ǃKung people

The ǃKung, also spelled ǃXun, are a Bushman people living in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, Botswana and in Angola. They speak the ǃKung language, noted for using click consonants, generally classified as part of the Khoisan language family. To pronounce "ǃKung" one must make a click sound before the 'k' sound, often represented in texts as an exclamation mark.

Historically, the ǃKung lived in semi-permanent camps of about 10-30 people usually located around a system of water. Once the water and resources around the village were depleted, the band would relocate to a more resource-rich area. They lived a hunting and gathering lifestyle with the men responsible for providing meat, making tools, and maintaining a supply of poison-tipped arrows and spears. The women provided most of the food by spending between two and three days per week foraging for roots, nuts and berries in the Kalahari Desert.^[1]

Mythology

The ǃKung people of southern Africa are both animistic and animatistic, which means they believe in both personifications and impersonal forces. They believe in a god named Prishiboro who had a wife that was an elephant. Prishiboro's older brother tricked him into killing his wife and, later, into eating her flesh. Her herd tried to kill Prishiboro in revenge, but his brother defeated them.

ǃKung people also have many taboos concerning the dead, as they believe that the ghosts (ǁgangwasi) of the deceased would cause them injury or death. It is against the rules to even say the name of someone dead,^{[citation needed]} once an annual ceremony to release the spirits of the dead has been performed.

The ǃKung practice shamanism in order to communicate with the spirit world, and to cure what they call Star Sickness. The communication with the spirit world is done by a natural healer entering a trance state and running through a fire, thereby chasing away bad spirits. Star Sickness is cured by laying hands on the diseased.

Child Birth

The ǃKung consider the earth the first mother of all people in the tribe.

ǃKung women give birth with the earth as primary midwife (a form of unassisted childbirth) walking away from the village camp as far as a mile during labor and birthing the child alone, delivering it into a small leaf-lined hole dug into the warm sand. The child's cord is not clamped or cut (a form of Lotus birth or umbilical nonseverance), and the placenta is delivered and put next to the child, as guardian. Shortly thereafter, the baby-placenta is lightly covered with another large leaf, and the new mother walks a short way to verbally alert the older women of the completed birth, at which time they join the mother and child in a ritual welcoming. If a laboring woman is delayed in returning a sign to the village that she has given birth, the older women will come looking for her to assist; however, it is said to be a rare occurrence.^[2]

Time between the births of children was traditionally about 3-5 years. Because there weren't cereal grains to feed children before they could eat adult food, children nursed for 3-5 years. This ended when a mother was pregnant with another child. This made traveling long distances on foot, like to a gathering site or new settlement easier, since fewer children required carrying and population numbers remained controlled. ^[3]

Gender Roles and Regulations

Traditionally, especially among Ju/'hoansi !Kung, women generally collected plant foods and water, providing 60-80% of sustenance to the group, while men hunted. However, these were not strict and people do jobs as needed with little or no shame. So women could grow up hunting and men could do gathering. Women generally took care of children and preparing of food, however, this didn't restrict them to homes, because these activities were generally done with, or close to, others, so women can socialize and help each other. Men also engaged in these activities. ^[4]

Children would be raised in village groups of other children of a wide age range. Sexual activities amongst children were seen as natural play for both sexes. ^[5]

Marriage was generally between a man in his twenties and a girl in her teens. Newlyweds lived in the same village as the wife's family so that she had family support during her new life. Often, young wives would return to their parents' houses to sleep until they become comfortable with their husbands. During this time, the husband would hunt for his wife's family (bridewealth). If the couple never became comfortable, divorce was acceptable, prompted by either gender. If they did become a stable couple, they could reside with either family, settling with which ever was beneficial at a time. Divorce remained possible throughout marriage. Extramarital sex wasn't condoned, but was equally acceptable for each spouse. Domestic violence was prevented because villages were small and close and houses were open so that neighbors and relatives could intervene as needed. ^[6]

ǃKung women often share an intimate sociability and spend many hours together discussing their lives, enjoying each other's company and children. In the short documentary film "A Group of Women" ǃKung women rest, talk and nurse their babies while lying in the shade of a baobab tree. This film is a good illustration of "collective mothering" in which several women support each other and share the nurturing role.^[7]

Use of kinship terms

The ǃKung classify everyone who bears the same name as close kinsmen as if they were relatives proper. If a ǃKung man's sister is called Kxaru (a female name), then all women named Kxaru are his "sisters." A ǃKung man may not sit too close to his sisters or tell sexual jokes in their presence, and he cannot marry them. The same rules apply to his sisters' namesakes. To the ǃKung, such customs identify "true" and not merely metaphorical kinship. The ǃKung believe that all namesakes are descended from the same original namesake ancestor,^{[citation needed]} and in effect they treat the status of namesake as a genealogical position, like father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter.

