BUSHMEN

INTRODUCTION TO THE BUSHMEN OF THE KALAHARI IN AFRICA

“The Bushmen” - the oldest living cultural group of people in Africa (also considered the oldest surviving group, of the original Homo sapiens) are a very special group of people whose ways of living have remained unchanged through the centuries.

With thin bodies and light brown skin which wrinkles very early in life, the Bushmen may be found in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Angola, with loosely related groups in Tanzania around Africa too. But they are mostly concentrated in the Kalahari.

The Beliefs, Rituals, Customs, Social Organization, Housing, Food, Gender Roles and Language of the Bushmen of Kalahari will be described briefly, in the following pages.
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30 000 to 55 000 Bushmen inhabit the Kalahari dessert today. “Bushmen” are also called “The San” and their origins cannot be traced as the history to these “Khwai” (which means “man” as they call themselves) dates back to the Stone Age.

Beliefs of the Bushmen

The Bushmen of the Kalahari worship the moon. They revere animal ancestors and human ancestors as well. Bushmen on magic to make rain so that animals will have enough food to eat.

The Bushmen believe that people and animals live on after death as stars.
The Bushman believes that if he misuses his environment, he will be punished by the Supreme Being. So he never takes from the soil or from the herds of game more than he needs to stay alive.

The Bushmen of the Kalahari also believe in gods and a spiritual being called “Kaggan” who tricks them by taking many forms of a snake or a vulture and at other times, living among them as a Bushman.

The Bushmen express their beliefs through rock art.

Bushmen call themselves “Zhu Twa Si” ("the harmless people”) and believe non-San, whom they call “Zosi” ("animals without hooves") are as dangerous as predator animals.

Dancing has deep religious significance for the Bushmen. Sometimes a dancer will fall into a trance. When this happens, the Bushmen believe they are in a supernatural state where they can see distances and of perform cures.

Rituals

Hunting is a daily ritual in the lives of the Bushmen. Bushmen are skilled and are natural hunters as it is this ability that keeps them alive in the Kalahari.
A ritual by the Kalahari Bushmen is that of teaching their young boys how to track an antelope. The boy is considered an adult when he kills his first large antelope with an arrow.

In the girls' puberty rituals, the young girl is isolated in her hut. The women of the tribe perform the Eland Bull Dance and the men play the part of the Eland Bull with horns on their heads. The Bushmen believe that this ritual will keep the girl beautiful, free from hunger and thirst and peaceful.

Another ritual is the marriage ritual where the man gives the fat from the elands' heart to the girls' parents with the girl later being anointed with eland fat.

Customs

The Bushmen in the Kalahari have a custom of relating stories that are told around a camp fire at night. They are sometimes repetitive but the Bushmen will always listen hard and watch the actions of the storyteller.

It is the custom of the Bushman to aim an arrow gently at the woman he wishes to marry. If the woman does not like the man, she picks up the arrow and breaks it.

Social Organization

The Bushmen live in clans and have no judge and their chiefs keep changing. The father is the head of the family and can punish anyone who displeases him. The family band of Bushmen can have as many as 50 members. A hallmark of the social organization of the Kalahari Bushmen is their utter belief in co-operation within the family, between clans, and within nature itself.

Housing

The Bushmen of the Kalahari live in huts. They never build permanent shelters as they know they would have to move during the dry season. Simple windbreaks of saplings in a semicircle are tied together at the top and covered with grass. This is housing for the Bushmen.

Food

The Bushmen will eat anything that is available, both animal and vegetable. The Bushmen eat over a 100 varieties of plants and roast or boil their meats on a fire
The animals they eat range from bucks, zebras, porcupines, hares, lions, giraffes, fish, insects, tortoises, flying ants and snakes, to hyenas. The Bushmen also eat ostrich eggs.

A great delicacy to the Bushmen, is the food of Elephant’s feet and honey.
Bushmen eat roots, leaves and insects, but they refuse to eat baboons because they say these animals look too much like human beings. Bushmen don’t eat jackal or hyena meat because those animals eat people.

Water is hard to find as there are no permanent water holes. So the Bushmen collect their moisture by scraping and squeezing roots. Bushmen dig holes in the sand to find water when they are out hunting or travelling. They carry water in ostrich egg-shells.

Gender Roles

The men are responsible for providing the meat, although women might occasionally kill small mammals. The Bushmen are expert archers. The men hunt with bone tipped poisoned arrows. They can run for hours at a time, following a herd of eland or other antelope.

The men provide household tools and maintain the supply of poison tipped arrows and spears for hunting. The women cook the meal brought to them.

The women also go on trips. Their role is gathering nuts, fruits, water roots, bitter melon or berries. Children are left at home to be watched over by those remaining in camp. Nursing children are carried on these trips

Dress
Traditionally Bushmen wear very little clothing. Bushmen traditionally wear animal hides and skins and sometimes wear headdresses made from skin and cloth with bits of hide around their waist and fur on their backs. The women’s cloak can be tied into a sling for carrying babies, food and firewood.

The men carry wallets made from skin tied around them and the women wear beads made from ostrich eggs. Bushmen are fond of ornaments and that’s why the women wear many beads made of ostrich shells. Bushmen sometimes wear skin sandals but mostly walk barefoot.

Language

The Bushman’s language is a unique on with Click sounds, which are found only in Africa.

Parts of words involve a sucking action by the tongue and these clicks are as follows.

The "first" click sounds like "tsk, tsk! " and is made by putting the tongue just behind the front teeth The second click is a soft "pop" made by putting the tongue just behind the ridge back of the front teeth. The "third" click, is a sharp "pop" made by drawing the tongue down quickly from the roof of the mouth. The "fourth" click, is a clucking sound like that made in English to urge on a horse.

6 types of click sounds are known in all the Bushmen languages and some Bantu languages (Zulu and Xhosa) have borrowed click sounds from the San languages.
The Bushmen today

Steve Curwood, host of the Series “Living on Earth”, 2004 states :
“The Bushmen of the Kalahari have traditionally been an isolated culture. Their way of life dates back tens of thousands of years, and they may be the oldest aboriginal tribe of humans. Hunting and healing form the backbone of their society. Until recently, they largely kept to themselves, and rarely had to appeal to the outside world for help. Now all that's changed. Thousands of Bushmen, or San, are being squeezed off their ancestral lands, to make room for industries like diamond mining and cattle ranching. In Botswana, this is playing out on a Bushman homeland called the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The bushmen there have filed a lawsuit against the government to get their land back and they're looking for support”

In Conclusion

The Bushmen of Kalahari are unique for the way in which they try hard to maintain their simple ways of living that are free from connection with the busy world beyond the borders of the Kalahari where they dwell. They may face misunderstanding and lack of understanding from modern man who does not appreciate the beauty of the unique culture and life of these special people.

The Bushmen of today still strive to maintain their life and their culture. However today they find it hard with the modern world imposing their culture upon them.
Researching on The Bushmen of the Kalahari was an enriching experience.

To end, a valuable quote from the brochure of “The Art of Africa” (August 2003)
“Throughout the region the Bushmen have struggled to adapt to a westernised lifestyle. This has lead to a state of depression, low self-esteem, poverty, alcoholism and a need to struggle for their rights”

© Slow Chills