A ! Kung Woman Analysis

Module 7 Activity – Anthropological look at the films of John Marshall

Tonight you will watch N!ai, the story of a !Kung Woman through the guise of a budding anthropologist.

While viewing the film look for at least 3 ways in which you can understand the culture of the !Kung from an anthropological perspective. List these areas below and be prepared to discuss them following the film.

Perspective 1-

The first thing that I noticed is the material stage of this culture. These people are still in the gathering hunting stage where they live on what they can glean from the natural immediate resources such as fruit and hunting wild animals for food. As she said in the film "They were “not considered poor before the “White people”came around, and when the white people came they were forced to settle down and they had to live in an overcrowded
area where food supply is modest and they game they can hunt are far away". Furthermore, When people starting getting sick they used to migrate and leave that sickness behind. However, Now as they cannot leave Tuberculosis started effect the tribe”.
We can see many aspects of this early form of culture from there medical practice which is mostly spiritual. One scene showed the failed birth and the rituals that accompany the birth where the spiritual healers go into "Transit"

Perspective 2 –

The family structure where there is an extended family live together. Another aspect of this family structure is the early and arranged marriage. Also, the strong women rule where she could behave as she likes despite the objection and anger of her husband.
For example, The film shows the young couple. They got married despite her rejecting the marriage. When the girl was only eleven and the boy at the age of thirteen. Furthermore, the movie shows cultural believes as the bride’s sister and cousin carried and cover her so she ""would not be thin”. Although they were married she was dissatisfied with her husband did not share the same bed for despite the fact that Gunda the groom was living with the her parents and hunting for them after five years of them being marriage. Even then she did not want to be physically intimate with Gunda instead she cheated on him with other men.

Perspective 3 –

They are peaceful people as could be seen from the rejection of one old man to participate in the fight of the group who used to fight the government of Old South Africa.
How do each of these contribute toward our understanding of this culture and the massive change that they witnessed?

This cultural is undergoing a strong changes in their material life where a new technological ways of pumping water are introduces.
It is undergoing some behavioral changes like the heavy consumption of Liquor which contribute to their misery.

Do you think the !Kung culture can survive given the massive impact that modernization had upon them?

This film was made before the end of the racist white rule in South Africa. This racist attitude is evident in the film where the white administer says that these people like the white man and thing that he is intelligent!
I don’t think that this culture will survive the heave changes that are introduced in their traditional lives. The education of their kids will cut them from the old ways of life, and this will lead eventually to massive changes in their family
structures.