The !Kung San of the Kalahari Desert
The !Kung San of the Kalahari Desert
Kinship Organizations
Freddy B. Jerez
ANT101: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Lecia Sims
August 14, 2011
From the beginning of human history people have lived as foragers. Foragers are a cultural society that depends on the gathering of food. The women are the primary food gathers which will allocate 80% of wild foods and the men will hunt and fish gathering the another 20% in meat; for the diet. Nowak, B. & Laird, P., 2010. The women keep the men informed of what animals they encounter when they are gathering food and men when they come back from hunting or fishing bring back information about plant food that is ripe or abundant. Women can collect enough food in one day to feed their families for a full week, while men hunt or fish two or three days a week. The rest of the time is spent in leisurely pursuits: visiting, playing, sleeping, and just enjoying each other 's company (Lee, 1979). Nowak, B. & Laird, P., 2010
For this critical thinking paper on the kinship organizations, I decided to choose the San Culture (a forager culture) who lived mainly in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana and Namibia. With hunting and gathering food as a lifestyle, (Nowak, B. & Laird, P., 2010, Ch. 3.1), in the past, the San people have been called “Bushmen” by southern African whites. The San people do not control their resources (there is no understanding of ownership); reciprocity is a way of life for them. Generalized reciprocity has many functions! As an economic function the “Big Man” or “Headman” show power to other bands or tribes, and is a technique in acquiring allies. Nowak, B. & Laird, P., 2010
In the San Culture, family, marriage and kinship, gender, and age are the key principles of social organization society. San people are related to each other either as consanguine, sharing a common ancestor, or as affine (what we call in–laws) through marriage. The nuclear family is the most common type of family in
Kinship Organizations
Freddy B. Jerez
ANT101: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Lecia Sims
August 14, 2011
From the beginning of human history people have lived as foragers. Foragers are a cultural society that depends on the gathering of food. The women are the primary food gathers which will allocate 80% of wild foods and the men will hunt and fish gathering the another 20% in meat; for the diet. Nowak, B. & Laird, P., 2010. The women keep the men informed of what animals they encounter when they are gathering food and men when they come back from hunting or fishing bring back information about plant food that is ripe or abundant. Women can collect enough food in one day to feed their families for a full week, while men hunt or fish two or three days a week. The rest of the time is spent in leisurely pursuits: visiting, playing, sleeping, and just enjoying each other 's company (Lee, 1979). Nowak, B. & Laird, P., 2010
For this critical thinking paper on the kinship organizations, I decided to choose the San Culture (a forager culture) who lived mainly in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana and Namibia. With hunting and gathering food as a lifestyle, (Nowak, B. & Laird, P., 2010, Ch. 3.1), in the past, the San people have been called “Bushmen” by southern African whites. The San people do not control their resources (there is no understanding of ownership); reciprocity is a way of life for them. Generalized reciprocity has many functions! As an economic function the “Big Man” or “Headman” show power to other bands or tribes, and is a technique in acquiring allies. Nowak, B. & Laird, P., 2010
In the San Culture, family, marriage and kinship, gender, and age are the key principles of social organization society. San people are related to each other either as consanguine, sharing a common ancestor, or as affine (what we call in–laws) through marriage. The nuclear family is the most common type of family in
References: Nowak, B., & Larid, P. (2010). Cultural anthropology. San Diego, Bridgepoint Education, Inc. https://content.ashford.edu National Geogrphic Magazine retreved at website: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0102/feature6/index.html Gordon, Robert J. The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass. Westview Press, 1992. Katz, Richard. Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung. Harvard University Press, 1982. Skotnes, Pippa. Miscast: Negotiating the Presence of the Bushmen. University of Cape Town Press, 1996. Smith, Andy, and others. The Bushmen of Southern Africa: A Foraging Society in Transition. Ohio University Press, 2000.