The People With No Name: Bushmen

The People With No Name

The Bushmen, also referred to as the San, Basarwa, Ju/'hoansi and the !Kung, are the ancient people who occupy the Kalahari Desert of South Africa. The Bushmen are one of the world's most ancient people, with history dating back more than 20,000 years (Lee 1984). From this ancient society, about 85,000 survive today (Godwin 2000). The Bushmen are one of the most studied societies because they are considered to be one of the oldest and also one of the few hunter-gatherer societies left today. They, like many other indigenous groups, have had a history of conflict, specifically with Europeans and Africans. Today, many efforts are being made to resolve current conflicts and ensure Bushmen survival.

Traditionally, the Bushmen were a hunter-gatherer society. Hunting and gathering was once the prime mode of survival for all humans and few societies still use this subsistence method today. Hunter-gatherers rely on the environment and availability of resources, dependent upon seasons, for foraging and hunting. For this reason, they are also considered nomadic since they must move once the resources in an area are used up.

In the 1960s, the Bushmen added herding and farming to their everyday life. The Bushmen are most known for their hunting, using a traditional bow and arrow and reversible arrowheads of bone dipped in poison. This famous poison is extracted from beetles and kills by paralysis. The animal does not die right away so the Bushmen have to track it. Tracking is considered to be one of the Bushmen's greatest talents. Older Bushmen hunt by trapping or snaring. Other hunting techniques include hunting with dogs and hunting underground. Bushmen typically hunt hoofed mammals, such as the wildebeest, gemsbok and eland (Lee 1984). The Bushmen are very modest about their hunting and do not boast of their achievements. However, the killing of a very large animal is an occasion of celebration.

Meat is only thirty percent of the Bushmen diet due to scarcity of animals. The other seventy percent of the diet is vegetarian, consisting of nuts, berries and mongongo, the latter being the most important (Lee 1984). The Bushmen have extensive knowledge of the land and plants that surround them and can easily distinguish what is edible. They share all food that is hunted and gathered because they hunt and gather together and have equal distribution among them.

Bushmen live in small groups of about twenty-five to thirty. A typical Bushmen camp consists of a rough circle of grass huts, consisting of nuclear families, surrounding a central common space. At each hut there is a fire, around which people sleep at night. It is interesting to note that the only time the Bushmen actually sleep in the hut is during the rainy season, otherwise the hut is used only for storage (Lee and DeVore 1976). Behind the huts is where ash and garbage are thrown and beyond that is where the cooking of large animals occurs. Villages are quickly established and easily destroyed. The reason for this is that the Bushmen tend to move frequently. Bushmen rarely stay at a campsite for more than a few months. They move with the seasons but do not travel without direction; they have an annual route planned season by season. For example, the Bushmen of the Dobe region move northward, occupying territories as they travel and then go back to where they came from (Lee and DeVore 1976). Typically, the Bushmen "establish small, widely scattered, and short-lived camps during the rainy season and build larger, more permanent ones during the dry season" (Lee and DeVore 1976: 48).

Like traditional hunter-gather societies, the Bushmen have no hierarchical status in their society and no pre-defined leader (Lee 1984). Groups of people own the land on which they live, not individuals. The Bushmen also have no formal political institution. There is no leader but there are some that lead subtlety by suggesting decisions. For these reasons there is not much conflict between the Bushmen but when it does occur, a makeshift court with mediators settles the problem. Other important decisions are made on a group consensus. Division of responsibility is based on age and sex. By tradition, men hunt and women gather. Men typically go hunting alone while women go foraging in large groups. Gathering is done everyday while hunting is done a few times a week (Lee and DeVore 1976). Forty-five percent of the food is provided by men and the rest by women (Lee 1984).

The central organization principle for the Bushmen is kinship. Kinship applies to everyone, not just blood relations. In tribes, those that are related by blood are considered the owners of that land and are central to that specific tribe. If someone wanted to use the waterhole then they would have to obtain permission from the "hosts" of the tribe (Lee 1984). The custom of naming is also very important and central to social organization. The Bushmen have a set of names that they use repeatedly because everyone is named after someone else. For example, Richard Lee noted that in the Dobe area in 1964, there existed only 36 male names and 32 female names (Lee 1984). It is custom to name the young after the old, for example, the first-born son is named after the father's father. Children are never named after their parents. Names are sex-linked and surnames do not exist. Since so few names exist, differentiation becomes difficult so nicknames are given. Naming is so important that sometimes it takes the place of genealogy. For example, anyone with the same name as your father is referred to as your father. Also, you are considered to be related to anyone with the same name, regardless of how distant a relative they are. Names are also important in marriage, for example, women may not marry a man that has the same name as her father or brother because technically they are her father or brother.

The ritual of marriage is also very unique to the Bushmen. The parents arrange all first marriages and they start planning as soon as the child is born. Mothers are extremely picky about potential husbands for their daughters; the man must be a good hunter, not a fighter and come from a family that practices gift giving. Once a match is found, a decade of gift giving, called Hxaro, happens before the actual marriage. There is no specific marriage ceremony, rather the man carries the woman into the marriage hut, modeling marriage-by-capture, and the marriage is completed by mutual consent. Incest is not allowed and Bushmen are not allowed to marry their first or second cousins. In the