¶ … Kung of the Kalahar Desert
The Nyae !Kung tribes are nomadic groups that have lived in the Kalahari Desert in northwest Namibia, the Cuando-Cubanga province in southeast Angola and in northeast Namibia (Jenkins 2001). These nomadic hunter-gatherers have had minimal contact with the outside world but through several hundred years, they developed a survival strategy and has enabled them to life adequately as a separate though primitive society (Berberich 2003). The !Kung people have evolved their own culture, industry, government, language, social norms and housing system.
Oldest historical records bear out evidence of the existence and habitation of hunter-gatherers in southern Africa for thousands of years (Shostak 1981). These Bantu-speaking aborigines were assumed to have begun migrating into the !Kung territory approximately 2,000 years ago and introduced their own vastly different culture into it. They coexisted through centuries, while largely retaining their individual cultures. Drought, the consequences of overgrazing, years of exposure to the features of village life, wages for labor and role models of the outside world combined to lure the !Kung to succumb to change (Shostak).
The San tribes, or Bushmen as the Dutch called them, were the first known people in that Great Rift Valley of Africa. They were first overcome by Cushites, the Nilotes and then by the Bantu peoples (Jenkins 2001). These non-aggressive hunter-gatherers intermingled with the newcomers by intermarriage, but more often, they were killed. The remnants of these tribes today still speak the Bantu language of the dominant tribes and almost all of these San peoples now live in the desert portions of southern Africa. Although approximately 50,000 of these tribes continue to exist at the present time, some reports say that only about a third of them have maintained the original nomadic life style of their ancestors.(Jenkins 2001). Many of them were kidnapped t work in other people's farms or homes, such as black-owned farms in Botswana. They work as unpaid labor and only given food and so they have become very poor and oppressed. What is more lamentable is that they were scattered into groups of a few hundreds to a few thousands and unable to communicate with one another because they speak different languages, which they do not understand (Jenkins). (Shostak 1981)
Settlement and Food Gathering Activities - The original and aboriginal environment of the Kung turned most outsiders off because it was hardy and harsh, but the !Kung could survive because they had been able to adapt to it (Shostak 1981). They set up villages of only 10-30 people, ready to move to another site with their belongings when the water source dried up so they could look for another location. They lived in small huts made of grass in a circle and the doors facing the middle communal area. All activities, except sleep, were performed in this area, such as cooking, socials and play. A fire constantly burned in front of each hut.
In their semi-arid environment, the Kung tribes gathered roots, berries, fruits and nuts from the desert and obtained meat from hunters (Shostak 1981). Kung men and women knew a lot about available edible foods and the medicinal and toxic properties of the different varieties. The !Kung men provided the meat while the women occasional killed small mammals. The men also produced household tools and preserved poison-tipped arrows and spears for hunting. Meat was scarce and hunters had to travel far to find game and when found, it was shared fairly by family members. The game was not just eaten but thoroughly used. The !Kung tanned the hide for blankets and cracked the bones. Games included wildebeest, gemsbok, giraffe, reptiles and birds. They also collected honey.
It was the !Kung women's responsibility to gather plants, roots and wood in groups while the men hunted and checked out snares in small groups (Berberich 2003). The women prepared the food by spending two to three days a week foraging in different distances. They also took charge of the children, gathered firewood, carried water and cooked (Shostak 1981). They often returned with mongongo nuts, baobab fruits, water roots, bitter melon, and !Gwa berries. Children remained at home and watched by those who remained there. Breastfed and nursed children had to be carried by their mother to their foraging and increased the weight women had to carry.
!Kung women could claim with pride that they were able to feed their families by gathering food three days a week. The vegetables gathered by them accounted for 80% of the family diet. In addition to...
Kung San Trial Marriages and U.S. Divorce Rates. The!Kung San are a hunter-gatherer people that inhabit the Kalahari desert in Africa. They are the Bushmen who have managed to live a contented, self-governed life while the rest of the world has sprung up around them in a mass of technology and dysfunction. They live a community life where the economy is based on sharing and "among the first words a child
We can now take a look at the plants that the prey animals and humans were likely to encounter in the Kalahari desert. Much of the Kalahari is sand. Therefore, the plants available had to be adaptable to a sandy environment (Warder, "Plants in the Kalahari Desert," n.d.). The variety of species in the Kalahari desert is relatively poor, compared to other surrounding areas, such as Cape Macchia (Warder, "Plants
Women and Patriarchy Across the world, the secondary position of women in society remains a virtual constant. This preferential treatment for men is embedded in social and political structures in various countries and societies. This paper examines how patriarchal structures remain in three important social structures - marriage, household and family life, and in the economy. The first part of the paper compares the marriage practices among the Yanomamo Indians in northern Brazil,
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