The San
Total population
90,000 +
Regions with significant populations
Botswana (55,000), Namibia (27,000), South Africa (10,000)
Languages
various Khoisan languages
Religions
San Religion
Related ethnic groups
Khoikhoi, Xhosa, Basters, Griqua

The Bushmen, San, Basarwa, ǃKung or Khwe are indigenous people of southern Africa which spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe , Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia and Angola. The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa on the Atlantic coast The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa The Khoisan languages (also Khoesaan languages) are the indigenous languages of southern and eastern Africa; in southern Africa their speakers are the Khoi The religion of the San people or Bushmen, of southern Africa consists of a Spirit world and our Material world. See also Xhosa language The Xhosa (ǁʰɔsɑ( people are speakers of Bantu languages living in south-east South Africa, and in the last two The Basters (also known as Baasters, Rehobothers or Rehoboth Basters) are the descendants of liaisons between the Cape Colony Dutch The Griqua ( Afrikaans Griekwa, sometimes incorrectly called Korana) are a subgroup of South Africa 's heterogeneous and Multiracial The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa See also Great Zimbabwe National Monument. For information about the March and June 2008 presidential elections see Zimbabwean presidential election Lesotho (lɪˈsuːtuː) officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a Landlocked country and Enclave — entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique (Moçambique or República de Moçambique, ʁɛ'publikɐ d musɐ̃'bik is a country in southeastern Africa The Kingdom of Swaziland is a country located in Southern Africa centred at approximately 26o49'S 31o38'E The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa on the Atlantic coast Angola, officially the Republic of Angola (República de Angola Pronounced ʁɛˈpublikɐ dɨ ɐ̃ˈgɔlɐ Repubilika ya Ngola is a country in south-central They were traditionally hunter-gatherers, part of the Khoisan group, and are related to the traditionally pastoral Khoikhoi. A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild Foraging and Hunting Khoisan (increasingly commonly spelled Khoesan or Khoe-San) is the name for two major Ethnic groups of Southern Africa. Starting in the 1950s, through the 1990s, they switched to farming.

Genetic evidence suggests they are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, peoples in the world — a "genetic Adam" according to Spencer Wells, from which all humans can ultimately trace their genetic heritage. In human Genetics, Y-chromosomal Adam ( Y- MRCA) is the patrilineal Human Most recent common ancestor (MRCA from whom all Spencer Wells (born April 6 1969 in Georgia United States) is a Geneticist and Anthropologist, and an Explorer-in-Residence at the ^[1]

Contents 1 Naming 2 Ancestral land conflict with Botswana government 2.1 Court decision 3 Society 4 Early history 5 In the media 6 Notables 7 See also 8 Notes 9 References 10 External links

Naming

The terms San, Khwe, Bushmen, and Basarwa have all been used to refer to hunter-gatherer peoples of southern Africa. A hunter-gatherer society is one whose primary subsistence method involves the direct procurement of edible plants and animals from the wild Foraging and Hunting Each of these terms has a problematic history, as they have been used by outsiders to refer to them, often with pejorative connotations. The individual groups identify by names such as Juǀʼhoansi and ǃKung (the punctuation characters representing different clicks), and most call themselves "Bushmen" when referring to themselves collectively. Juǀʼhoan (also called Zhuǀʼhõasi Dzuǀʼoasi Zû-ǀhoa JuǀʼHoansi is a Khoisan language spoken in the Northwest District of Botswana by about 5000 people The ǃKung, or ǃXũ as it is also spelled in English also called the Juǀʼhoansi, are a people living in the Kalahari ^[2]

The term "San" was historically applied by their ethnic relatives and historic rivals, the Khoikhoi. This term means "outsider" in the Nama language and was derogatory because it distinguished the Bushmen from what the Khoikhoi called themselves, namely the First People. ^[2] Western anthropologists adopted "San" extensively in the 1970s, where it remains preferred in academic circles. The term "Bushmen" is widely used, but opinions vary on whether it is appropriate – given that the term is sometimes viewed as pejorative. ^[3][4]

