GA GORIB

Monster

Ga-gorib, whose name is sometimes rendered as "the thrower", is one of the best-known monstrous figures of Khoikhoi mythology. He sits at the edge of an immense, deep hole, and throws a deadly challenge to whoever approaches: to hurl a stone at his forehead. But the projectile invariably bounces off the monster and strikes the assailant, who then topples into the pit. This trap makes Ga-gorib a devourer of humans attached to the underworld, in the wake of Gaunab, power of death and destruction. His story culminates in the confrontation with the hero Heitsi-Eibib. According to one version, the hero at first refuses the rigged challenge, then strikes the monster by surprise, hitting him below the ear at a moment when he is not looking, which makes him fall into his own pit. Another version tells that Ga-gorib chases Heitsi-Eibib around the hole until the hero slips and falls in himself, before climbing out and hurling the monster into the chasm at the end of a struggle. This narrative illustrates a central theme of the Khoikhoi tradition: the hero's cunning and perseverance triumphing over brute force and the deadly trap. Ga-gorib thus embodies the monstrous obstacle that the civilising hero must overcome to make the world habitable, in the line of the duality opposing the forces of life to the forces of death.