered from ethnographic field work among Ju|’hoansi communities in Omaheke in 2022, as well as through archival studies in the ethnographic artifact collection of the Museum Africa in Johannesburg.