In South Africa, the term "San" has become favored in official contexts, being included in the blazon of the new national coat-of-arms. The Republic of South Africa (also known by other official names) is a country located at the southern tip of the continent of Africa In South Africa "Bushman" is considered derogatory by some groups. Angola does not have an official term for Bushmen, but they are sometimes referred to as Bushmen, Kwankhala, or Bosquímanos (the Portuguese term for Bushmen). Angola, officially the Republic of Angola (República de Angola Pronounced ʁɛˈpublikɐ dɨ ɐ̃ˈgɔlɐ Repubilika ya Ngola is a country in south-central Portuguese ( or língua portuguesa) is a Romance language that originated in what is now Galicia (Spain and northern Portugal. In Lesotho they're referred to as Baroa, which is where the Sesotho name for "South", "Boroa", comes from. Lesotho (lɪˈsuːtuː) officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a Landlocked country and Enclave — entirely surrounded by the Republic of South Neither Zambia nor Zimbabwe have official terms, although in the latter case the terms Amasili and Batwa are sometimes used. The Republic of Zambia (ˈzæmbɪə is a Landlocked country in Southern Africa. See also Great Zimbabwe National Monument. For information about the March and June 2008 presidential elections see Zimbabwean presidential election ^[5] In Botswana, the officially used term is Basarwa^[6], where it is partially acceptable to some Bushmen groups, although Basarwa, a Tswana language label, also has negative connotations. The Republic of Botswana (Lefatshe la Botswana is a Landlocked nation in Southern Africa. Tswana ( Setswana) is a Bantu language written in the Latin Alphabet. The term is a class 2 noun (as indicated by the "ba-" class marker), while an older class 6 variant, "Masarwa," is now almost universally considered offensive. ^[5] (using class 5 labels with class 6 plurals is a common strategy used by speakers of southern Bantu languages to show contempt for ethnic groups, though there are many societies whose own endonyms are class 1 nouns with irregular class 6 plurals)

Ancestral land conflict with Botswana government

Since the mid-1990s the central government of Botswana has implemented a relocation policy, aiming to move the Bushmen out of their ancestral land on the Central Kalahari Game Reserve into newly created settlements. The Bantu languages (technically Narrow Bantu languages) constitute a grouping belonging to the Niger-Congo family An exonym (from Greek el ἔξω exo = out el ὄνομα onoma = name is a name for a place that is not used within that place by the local The 1990s collectively refers to the years between and including 1990 and 1999 Central Kalahari Game Reserve is an extensive national park in the Kalahari desert of Botswana. Although the government categorically deny that relocation has been forced^[7], a recent court ruling confirmed that the removal was unconstitutional and residents were forcibly removed. ^[8]

The government's official reasons for adopting the policy is: "Over time it has become clear that many residents of the CKGR already were or wished to become settled agriculturists, raising crops and tending livestock as opposed to hunting-gathering when the reserve was established in 1961.

In fact, hunting-gathering had become obsolete to sustain their living conditions. These agricultural land uses are not compatible with preserving wildlife resources and not sustainable to be practiced in the Game Reserve.

This is the fundamental reason for government to relocate the CKGR residents. "^[9]

Opponents to the relocation policy claim that the government's intent is to clear the area – an area the size of Denmark – for the lucrative tourist trade and for diamond mining. The Kingdom of Denmark ( ˈd̥ænmɑɡ̊ (archaic ˈd̥anmɑːɡ̊ commonly known as Denmark, is a country in the Scandinavian region of northern Europe In Mineralogy, diamond is the allotrope of carbon where the carbon atoms are arranged in This is strenuously denied on the government's official web site, stating that although exploration had taken place, it concluded that mining activity would not be viable and that the issue was not related to the relocation policy.

