Bushmen

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Bushmen

Bushman woman in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve

Total population 82,000

Regions with
significant Botswana (55,000), Namibia (27,000)
populations

Language Various Khoisan languages

Religion

The Bushmen (also known as Khwe, Basarwa, or San) peoples of South Africa and
neighboring Botswana and Namibia, who live in the Kalahari Desert, are part of the Khoisan
group and are related to the Khoikhoi. They have a remarkably complex language characterized
by the use of click sounds. While they have no collective name for themselves in any of their
languages, they identify themselves as a larger group with such names
as Ju/’hoansi and !Kung (the punctuation characters representing different clicks).

Contents
 [hide]
 1 San or Bushmen?
 2 Genetics
 3 Traditional Life
o 3.1 Hunting and gathering
o 3.2 Paintings
o 3.3 Social structure
 4 Relocation and government
persecution
 5 In the media
 6 Notes
 7 References
 8 External links
 9 Credits

Traditionally, the Bushmen have had a hunter-gatherer culture, living in temporary wooden and
rock shelters and caves of the Kalahari in southwest Africa. About half of modern Bushmen
continue to live this way. Bushmen have a rich folklore, are skilled in drawing, and are famous
for their beautiful cave paintings. Archaeologicalevidence suggests that they have lived in
southern Africa (and probably other areas of Africa) at least 22,000 years. Although this early
advanced civilization has survived despite technological and cultural developments in the
regions in which they live, late twentieth century changes in land use finally threatened the
survival of their traditional lifestyle.

San or Bushmen?
The term "San" was historically applied to Bushmen by their ethnic relatives and historic rivals,
the Khoikhoi. This term means "outsider" in the Khoikhoi language, and was derogatory.[1] For
this reason, some of this group still prefer to be called Bushmen. Opinions, however, vary on
whether the term "Bushmen" is appropriate—given that this term is also sometimes viewed as
pejorative.[2]
In South Africa, the term San has become favored in official contexts. Angola does not have an
official term for Bushmen, but they are sometimes referred to as Kwankhala,
or Bosquímanos (the Portuguese term for Bushmen). Neither Zambia nor Zimbabwe have
official terms, although in the latter case the terms Amasili and Batwa are sometimes
used.[3] In Botswana, the officially used term is Basarwa, [4] although this Tswana language label
also has negative connotations.

Genetics
Genetic studies of African DNA have revealed highest levels of genetic diversity in the San,
suggesting that they are the oldest human population on the continent, and on earth.[5] In 2009, an
international team led by Sarah Tishkoff from the University of Pennsylvaniathathad spent ten
years studying genetic material from 121 African populations, collecting over 3,000 samples,
reported that they had identified 14 "ancestral population clusters."[6] Their research also located
the origin of modern human migration in south-western Africa, near the coastal border
of Namibia and Angola—the homeland of the indigenous San communities.
These studies suggest that the San people are directly descended from the early human ancestors
of all other Africans including those who migrated to other lands and populated the world—
"they may be descendents of a population ancestral to all modern humans."[6]

Traditional Life

Bushmen Village, Namibia, 2005

Bushmen from the Botswana region migrated south to the Waterberg Massif 10,000 to 2,000
years ago. Archaeological evidence indicates that most Bushmen migrated southward from an
unknown location to the Kalahari desert areas within this time range. Half the current African
population lives traditionally, essentially like their ancestors lived.
Much has been learned about the ancient ways from the current Bushmen. They have
been nomadic hunters and gatherers of wild food in traditional social units of small hunting
bands. Sometimes Bushmen may form larger organizations for special occasions, but these
groups are loose and temporary. They usually possess only what they can carry. The only
concession most Bushmen have made to the modern era is wearing clothes.
Traditional Bushmen practice shamanism, conjuring animals with sacred songs, and performing
almost magical healing.[7]

