Kachasu

I sometimes enjoy a precarious dance between the traditional ideas about the shaman and a metonymic idea of the modern, 21st century shaman. So, when I say that Marechera "heals", I would say that he often does so violently -- in the same sense that a surgeon is violent. This may not be the soothing impression that most ppl want to maintain about a "healer", but there it is. So there is the healing that takes place through an encounter with violence and disruption. I think this is counterintuitive in some ways, but not in all. The disruption, the chaos making may be Dionysian, but so is shamanic "ecstasy", and the pleasure you recieve in life without the additional quantum of pain attached is hardly so pleasurable. So, I don't think that healing and wounding can be separated quite, either.

Ah. That is the way I think. Why does Marechera as psychopomp offer kachasu to the spirits of the dead freedom fighters? Doesn't he know that (according to a source online) it is made of 'dead babies"? Actually according to my Zim friend, Letwin, it is made of hedge clippings, rotten fruit, and other things found on the rubbish tip. But it is this chaos (and disturbing contents) that is offered up for "healing" or for dead freedom fighter nourishment.