It is further claimed that the group as a whole has little voice in the national political process and is not one of the tribal groups recognized in the constitution of Botswana. Over the generations, the Bushmen of South Africa have continued to be absorbed into the African population, particularly the Griqua sub-group, which is an Afrikaans-speaking people of predominantly Khoisan that has certain unique cultural markers that set them apart from the rest of the Africans. A region or society where several different groups are spontaneously assimilated is sometimes referred to as a Melting pot. The Griqua ( Afrikaans Griekwa, sometimes incorrectly called Korana) are a subgroup of South Africa 's heterogeneous and Multiracial Afrikaans is an Indo-European language, derived from 17th century Dutch and classified as Low Franconian Germanic, mainly spoken in Khoisan (increasingly commonly spelled Khoesan or Khoe-San) is the name for two major Ethnic groups of Southern Africa.

Court decision

On December 13, 2006, the Bushmen won a historic ruling in their long-running court case against the government. By a 2-1 majority, the court said the refusal to allow the Basarwa into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) without a permit was "unlawful and unconstitutional. " It also said the state's refusal to issue special game licenses to allow the Bushmen to hunt was "unlawful" and "unconstitutional" and found that the Bushmen were "forcibly and wrongly deprived of their possessions" by the government. However, the court did not compel the government to provide services such as water to any Bushmen who returned to the reserve. More than one thousand Bushmen intend to return to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, one of Africa's largest protected nature reserves. ^[10]

Society

The Bushman kinship system reflects their interdependence as traditionally small, mobile foraging bands. Also, the kinship system is comparable to the Eskimo kinship system, with the same set of terms as in Western countries, and also employ a name rule and an age rule. Eskimo kinship (also referred to as Lineal kinship) is a concept of kinship used to define Family in Anthropology. The age rule resolves any confusion arising around kinship terms, because the older of two people always decides what to call the younger. Since relatively few names circulate approximately only 35 names per gender, 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.

Traditional gathering gear is simple and effective: a hide sling, blanket, and cloak called a kaross to carry foodstuffs, firewood, smaller bags, a digging stick, and perhaps a smaller version of the kaross to carry a baby. Women would gather, and men hunted using poison arrows and spears in laborious days-long excursions. Children had no duties besides to play, and leisure was very important to the Bushmen. They spent large amounts of time with conversation, joking around, music, and sacred dances.

Villages ranged in sturdiness from nightly rain shelters in the warm spring, when people moved constantly in search of budding greens, to formalized rings when they congregated in the dry season around the only permanent waterholes. Early spring, a hot dry period following a cool dry winter, was the hardest season, after autumn nuts were exhausted, villages concentrated around waterholes, and most plants were dead or dormant. Meat was most important in the dry months, when wildlife could never range far from receding waters.

Traditionally the San were an egalitarian society^[11]. Although they did have hereditary chiefs, the chief’s authority was limited and the bushmen instead made decisions among themselves, on a consensus basis. ^[12] Women's status was relatively equal^[13]. Women did not begin bearing children until about 18 or 19 years of age due to late first menstruation because of the low calorie and low fat diet ^[14] and had them spaced four years apart, due to lack of enough breast milk to feed more than one child at a time ^[15], and the requirements of mobility leading to the difficulty of carrying more than one child at a time.

Children were very well behaved and treated kindly by their parents and group^[16]. Children spent much of the day playing with each other and are not segregated by sex, neither sex is trained to be submissive or fierce, and neither sex is restrained from expressing the full breadth of emotion that seems inherent in the human spirit" ^[17].

The San economy was a gift economy, based on giving each other gifts on a regular basis rather than on trading or purchasing goods and services ^[18]. A gift economy is a Social theory in which goods and services are given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future Quid pro quo.

