The Bushmen of Africa

The Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert are the oldest inhabitants of Southern Africa; their existence in this region dates back to over twenty, possibly thirty thousand years. They are the last remnants of an African Stone Age culture and also the closest known ancestors to the original Homo-Sapien model from which the Negro emerged. They can be described as having a smaller stature and lighter brown, sometimes yellowish skin. They are commonly malnourished and thin sometimes with round bloated stomachs. Flat noses, big lips, droopy eyes and wrinkled skin are trademarks of the Bushmen.

This group is also known as the 'San', Khwe Khoe, Basara and Khoisan. Though they have no collective name for themselves, they do distinguish certain subgroups with various names such as !Kung and Ju/'hoansi in their 'click consonant' languages; the various punctuation designates different 'click' sounds. The San can be broken down into six major sub-groups consisting of the !Xu, the Naró, the Kxow or Mbarakwengo, the Hei-||om the |Auni and |Nû||en. In the past, these groups had no contact with one another, though in recent years, the promotion of San welfare is advancing across the borders causing some alliance between groups.

The population of fewer than one hundred thousand Bushmen has been persevering and subsisting off of the harsh African desert climate with little change in their practices for the past several thousand years. Facing many adversities through their existence, their simple way of life and uneducated peoples have been challenged frequently by various countries and groups.

The political structure of the San is fairly simple; leadership positions are acquired by those who have lived with the tribe for a significant amount of time, have reached an adequate age, and who have appealing personal qualities, though the population as a whole lacks a formal leadership institution. Individual decision-making has always been a major part of the San culture and there are no designated chiefs or hierarchies present in the society.

"The band has no chief or leader. Kalahari Bushman society simply does not lend itself to a
centralized, hierarchical structure with specialized personnel. Decisions affecting the social life
of the band are arrived at through discussions in which all adult and near-adult members of the
band, irrespective of whether they are male or female, are welcome to participate. Discussion is
informal, is not conducted in any special place, and seldom takes the form of a single, set-piece
debate" (Sanders, The Cosmic Nature of Bushman Law).

Membership in a group is determined by residency; as long as a member lives on the land of his or her group, the membership is continued. Land is usually owned in groups by clans with bilateral inherited rights to the land; hunting on the land of others is possible, though permission to do so must be granted by the rightful owners since the resources on the land are valuable to the clan residing there.

The framework for the political model is based largely on kinship bonds. The family or clan is the starting and ending point for "government" organization. There are no class distinctions within the tribe; the only superiors being the men, elders and parents and the only inferiors are the women and children. Any other social relationships that exceed the boundaries of family are described in terms of kin; friends treat each other as brothers, and there are many cases of 'adoptive sons' within their culture. A member's rank or position within the group is usually determined by age, sex and or marital status. Because of the kinship organization structure, the San can be considered egalitarian and democratic for the most part, sharing things such as tobacco and food. "Certain forms of contract are definitely frowned upon, notably commercial contracts, as bargaining is seen as likely to create social tension. Rather the Bushmen engage in giving and receiving, borrowing and lending. Sharing possessions strengthens of course the fellowship, but
it also promotes the mobility of the band" (Sanders). It has been said that the Bushmen provide an excellent example of perfect egalitarianism because of their lack of rigid political organization.

Due to the condition of the San's political structure, there are no formal codified laws within the culture. However, there are an indeterminate amount of customs and unwritten morals, originating partly in magic and partly in religion. Of all the customs, the wrongdoings that are feared the most actually occur the least. Some of these major offenses include physical violence, the breaking of incest taboos, blatant adultery and theft. An offender is usually not viewed as inherently evil, but rather as someone who has caused a disservice to himself and others.

There is no distinction between public rules and private (household) rules and the customs cover everything from sexual mores to the correct division of an inheritance. Examples of these customs include the requirement that a child must pass through the appropriate initiation rites to become an adult and be allowed to marry. A newly married couple must take up residence with either the bride's family or the family of the groom, and the bride's wealth must be shared by the male members of the family.

