Coti

Her story

Historical context

goddess · /Xam San narratives (Bleek & Lloyd, 19th century)

Coti appears in nineteenth-century /Xam narratives recorded by Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd as the wife of the Mantis, a trickster and creator figure often called |Kaggen in related San traditions. She belongs to a mythic family whose stories concern animals, celestial bodies, hunger, death and the unstable ordering of the early world. San traditions are diverse, so one recorded cycle should not stand for every community.

Mythology & traditions

Within the Mantis cycle, cosmic events unfold through household relationships rather than through a distant court of gods. Coti’s presence helps situate the trickster inside a family of consequences and obligations; stories involving their children and the eland connect kinship with one of the most spiritually important animals in southern African traditions.

In the oracle

Her guidance