Early history

Bushmen had an advanced early culture evidenced by archaeological data. Murewa is a village (and district in Zimbabwe 75 kilometers northeast from the capital of Harare, at the road to Tete ( Mozambique) See also Great Zimbabwe National Monument. For information about the March and June 2008 presidential elections see Zimbabwean presidential election For example, Bushmen from the Botswana region migrated south to the Waterberg Massif in the era 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. The Waterberg Biosphere is a Massif of approximately 15000 square kilometers in north Limpopo Province, South Africa. They left rock paintings at the Lapala Wilderness area and Goudriver recording their life and times, including characterizations of rhinoceros, elephant and a variety of antelope species (resembling impala, kudu and eland, all present day inhabitants). Rhinoceros (raɪˈnɒsərəs often colloquially abbreviated rhino, is a name used to group five extant species of Odd-toed ungulates in the family Elephants ( family: Elephantidae) are large land Mammals of the order Proboscidea. Antelope are Ruminant hoofed Mammals of the family Bovidae in the order of Even-toed ungulates. An impala ( Aepyceros melampus Greek αιπος aipos "high" κερος ceros "horn" + melas "black" pous Kudu is an alternate spelling for kuzu the Japanese word for the plant Kudzu.

Around 1,000 CE Bantu tribes began to expand into bushman occupied areas and pushed the bushmen into more inhospitable areas such as the Kalahari desert.

In the media

The Bushmen of the Kalahari were first brought to the Western world's attention in the 1950s by South African author Laurens van der Post with the famous book The Lost World of the Kalahari, which was also a BBC TV series. Murewa is a village (and district in Zimbabwe 75 kilometers northeast from the capital of Harare, at the road to Tete ( Mozambique) See also Great Zimbabwe National Monument. For information about the March and June 2008 presidential elections see Zimbabwean presidential election Sir Laurens Jan van der Post (aka Laurens van der Post) (December 13 1906 &ndash December 16 1996 was a famous 20th century Afrikaner author of many

The 1980 comedy movie The Gods Must Be Crazy portrays a Kalahari Bushman tribe's first encounter with an artifact from the outside world (a Coke bottle). The Gods Must Be Crazy is a Film released in 1980 written and directed by Jamie Uys. A cultural artifact is a human-made object which gives information about the Culture of its creator and users Coca-Cola is a carbonated Soft drink sold in stores restaurants and Vending machines in more than 200 countries In 1969, the director of this movie, Jamie Uys, had directed Lost in the Desert, in which a small boy stranded in the desert encounters a group of wandering Bushmen before, and is helped by them and then abandoned due to a misunderstanding created by the lack of a common language and culture. Jacobus Johannes Uys ( 30 May 1921 &ndash 29 January 1996) better known as Jamie Uys, was a South African film director Lost in the Desert is a South African film from 1969/1970 written and directed by Jamie Uys, who also directed the better-known The Gods Must

John Marshall documented the lives of Bushmen in the Nyaer Nyaer region of Namibia over more than a 50-year period. John Marshall (1932-2005 was an American Anthropologist and acclaimed documentary Filmmaker best known for his work in Namibia recording Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa on the Atlantic coast His early film The Hunters, released in 1957, shows a giraffe hunt during the 1950s. N!!Ai: The Story of a !Kung Woman (1980) is the account of a woman who grew up while the Bushmen were living as autonomous hunter-gatherers and was later forced into a dependent life in the government created community at Tsumkwe. A Kalahari Family (2002) is a five-part, six-hour series documenting 50 years in the lives of the Juǀʼhrtoansi of Southern Africa, from 1951 to 2000. Marshall was a fierce and vocal proponent of the Bushman cause throughout his life, which was, in part, due to strong kinship ties, and had a Bushman wife in his early 20s. ^[19]

In Wilbur Smith's The Burning Shores, the San people are portrayed through two major characters, O'wa and H'ani, and the Bushmen's struggles, history and beliefs are touched upon in great detail. Wilbur Addison Smith (born January 9 1933 in Broken Hill, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) is a best-selling Novelist. The Burning Shores is a volume in the Courtney's of Africa series.

PBS's series How Art Made the World compares San cave painting 200 years ago to Paleolithic European painting 14,000 years old. Because of their similarities, the San can help us understand the reasons for ancient cave paintings. Lewis Williams believes that their trance states (traveling to the spirit world) are directly related to the reasons people went deep into caves, experienced sensory deprivation, and painted their visions onto the cave walls.

