Current Survival of the Bushmen

There are roughly 100,000 Bushmen living in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Angola.

In the middle Botswana, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve is a small area where the the protection of the traditional territory is needed for the 5000 Gana, Gwi and Bushmen who depend on it for survival.

After diamonds were discovered in the 1980s, the governments where trying to get the Bushmen out so as to collect the diamonds. When the Bushmen did not follow instructions, the government tried forcing them out. in 1997, 2002, and 2005, The Bushmen were forced out,leaving their homes, schools, and water source destroyed. Not only that, but also their health post were also closed.

In 2006, the Bushmen won the right in court to go back to their lands, but the government made it difficult for them to return. The government banned them from any access to the borehole that the Bushmen used. Now it has become such a struggle to find water just to survive. 

Xoroxloo Duxee died of dehydration after the Bushmen's water borehole was disabled.

Those who did not return to the reserve live outside the reserve in resettlement camps. Even if they do not live in the reserve, the government is limiting the bushmen. Hunting is rarely done due to the fact that the hunters get beaten and arrested if they do. The Bushmen have no choice but to depend on the government handouts. 

Bushmen children at Molapo in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, with melons which supply some of their water needs

At the same time the Bushmen were denied the borehole, the government drilled new boreholes just for the wildlife so that safari companies can open tourist sights. The Bushmen still fear that the government will close down the borehole again.

The Kalahari Plains Camp was opened after Wilderness Safaris entered into a lease with the government. However, the lease made no provisions for the rights of the Bushmen on whose ancestral lands the camp sits, nor were they consulted about the venture.

In 2011, Botswana allowed the Bushmen to reuse the old borehole and make new ones. The government called the Bushmen's plight as "a harrowing story of human suffering and despair."


While the Bushmen are struggling to find water to survive, tourist and guests are able to relax in a lodge with with any necessities needed.

The pool of Wilderness Safaris' new lodge in the CKGR.

  

  

In addition, the government has:
Refused to issue a single permit to hunt on their land (despite Botswana’s High Court ruling that its refusal to issue permits was unlawful),
Arrested more than 50 Bushmen for hunting to feed their families,
Banned them from taking their small herds of goats back to the reserve.
Its policy is clearly to intimidate and frighten the Bushmen into staying in the resettlement camps, and making the lives of those who have gone back to their ancestral land impossible.

Throughout the regions, the Bushmen are struggling with the westernized life style leading people to go to depression, poverty, alcoholism, low self-esteem, and the struggle for civil rights. 

If you want to learn how to support the Bushmen, you may click on the link below

http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/bushmen#main

Kalahari Desert

The Kalahari Desert,or Kgalagadi, as it is known in Botswana, is where the San people lived for at least 10,000 years. It is an arid plateau region that is about 100,000 sq. miles that runs through Botswana, Nambia, and South Africa. It lies between Zambezi River and the Orange River. Kalahari contains dry lake and river beds, dense shrub, and the desert itself is mostly covered by reddish sand. During the rainy season, grass and a few other types of vegetation grows throughout the desert. The Kalahari supports many animals and plants that a true desert, and it receives much rain which is why some people think of the Kalahari as a "semi-desert." The sands if the Kalahari of the Northern Cape are transformed by the Orange River, which brings life to South Africa's hottest driest area. Along its banks vineyards thrive and soft fruits like peaches and apricots grow willingly.

Unlike the Sahara Desert, the Kalahari is covered with trees and ephemeral rivers,fossil watercourses, and in the north acacias.

The Kalahari has many wildlife inhabitants in the desert including hyeans, meerkats, many different types of birds and reptiles and antelope, lions, and so much more.

  aardwolf  Antbear 

Wildebeest  Kori bustard Pygmy Falcon

Other distinctive creatures of the Kalahari are small monogamous bat-eared foxes, sociable weavers who live in the feathered equivalent of an apartment block of nests, and the King of the Kalahari - the black-maned lion.

Bat-eared foxes nest

The Kalahari Desert is a place of mystery, wonder, and beauty. This is the only place where the San people strive. Kalahari has become a popular tourist attraction.

http://www.birdingafrica.com/cape_tours/birding_kalahari.htm

http://www.game-reserve.com/south-africa_kalahari.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0826902.html

http://www.wackywildlifewonders.com/files/index_kalahari.html

Folklores and Myths

Like any society, stories of folklores and myths are told to people to teach moral code and religious beliefs. It is the same for the Bushmen tales.

The stories and tales are usually told around campfires at night. The Bushmen are excellent storytellers making a tale sound exciting. Sometimes, they pause during the stories, not for dramatic affect, but for people to have a chance of thinking about the meaning in the stories being told. For outsiders, it may be difficult to understand the meaning of a story because it makes only little sense.