Another distinction not made in the San culture is that of civil and criminal law; it is a common belief that this society recognizes evil, but not true crime. Thus, a sin could be committed not only against others, but against the deities and ancestral beings. It is believed that the gods will avenge themselves if their rights are not respected. It is the duty of the head of household to decide when sins are committed and to delegate an appropriate punishment, though no child under the age of seven can be punished or held responsible for a crime.

In addition to the regular customs, the Bushmen, like any other culture have their own guidelines and practices regarding sex and marriage. Some of the more common sexual mores of the San include the prohibition of incest and the importance of chastity during adolescence; it is against moral code to be married before initiation rites have passed the child into adulthood, and premarital sex is strongly discouraged and looked down upon. However, among the !Kung sect of Bushmen, girls no older than eight or nine are married to teenage boys on a common basis. In Namibia where parts of this tribe reside, a girl under the age of twelve is not able to legally consent to sexual intercourse. The consenting age for young boys is a mere seven years old and above, but for girls of the same age, even if consent is given, it is still considered rape. It is not considered rape if the consenting girl is between twelve and sixteen, but it is still considered a punishable offense. A recent government proposal would make the age twelve for both girls and boys as long as the perpetrator is at least three years older, and this statute is pushing to instate statutory rape laws to protect those under the age of sixteen.

Many of the Southern African tribes practice labial elongation on young girls to achieve attractiveness and sexual identity and also for the purpose of providing more pleasure to the future husband. In addition to the labial elongation, Bushmen also favor larger, more well-fed partners since food is scarce and this serves as a symbol of status in their culture. Testicular elevation of young boys is very common in the Bushmen as well, though it is reported to be a nonsexual practice. It's main purpose is to prevent the growth of the scrotum that is believed to impede flight, a vital resource for hunting and surviving in their conditions.

The economic welfare of the San depends on a hunting and gathering society, as the San are almost solely foragers of the land. Because of this, they typically reside in small nomadic family groups moving about the land for resources. However, in more recent times, the San have begun to develop larger communities near main water sources sharing available resources with neighboring groups and families. Though the environment of Southern Africa is rather harsh, the San have survived for generations adapting to and acquiring a keen awareness of their surroundings.

Despite their strong sense of survival and ancestral ties, the San have been regarded by neighboring peoples as second-rate citizens in Namibia. Over the course of history, the Europeans and Bantu-speaking people of northeast-Africa forced the San into their present-day home of the Kalahari. The Bushmen have faced discrimination in the forms of eviction from ancestral lands, oppression and murder amounting to a substantial, yet unspoken genocide which diminished their populations of several million to a mere hundred thousand. Some tribes of San still face severe persecution, torture, land and hunting restrictions, and routine harassment that has permanently driven an indefinite number of San off the land.

The term 'San', in fact is historically that of a derogative nature, given to the Bushmen by Khoikhoi rivals to mean 'outsider'. Henry Harpending states that "in the Kalahari, 'San' has all the baggage that the 'N-word' has in America"(Bushmen). Though most scholars use this term in favor of the racist and sexist designation of 'Bushmen', many of the groups in this tribe would rather identify with the latter. All known names for the San, however are derogatory in their own sense because of the high level of discrimination held towards the Bushmen.

The Bushmen maintain a very primitive way of life laden with pressures to advance into the ways of the cattle-herding tribes and the majority of the San have little or no land rights at all. They are looked down upon and considered inferior because of their lack of education and refusal to adapt to any form of modern life.

The San typically do not receive a formal education. Instead, their knowledge is extensively hunting and survival based. They are enriched with culture and tribal art along with the adaptation techniques of their people. Efforts to educate young San have been far from successful so far and there have been movements to remove the Bushmen from public schooling. "Roy [Sesana (a San)] is convinced that the children must be taken out of school in order that they can learn the art of hunting, the meaning of tracks on the ground and the art of fruit gathering in order to enable them to pass this knowledge down to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. For most of them school has not been a positive experience. They are now wanderers between two cultures which do not fit together .They are not allowed to hunt, yet at school they do not learn enough to gain a perspective, in as far as there is a perspective for them at all"(The Quiet Death of the Bushmen).Because of this conflict, most San prefer to remain free from organized public education, opting to continue their primitive ways of life in which they hold no regard for modern society or technology.