Spencer Wells' 2003 book The Journey of Man—in connection with National Geographic's Genographic Project—discusses a genetic analysis of the San and asserts their blood contains the oldest genetic markers found on earth, making the Bushmen humankind's "genetic Adam". Spencer Wells (born April 6 1969 in Georgia United States) is a Geneticist and Anthropologist, and an Explorer-in-Residence at the The Journey of Man A Genetic Odyssey is the Book by Spencer Wells, an American Geneticist and Anthropologist, in which Overview The NGS's historical mission is "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge while promoting the conservation of the world's cultural historical and natural The Genographic Project, launched in April 2005, is a five-year genetic anthropology study that aims to map historical human migration patterns by collecting and analyzing Genetics (from Ancient Greek grc-Latn genetikos, “genitive” and that from grc-Latn genesis, “origin” a discipline of Biology, is A genetic marker is a known DNA sequence. It can be described as a variation which may arise due to mutation or alteration in the genomic loci that can be observed These genetic markers are present on the y chromosome and are therefore passed down through thousands of generations in a relatively pure form. The Y chromosome is the sex-determining Chromosome in most Mammals including Humans In mammals it contains the gene SRY, which triggers Generation (from the Greek γενεά) also known as procreation, is the act of producing Offspring. The documentary continues to trace these markers throughout the world, demonstrating that all of humankind can be traced back to the African continent and that the San are the last, most genetically unadulterated, remnant of humankind's ancient ancestors. Human beings, humans or man (Origin 1590–1600 L homō man OL hemō the earthly one (see Humus An ancestor is a Parent or ( recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i

Notables

• Nǃxau starred in several films based on and including The Gods Must Be Crazy. Nǃxau (a misspelling of Gǃkau; earlier Gcao Coma) ( December 16 ? 1944? – July 1, 2003) was a Namibian bush The Gods Must Be Crazy is a Film released in 1980 written and directed by Jamie Uys.
• The "negro of Banyoles", a controversial piece of taxidermy, was a bushman. The " negro of Banyoles " (negre de Banyoles is a controversial piece of Taxidermy of a bushman which used to be a major attractionin the Darder Museum of Taxidermy ( Greek for "skin arrangement" is the art of mounting or reproducing Animals for display (e ^[20]

See also

• San Religion
• Central Kalahari Game Reserve
• Xhoba (Hoodia gordonii)

Notes

References

• Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (2006). Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (born 1931 is an American Anthropologist and Author. The Old Way: A Story of the First People.
• Marjorie Shostak (1983). Marjorie Shostak ( May 11, 1945 - October 6 1996) was an American anthropologist. Nisa: The Life and Words of a ǃKung Woman. New York: Vintage Books.
• Nancy Howell. (1979). Demography of the Dobe ǃKung. New York: Academic Press.
• Richard Lee and Irvin DeVore (1999). Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers: Studies of the ǃKung San & Their Neighbors. iUniverse.
• Robert J. Gordon (1999). The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass. ISBN 0813335817.

External links

• Official Botswana Government Website
• Survival International
• National Geographic
• Photo Gallery of Bushmanland, Namibia Over 200 photographs of Ju/'hoansi Bushmen and landscape
• Bleek and Lloyd Archive of |xam and !kun texts online
• Specimens of Bushmen folklore - tales collected by Bleek and Lloyd
• The San Trickster God meets the Ideology of the West: Exploring the Implications of Interpretation among San and European Relations in Southern Africa
• The myth of ritual origins? Ethnography, mythology and interpretation of San rock art by Dr Anne Solomon (South African Archaeological Bulletin, June 1997)
• The Kalahari Peoples Fund
• Scientific American - Offerings to a Stone Snake Provide the Earliest Evidence of Religion by J. R. Minkel 01/12/06
• Les bushmen, a documentary film about Bushmen (in French), from YouTube
• video of persistence hunting
• The Kuru Family of Organizations
• Sos bushmen: everything about the Bushmen. In several languages
• The San Bushmen of southern Africa
• Khwattu - South African based centre for preservation of the original SAN culture
• Photo gallery of Bushmen in Botswana

Persistence hunting is a type of Hunting where the predator uses a combination of running and tracking to pursue the prey to exhaustion

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