Hunting and gathering

Hunting is exciting and dangerous and Bushmen hunt enthusiastically in their ancient fashion.
They are good marksmen and use small bows and tiny, unflighted arrows whose barbs are
smeared with poison from the larvae of Chrysomelidae beetles. They use a manual
communication system while hunting. They are often out several days at a time, since big game
like the kudu or eland may take four or five days to become exhausted and able to be felled.
Most prized is the eland, the largest antelope in southern Africa, which is significant not only
because of its size but it also because of its fat. This fat is very important to the diet of the
Bushmen, and also they believe it has supernatural potency. Because of the excitement, teenagers
and young men of the Bushmen generally prefer hunting to drifting off to the nearby towns.
They have many stories and songs about hunting. Young teenagers may play guitar and even
form bands playing modern music, but the content of their songs remains about the hunt.[8] When
the men return from the hunt, all gather and the women sing and beat various poly-rhythmic
patterns while the men dance in celebration of their victories.
The women are usually gathering, often while the men are out hunting, and traditional gathering
gear is simple and effective. They use a hide sling, blanket, and cloak called a kaross to carry
foodstuffs, firewood, or young children, smaller bags, a digging stick, and perhaps a smaller
version of the kaross to carry a baby. Empty ostrich egg shells are used to collect and store water
following good rains, in anticipation of the hot, dry season.[9]
For those who remain nomadic, villages range in sturdiness from nightly rain shelters in the
warm spring, when people move constantly in search of budding greens, to formalized rings
when they congregate in the dry season around the only permanent waterholes. Early spring, a
hot dry period following a cool dry winter, is the hardest season, after autumn nuts are
exhausted, villages concentrate around the waterholes, and most plants are dead or dormant.
Meat is most important in the dry months, when wildlife can never range far from receding
waters.
A current, un-named Bushman says:
A long, long time ago, we, the Bushmen, roamed these mountains, masters of the unpredictable
ways of nature. We were nomads then, moving with the great herds of game and the changing of
seasons. When the animals migrated we followed, leaving no houses or roads to mark our
presence here. All we left behind was our story painted in the rock, in the shelters, the story of
sacred animals and our journeys to the spirit world. These mountains once gave us shelter and
the herds of antelope gave sustenance, and meaning to our lives. Especially the eland, for it is the
animal of the greatest spiritual power. For us, it is the animal of well being and healing, of
beauty and peace and plenty. The eland could take us on journeys to the world beyond and
connect us to God."[10]

Paintings

San Rock art, Ukalamba Drakensberge, South Africa. It shows an Eland.

They have left over 20,000 individual rock paintings, all preserved in caves at more than 500
different sites. Originally, when Europeans first encountered the rock art of the Bushmen about
350 years ago, they considered it primitive and crude, like the people who made it. They
considered them flat perspective, two-dimensional accounts of hunting, fighting, and daily life.
Twentieth-century scholars developed an appreciation for their aesthetic aspects, with fine detail
and exquisite color, but still believed them to be simply portrayals of hunter-gatherer life.
Another dimension to these paintings has emerged. In the Kamberg Nature Reserve of South
Africa, a type of "Rosetta Stone" for the paintings was found and published in Scientific
American in 1915. These painting showed how hunters gained power from the animals that they
killed.
 Did you know?
The Bushmen have left over 20,000 individual rock paintings, all preserved in
caves at more than 500 different sites.
As more paintings were studied in this light, anthropologists decided to interview current
Bushmen. It was confirmed that these paintings also represented evocation of a spiritual power.
The ancient paintings show someone stretching their arms out in an odd way toward and over a
fire, resembling shamans who paint and draw after entering into a trance. They believe they open
portals to the spirit world through these practices, and they can gain power in their lives and in
the hunt through these practices.
An unknown Bushman of today tells us, "No more do we Bushmen hunt in these hills. The fire is
cold. Our songs are quiet. But listen carefully. You will hear us in the water. Look carefully. You
will see us in the rock."[10] The ancient paintings often include characterization of hunters and
animals such as rhinoceros, elephant and a variety of antelope species (resembling impala, kudu,
and eland, all present day inhabitants of the region).