Stories can give us insight of the culture and beliefs. Here are some stories you can read to get a better appreaciation.

Lion, Jackel, and Wolf

The story why Gamm, the lion, wanted to kill the jackal, is a very old one. Like the first human being, Gamm had only a mouth. He came to live with the people on earth.

And the people said to one another: "Just look at lion.... He has only a mouth."

Jackal said: "Wait, I'll fix him."

Jackal took a red-hot bent axe, crept up to lion where he lay sleeping, and chopped him where the other place should be. Lion jumped high into the air. When he stood on his feet again he saw Jackal running away, and shouted: "You.... This is your last day!" And he bounded across the grass in pursuit of jackal. Only a small distance separated the two, and jackal plunged into an antbear hole.

Lion sent for Wolf.

"Go and fetch my assegai," he commanded, "I want to kill jackal in this hole."

Wolf went, but came back and said: "Uncle Lion... I cannot find your assegai."

Lion shouted: "You no-good fathead! Come and guard this hole, I will fetch the assegai myself"

Jackal heard all this.

When Lion was out of earshot he poked his head out of the hole. Wolf tried to grab him, but jackal opened his eyes wide and frightened Wolf.

Wolf shivered, moved his body and staggered to one side. 

Jackal jumped past him and fled into the bush.

Lion returned with the assegai and asked: "Wolf, is jackal still here?"

Wolf was in such a state of nerves that he could hardly speak.

Lion spat, stuck his assegai down the hole, and stabbed about in the dark.

When the assegai told him that jackal was no longer in the hole he looked backwards through his hind legs.

But wolf was no longer behind him.

And Lion thought: "Wait; there is a sore spot on my body. My hind legs do not tread firmly when I run. I shall have to outwit Wolf in some other way." 

Without pulling out the assegai or looking round, he said: "Brother wolf... this is a very deep hole. Let us go back and fetch a piece of fat biltong with which to entice Jackal."

They walked away and came to where a big omumborumbonga tree grew. There, on a scaffolding, they saw Xau leisurely tying all the fattest pieces of biltong together. Lion shouted: "Come down, you tramp!"

But Xau replied: "No thanks, it's nice up here."

Wolf plucked up courage and said: "King Lion... let us make a big fire. Then I'll climb up and push him down."

They made a big fire, but when wolf climbed up to Xau, it was he who was pushed down. And he fell right into the fire which he had made for another. And the lion turned him over and over with the assegai, and then he pulled him out of the fire and threw him on the ground.

Then he stamped his forefeet flat, threw him aside, and shouted.

"You stupid idiot, from now on your tracks will always lie on the by-paths!"

And to this day wolf's tracks are always to be found on the roads. 

The Powerful Lion

'Once all the animals held a meeting. They wanted to make a plan with Lion. See, long ago, Lion could fly and come down to earth and kill poeple and animals.

'The animals waited until Lion came flying above their heads and pleaded with him.

"Big man," they said, "come back here, come back, come back..." And when the Lion came down to earth, the animals tore his wings off his body and said, "Go, go, go! Walk!"

'The animals mixed a pot of glue and cooked it on the fire. They wanted to see on whose back the wings fitted best. It was the Eagle that received the power of flight. And so they glued the wings on to his back. Eagle soared into the sky. He flew up and away.

Lion became furious and stormed at the animals. They ran so fast that Lion could not catch them. But poor Tortoise could not run so fast. While trying to get away, he knocked the pot of glue over and got stuck in it.

'Lion returned to the fire, grumbling and growling. He was so angry that he even tried to eat Frog at the rivers edge. He found Tortoise stuck in the glue and said, "Now I'm going to eat you!" And so the Lion ate the Tortoise'.

Is this why the tortoises still hide underneath their shells?

The Man Who Lost a Friend

"This story is about two friends who understood each other well. They hunted together, ate together and shared everything.

'One of the hunters- his name was Tjenga- went of into the bush by himself one day. He found the footprint of a large antelope. It was the eland, the most beautiful of all the antelopes.

'But Tjenga's family was hungry. They needed fat and meat. So the followed the footprints of the eland all the way through the bush. He reached a small mountain. And suddenly there it was: a large eland, eating grass in the veld. Tjenga silently aimed his poisoned arrow at the eland's heart. The arrow flew through the air. Then the hunter lay down in the bush and waited for the animal to die.

'After some time, he walked to the eland. But all at once the animal changed into a human being. The hunter was deeply frightened. His heart felt uncomfortable, for he did not want to kill a person.

'Tjenga walked to his best friend and said to him "I am in big trouble. I shot and eland but when I came close to inspect it, it became a person. Please you must help me so that we can bury it before all the people see that I killed a person."

'"Listen," said the other, "I am your only friend. We eat together and do everything with each other, but I am not your real blood family. I do not want to see this death with you, because I don't want to get into trouble".