Hunting Rituals

The Ju/'hoansi had rituals to prevent arrogance amongst male hunters. When a man killed an animal, he wouldn't take it directly into the settlement, but would leave the body and return as if he was unsuccessful. An older man would inquire about his hunt and remark upon his failure, at which the hunter must avoid credit and accept humility. Through a long process, eventually, likely the next day, a group would go "see if some small animal was knicked by an arrow." Upon finding the hunter would be reassured of the little value of the kill which is finally returned. Additionally, the kill may belong not to him, but to the person who gave him arrows (a man or woman), who then followed rules on how to distribute the meat to everyone in the group. ^[8]

Hunting could take days of tracking, attacking, and following a wounded animal.

Recent History

Within the past few decades: since the 1950s, Ju/'hoansi has changed much. increased populations of neighboring groups, living off of cattle ranching, have brought cows. Cows eat the sparse vegetation which the Ju/'hoansi and their game animals needed to eat as well as dirtied water holes. This increases access to disease too. European descended settlers have encouraged wage paid agricultural labor, especially to men. This means men have more access to wealth and are more depended on, and so are more valued. Women, traditional food preparers, took up the preparing of millet. Millet is a much harder plant to process than traditional foods, leaving women more "stuck" to food prep too. Sharing water with cows and European and state government encouragement of permanent settlements and European style houses has contributed to disease, as infected areas aren't moved away from periodically. With more material goods to carry and jobs, people are more invested in staying in more populated villages where diseases stay and spread. This also contributes to more domestic violence as women are more dependent on men and are more restricted from outside intervention (they now have closed doors). Less open houses and wealth collection also challenges traditional sharing ideology and people become aggressive in feeling as their neighbors are hoarding. ^[9]

They also face problems are traditional lands are valued by cattle ranching peoples, European settlers and wildlife reservers, and state governments.

In popular culture

The protagonist in the 1980 film, The Gods Must Be Crazy, is an inaccurate caricature of a !Kung man.

References

1. ^ Fielder, Christine; Chris King (2004-02-01). "Culture Out of Africa" (HTML). Sexual Paradox: Complementarity, Reproductive Conflict, and Human Emergence. pp. 102–146. ISBN 1-4116-5532-X. http://www.dhushara.com/paradoxhtm/culture.htm. Retrieved 2006-02-17. 
2. ^ Shostak, Marjorie "Nisa: The Life and Words of a ǃKung woman, ISBN 0-674-00432-9, pp. 77-81, 2nd edition 2006, Harvard University Press,
3. ^ - from Women and Men by nancy Bonvillian
4. ^ - from Women and Men by nancy Bonvillian
5. ^ - from Women and Men by nancy Bonvillian
6. ^ - from Women and Men by nancy Bonvillian
7. ^ Documentary Film: "A Group of Women" (from the San (Ju/Wasi) Series, John Marshal, 1961, available through Documentary Educational Resources
8. ^ - from Women and Men by nancy Bonvillian
9. ^ - from Women and Men by nancy Bonvillian

Further reading

• Katz, Richard: Boiling Energy, Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung (1982). Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard University Press.
• Lee, Richard B.: Subsistence Ecology of ǃKung Bushmen (1965), PhD Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.
• Lee, Richard B.: The ǃKung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging Society (1979), Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. (Chapter 9 available here)
• Lee, Richard B.: Politics, sexual and non-sexual, in an egalitarian society (1982). In E. Leacock & R. B. Lee (Eds.), Politics and History in Band Societies (pp. 37-59). New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Lee, Richard B.: Art, science, or politics? The crisis in hunter-gatherer studies (March 1992). American Anthropologist 94(1), 31-54.
• Lee, Richard B.: The Dobe Juǀʼhoansi (2003), 3rd ed., Thomson Learning/Wadsworth.
• Sahlins, Marshall: "The Original Affluent Society"
• Shostak, Marjorie: Nisa The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, (2006 special edition) Boston: Harvard University Press.
• Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall: The Old Way, A Story of the First People (2006), New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

External links

• Documentary Educational Resources film library
• A Cultural Profile