Essay on The !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert

Very little is known about the early regions of Angola. "The original inhabitants of present-day Angola were hunters and gatherers. Their descendants, called Bushman by the Europeans, still inhabit portions of southern Africa" (Collelo

The article "The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari" talks about the hunting and gathering habits of the tribes of the Kalahari. The people don’t stock up on food or plant crops so that they might have food for the future, instead they go out every three to four days to collect more food. If that were the only time they had to work they might have more leisure time than those of us in Westernized society, however their way of life takes up more time than that. In addition to frequent gathering the people must also move their camps to be closest to the food during the different seasons which takes up time as well. The Kalahari tribes have more time in between each work session and they work for a shorter amount of time, while Westerners

All the main foods they have dried berries, corn, dried, meat and fish Rice Fresh meat. There dwelling was a Wigwams the men’s task are hunting Lacrosse. Sheltered wooded area in small groups.

The methods of both hunting and gathering of the Cahuilla Indians are spectacular since most people consider a desert region to be inhospitable. Yet the Cahuilla had an abundance of food by implementing different methods to acquire food. Using both hunting and gathering techniques they were able to successfully plan their life’s out in order to live. They had great organizational and planning skills which were the major reason they were able to live in such a desolate place. Their

Lee begins to assess the day-to-day quality of the !Kung by keeping records of their food sources and water sources. He makes table depicting the !Kung’s movements during dry season to wells of fresh water. He documents how many different groups stay at which well. He tables all the available species of crops and food and comes to the conclusion that out of 75 percent of the listed species of food the !Kung are only using a selected few. One of the most utilized food is Mongongo nut that

18.  What role did Central Asian and West African pastoralists play in their respective regions?

Commonly referred to as Bushmen by the general public and thought of as being harsh wild people that live in the “unlivable” Kalahari Desert. The Ju /’hoansi tribe native to the southern African desert, located along the border of Namibia and Botswana, have been misunderstood and stereotyped for a long time. This is until a man by the name of Richard B. Lee came along and wrote an ethnography about the local systems of the Ju and completely changed how an outsider might view this rural tribe, along with being a fine example of proper long-term field research in social anthropology. This highly regarded book on the Ju /’hoansi is titled “The Dobe Ju /’hoansi.” Although Lee states in the

Foraging for wild plants and hunting wild animals is the most ancient of human subsistence patterns. Prior to 10,000 years ago, all people lived in this way. Hunting and gathering continues to be the subsistence pattern of some societies around the world including the !Kung. The !Kung population is located in the Kalahari Desert, in isolated parts of Botswana, Angola, and Namibia. The !Kung live in a harsh environment with temperatures during the winter frequently below freezing, but during the summer well above 100F. The !Kung, like most hunter-gatherer societies, have a division of labor based mainly on gender and age.

First, the daily life of Catawba Indians was pretty simple and like all other Native American tribes. They considered themselves the “River People”. In ceremonies men would wear long sleeved coats made out of leather with fringe, long pants, and a “headdress” which was like a big hat with big feathers and other items relating to their tribe. Women would wear a pretty coat, leggings, and a long skirt. The Catawba people were farming people. Women harvested corn, beans, and squash. While the men hunted deer, wild turkeys, small mammals, and fished. They also ate cornbread, soups, and stews. Their homes were called “wigwams” and they were covered with bark and grasses. Catawba’s had council homes within their villages where leaders would make the rules for the village. The men and women in the tribe do in fact have different roles that they have to take on in the tribe. Just like the different things each gender has to do to contribute to how they prepare food.

border of Namibia and Botswana. Richard B. Lee spent time living with the people and

Due to the dependence upon naturally occurring sources of food, which are not always found in the same abundance as in agricultural cultivation, hunter-gatherers are usually found in bands of less than fifty people and in areas with low population density. This subsistence strategy

The Bushmen go out to collect food around every third day throughout the year. Anthropologists thought when they went out to get food, the !Kung people went hunting. This was not the case. It was proven that around 60 to 80 percent of their diets were comprised of vegetation from the area surrounding the camp. This can be partially attributed to the fact that the men are not always successful when they go to hunt, and it also involves the fact that there is a large variety of vegetation available to the people. Previously, anthropologists thought that in a hunter-gatherer society,

In the Congo, of Africa, lives a tribe known as the Mbuti. They are pygmies (dwarf like people) living in a luscious rain forest known as the Ituri. The Ituri Forest existed prior to the last ice age. The universe of the rainforest is one of purged sunlight below a lofty, expansive cloak of trees, where abysmal peace exists with the punctuating cries of the numerous birds and animals that share the forest with the Mbuti. A consistent, peacefully affable warmth, ample rainfall, damp air, and rich earth nurture the abundance of vegetation that grows. The abundance of vegetation benefits animals, birds, and insects that are soon to become a nutrimental source of the Mbuti diet. The culture of the Mbuti derived from their dependents on the

They are conscious about passageway, rivers and valleys. The Mbuti hunts through traps, nets and arrows. Bend over hunting is masculine issue, at the same time as net hunting is completed by both sexes; (women and men). The men rest in the traps and the women attempt to redden nature out of their defeating spot. Some animals they hunt are the antelopes, ants, crawfish, pigs, worms, insects, snails, monkeys and fishes. The head of the hunters shares all the meat with his grouping. A further leader technique of achieving food is plundering. This is when women and men explore the jungle headed in groups gathering every sort of plants: honey, roots, fruits, leaves, wild yams, berries and cola nuts etc.

Among the Mbuti, gathering as a mode of subsistence occupies a place of relatively little importance. But net hunting, in groups, takes up the greater portion of daily activity time. The Mbuti do not engage in much gathering of wild plants probably as a result of 400-500 years of contact with the agricultural Bantu. The Mbuti of today have little need to gather wild plants because they exchange game caught during their hunts for metal implements and agricultural produce [banana, cassava, sweet potato, rice, etc.]…The Mbuti divide into two groups; one is a group which uses bows, arrows, and spears as its basic method of hunting, and the second which uses nets. (Tanaka, 1978)