The Ju/’Hoansi of the Kalahari

Although the Kayapo and rubber trappers in the Seringal Bom Futuro area exhibit similarities in their struggle for status, they are ethnically and cultural divided. Unlike the Kayapo, rubber tappers are not united by their ethnical background but rather a way of survival. As a tribe of indigenous people, the Kayapo live in “large autonomous villages scattered on both sides of the Xingu River” (Turner 140). Surrounded by tropical rainforest and grassland,

"Children of the Forest" is a narrative written by Kevin Duffy. This book is a written testament of an anthropologist's everyday dealings with an African tribe by the name of the Mbuti Pygmies. My purpose in this paper is to inform the reader of Kevin Duffy's findings while in the Ituri rainforest. Kevin Duffy is one of the first and only scientists to have ever been in close contact with the Mbuti. If an Mbuti tribesman does not want to be found, they simply won't be. The forest in which the Mbuti reside in are simply too dense and dangerous for humans not familiar with the area to enter.

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

In a period of complete change beknownst to us as the Neolithic Revolution, some groups of nomads deserted their “normal” way of life and began to settle down in villages and use agrarian methods to make a living for themselves. Two examples would be the Chumash of Southern California and the San of South Africa. Although the Chumash and the San both led a gathering and hunting way of life, they are ultimately two completely different civilizations, embodying unique political organizations, social structures and hierarchies, distinct economic foundations and individual sets of differing values.

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

“Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa” by Charles Piot is a book based on the lives of the people of the remote village called Kabre located in Northern Togo. The author discusses the “vernacular modernity” of the people of Kabre village that has been influenced by a long tradition of encounters with outsiders that included the colonialists. The author provides an in-depth analysis with ethnographic details about the Kabre people as the author discusses a wide range of their culture and history that included houses and the structure of homestead, gender ideology, ritual like initiations, exchange system, and social relations (Piot 178).

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.

Prior to the “Agriculture Resolution”, humans who migrated out of Africa lived by traveling in groups from one location to the next which is the technique used to exploit seasonal food supplies. Tools like bows and arrows, fishhooks and needles were used in order to live. But with the agricultural resolution, there was a large change brought about with people beginning to settle in areas which eventually built villages and the introduction of new technologies, including pottery, wheeled vehicles and writing. With the switch of from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle

When you surf the internet to look for the new about Central African Republic you hear stories about terror, civil war, rebels, murder, bloodshed etc. But what are the other aspects of life in the region that no news reporter wants to cover? A trip to the Center of the African rain forests reveals what happens and has been happening for very many years to the region’s residents. In Listen Here is a Story, Bonnie L Hewlett deals with different aspects of women’s lives of the Aka (Foragers) and Ngandu (Farmers) in this part of Central African Republic mainly, and reveals the political, social, cultural, Ideology in life of these people. There are some studies where people are travelling to explore the subjective experience of women’s in small societies, and this book is one of them.

The !Kung bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa are one of the few bands of hunter-gatherers left in the world. They survive by foraging for their meals while traveling, never settling in one specific area. Hunting and gathering was the primary mode of survival until about ten thousand years ago. Anthropologists have made assumptions about the hunting and gathering lifestyle of current populations because it seems like a precarious method of living. Moreover, the Kalahari area where the !Kung live in was perceived to be baron because it is a desert. However, a study done over a period of years beginning in 1960 led by Richard Lee disproved the common misconception of the life of these foragers, proving that they were not

It has been shown that most societies that depend on foragers and hunting rely on close family ties for survival. Kinship is important because of the lack of resources (Nowak, 2010). Mbuti is a tribe of foragers and hunters, living on the resources they extract from forest. The Mbuti live in an area with an abundance of resources and close ties are not needed. Mbuti is the aboriginal name of the tribe; however the tribe is divided into sub-group (Mbuti and Efe). The name of the tribe depends on the dialect spoken. The Mbuti predominately speak the language of the Bantu and the Efe dialect is of the Sudanic language. The two clans of pygmies share a tropical rainforest stretching into the northeast sector of the Congo. The “Forest” is the core of the Mbuti culture (Mosko, p. 898, para. 6, 1987 a).

I am going to imagine that I am going to live in the Kalahari Desert to live a traditional semi-nomadic life with the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen. I am going to discuss the five items that I will take with me and the reason why I want to take these items. Then I will discuss how the semi-nomadic life style affects my sense of home my relationship with my environment and my attitude towards the people I am around and my material possessions.

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)

Barth examines three groups in their relationships with the natural habitat and with one another in terms of using the concept of a niche, meaning “the place of a group in the total environment, its relations to resources and competitors” (Barth, 1079). The three groups Barth examins are the Pathans who are the sedentary agriculturalists; Kohostanis who practice agriculture and transhumant herding; and lastly the Gujars who are nomadic herders. The Gujars are under a single political leader that organizes groups by lineages and clans. The Pathans are seemed as the most powerful ones. All groups had different political systems that worked with one another.