The Bushmen are a loosely knit family culture where families of a clan speak the same language. Each clan usually speaks different dialects, though the languages are normally similar enough for comprehension between the clans. The primary clans consist of the Northern, Central and Southern groups, all of which have distinctly different languages. Land boundaries are also determined by clan; typically each clan has approximately a twenty-five mile radius of land, depending on the location of neighboring clans.

Within the clans, young San begin taking their roles in the family at the age of eight or nine; the girls helping their mothers gather food, while the boys join the hunting parties with the other male members. The parents are of equal importance in the family since neither could subsist individually. Marriages are arranged by the couples themselves with parental approval. Members may marry within or outside of the clan, though with the high taboo of incest, partners are usually chosen from other clans. Though it does occur, polygamy is not very common with the San. Divorces are caused mainly by adultery and incompatibility and are not uncommon, though generally, marriages have a high degree of stability. Divorce is obtained by a unilateral decision made by one spouse and followed by a mutual agreement to separate. Custody of children typically goes to the father unless the child is still in the breast-feeding stage. There are no legal repercussions of divorce but they observe it as a regrettable occurrence.

The only inherent authority between members occurs in the child-parent relationship, where parental duties outweigh parental rights. In addition to the nuclear family duties, sometimes the parental responsibilities extend beyond the immediate relatives. Many times, the parents support the grandparents, siblings and other close relatives as well. If a family were to migrate, usually the parents would take along any relatives wishing to join.

Reminiscent of most hunter-gatherer societies, there are major distinctions between genders in the San culture and for the most part, the lines do not blur between sexes. Each gender has certain tasks and responsibilities vital to their survival. The females in this society are mainly responsible for acquiring a large portion (between seventy to eighty percent) of the group's food. They typically forage for nuts, berries and roots and capture small animals. Though the men go off in small hunting groups in search of various types of antelopes, among other animals, they provide very minimal food(the remaining twenty to thirty percent), leaving the women largely responsible for providing nourishment and caring for the family. The Bushmen require the most effective uses of skills and resources to be applied, therefore their society can be viewed as very sexist on these terms. In truth however, the women are valued highly; a priority is usually put on their opinions, especially in matters related to food.

Institutionalized religion holds no place in the culture, though the San typically worship one primary supreme god while also recognizing the presence of lesser gods along with their wives and children. Different groups of San have various ways of worshiping these gods; among some groups, tilling the soil is believed to be contrary to the world order of the gods while others worship and revere the moon.

These tribes also have a rich oral history of tales meant to educate listeners of the moral values of the San. Of major importance in all San groups, is a ritual healing dance believed to transform spiritual energy into medicine for those in the community who dance. The power is supposedly harnessed in the dancer's stomach causing a trance and can be used for physical and psychological healing. "The focus of religious contact among the Bushmen is the trance dance. It is seldom a pre-arranged event. Rather, some children initiate some rhythmic game around the evening fire, and adult men may join them. Some of the men may begin to leap and dance around the fire. The children will gradually retire to join their mothers who are now sitting in a circle around the
fire, clapping and singing. As the dance reaches a peak of excitement, one or more of the men work themselves into a state where they transcend themselves and enter the realm of the magic to plead for the health of individuals and the community. The trance dance, which may last for
hours on end, constitutes the Bushmen's major ritual and involves the entire band community"(Sanders).

The San also widely believe in paying respect to spirits of the dead. It is believed that many of the forces of nature, such as the trees, wind and rain are predeceased and reincarnated Bushmen laden with extraordinary powers of generosity as well as punishment. Therefore, it is advisable to remain on good terms with these spirits.

The Bushmen in general have a very distinct culture laden with great responsibilities and trials. Their ways of life have kept them alive for thousands of years despite attempts to evict them from their lands and destroy their culture. Though the society greatly contrasts the modern day world in which we live, the Bushmen culture is an important one and to destroy it would sever any remaining ties to an ancestry long forgotten in other parts of the world. Only by accepting their culture's importance and merging the modern day world into their way of life slowly, will the Bushmen ever fully gain acceptance in today's world.

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