Social structure
The Bushman kinship system reflects their interdependence as traditionally small, mobile
foraging bands. A band consists of 25 to 60 persons, from several families who are often related.
They use the Eskimo kinship system, with the same set of terms as in Western countries, and
also employ a name rule and an age rule. The age rule resolves any confusion arising around
kinship terms, because the older of two people always decides what to call the younger.
According to the name rule, if any two people have the same name, for example an old man and
a young man both named /Twi, each family uses the same kin term to refer to them: Young
/Twi's mother could call Old /Twi "son," Old /Twi would address young /Twi's sister as his own,
Young /Twi would call Old /Twi's wife "wife," and Old /Twi's daughter would be strictly
forbidden to Young /Twi as a potential bride. Since relatively few names circulate, and each
child is named for a grandparent or other relative, Bushmen are guaranteed an enormous family
group with whom they are welcome to travel.

Relocation and government persecution

Many Bushmen groups have suffered as formerly open land became game preserves
or cattle ranches, restricting their access to wild foods, while governments continued to assume
that they gathered most of their diet. In 1965, a fence along the Namibia-Botswana border
divided the formerly continuous Kalahari foraging lands. During the 1970s, most of the
Ju/'hoansi group abandoned their wandering lifestyle to raise loaned cattle in semi-permanent
villages.
By the beginning of the twenty-first century, foraging supplied around 30 percent of the
Ju/'hoansi diet near the village of Dobe, compared to 85 percent in 1964, reflecting the increasing
untenability of hunting and gathering in the face of population expansion, overgrazing of wild
food plants by cattle, and the availability of alternative lifestyles such as gardening with the
government's provision of bored wells. Domestic animals, sugar products, garden produce, and
mealie-meal are now major foods. Of grave concern are tenuous land control and the destruction
of vital water pumps by elephants.
Since the mid-1990s, the central government of Botswana has been trying to move Bushmen out
of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, even though the national constitution guarantees the
people the right to live there in perpetuity. The game reserve was originally created in 1961 to
protect the five thousand Bushmen living there who were being persecuted by farmers and cattle-
rearing tribes.
The government's position is that it is too costly to provide even such basic services as medical
care and schooling, despite the reserve's existing tourism revenues. It has banned hunting with
guns in the reserve and has said that the Bushmen threaten the Reserve's ecology. Others,
however, claim that the government's intent is to clear the area—the size of Denmark—for the
lucrative tourist trade and for diamond mining. The government resumed its policy[11] of forcing
all Bushmen off their lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, using armed police and
threats of violence or death. In the reservations, Bushmen can no longer hunt or heal in
traditional ways, and alcohol abuse and domestic violence have become common.[7] Many of the
involuntarily displaced Bushmen have been forced to live in squalid resettlement camps and
have resorted to prostitution.
In December 2006, the Bushmen won a victory when judges ruled that their eviction by the
government was "unlawful and unconstitutional," and that they had the right to live inside the
Central Kalahari Game Reserve, on their ancestral land. They also ruled that the Bushmen have
the right to hunt and gather in the Reserve.[12] However, in the following years they were
prevented from accessing the borehole which provides water. Finally, in 2011, Bushmen were
granted the right to access water on their ancestral lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve,
both in using the old borehole and in sinking new ones.[13]
In Namibia, the primary health threat comes from tuberculosis. In Tsumkwe East, a British aid
agency, Health Unlimited, has accomplished what they believe is a world record in treating the
Bushmen with "barefoot" doctors in their own villages, achieving an 84 percent cure rate.
As nomads, Bushmen find it impossible to come to a traditional hospital for the required six
months of treatment. They seem to live far enough away from towns to still be fairly safe
from alcohol and AIDS, but given situations like the forced re-locations in Botswana and the
development of prostitution as a life-style, this problem cannot be avoided without political
intervention to secure their independence.