ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a tale that Dorothea Bleek eventually edited and published as 'A Visit to the Lion's House'. An exception is perhaps the Ichneumon's retelling of the doings at the Lion's house within the same narrative. Kabbo's full narrative about the Mantis's visit to the Lion's house can be found in Lloyd's notebooks and, in edited form, in Dorothea's published version. The Lions, the Mantis's affines, are probably also a San category of beings: shamans in feline form. Some non-carnivores are also believed to have shamanic powers. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas who lived for extended periods in the 1950s with the Kalahari Ju/'hoan San as part of the Peabody Harvard Southwest Africa Expeditions found that relations between San groups and prides of lions can vary. A Visit to the Lion's House' is thus not a simple morality tale in which good and bad are clear-cut, easily recognisable entities.