'Tjenga walked to his family's place and told them what happened. Together they went to inspect the hunter's kill. When they got there the person became an eland again. The people saw that Tjenga had shot an eland. They said to him "This is not a person you have killed. This is an animal. This is meat. Why do you think it is a person?"

The hunter and the family cut up the eland and carried it home. They made a fire and roasted the meat. It smelled very good. While the smell was in the wind, Tjenga's friend sent his son to him. "My father asked me to tell you that we do not have any meat to eat at home. Will you give us a piece of meat?"

'"No," replied Tjenga. "Tell your father that since he did not want to help me in my trouble, we are not friends any more. He must now go on his own and I will be on my own with my family."'

If you want to read more here is a ling :http://www.sacred-texts.com/afr/sbf/index.htm

http://www.theartofafrica.co.za/serv/myths.jsp

Rock Art

Africa has many of the finest ancient rock art in the world. It is unclear to the Western culture what the art represented. Some believe it tells stories of hunting, and some believe that the Sans painted whatever they wanted like fights, dances, mythical figures, or whatever else they could think of. After looking at the rock art closely, people came up with theories that the art depicts trance visions that shaman have.

 

"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."

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/south_africa/san_rock_art_film.php

http://www.theartofafrica.co.za/serv/meanings.jsp

http://www.drakensberg-tourism.com/bushman-rock-art.html

San Religion

The San Religion consist of the spiritual world and the material world. To enter into the spirit world, trancing has to be initiated by a shaman through the hunting of power animals. When a power animal, such as an elephant or an eland (left), is killed, there is a link that opens up between the cosmos. When this happens the shaman dances and reaches a trance to enter the spirit world. Once in a trance, they are able to heal people and protect them from sickness, protect people from evil spirits, control weather,see the future, ensure good hunting, and basically look over the well being of their group or tribe.




 trance dance



In the religion, the most important being is the /Kaggen who is a trickster deity. He is in many of the myths and is believed to have created many things. In the myths, he either foolish or wise, helpful or tiresome. /Kaggen can take many forms including a praying mantis, a snake, a hare, a vulture, and even an ordinary bushman. He can change into many different forms.

The bushmen believe that /Kaggen's favorite animal is the eland, which is the most spiritual animal in the religion. The eland appears in some of the rituals: boys' first kill, girls' puberty, marriage, and the trance dance.

• A boy is taught how to track an eland and how to kill it. The boy will be considered an adult once he kills a big antelope, mainly the eland. The eland then gets skinned, and a broth is made with the fat and the collar bone. 
• The ritual for the girls' puberty starts when they get their first menstruation in which she becomes isolated in her huts.  The women in the tribe does what is called and Eland Bull Dance which they imitate the eland cows behavior when mating while the men acts as an eland bull. This ritual is to keep the girl beautiful and peaceful, and also free from hunger and thirst.
• In a marriage ritual, the man gives the fat of the elands' heart the the woman's parents, then the woman is anointed with the fat. 
• In the trance dance, the shaman tries to possess eland potency because the eland is considered to be the most potent of all.

The modern Bushmen of the Kalahari believe in two gods: one who lives in the east and one from the west. Like the southern Bushmen they believe in spirits of the dead, but not as part of ancestor worship. The spirits are only vaguely identified and are thought to bring sickness and death.




http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0102/feature6/zoom6.html
http://www.theartofafrica.co.za/serv/rituals.jsp
http://www.scribd.com/doc/73442506/97/San-Religion

Click Languages

The San people have an extraordinary and unique types of languages. These types of languages are unique from others because they consist of clicking sounds, hence the category name for these languages are known as “click” languages. To make the clicking sound, it requires t he sucking action of the tongue

Here is a video of the “click” language

There are five types of click sounds that are known to exist in the Bushmen languages:

/Xam

!Kung

Ta’a

!Wi

Khoe

These symbols explain the tongue positions when the air is released, resulting in the different sounds. There are also other symbols to describe sounds including the following:

ǀ       dental- sounds like "tsk, tsk" made just by putting tongue just behind front teeth

!       alveolar/retroflex-sharp "pop" made by drawing the tongue down quickly from the roof of the mouth.

ǁ        lateral-clucking sound like made in English to urge a horse

ʘ      bilabial-sounds like smack of lips

≠       alveolar- soft "pop" made by putting the tongue just behind the ridge back of the front teeth.

These different click languages are spoken by different groups of Bushmen, depending on where they live. For instance, the Ta’a (or Taa), is one of the most used language in the Bushmen language. These speakers can be found in Botswana and Nambia, especially in the Kalahari village.

For the Taa language, due to only a small number of people who speak the language, Taa is considered to be classified as an “endangered” language.



http://www.freelancersupport.com/articles/item-278/bushman-language.html
http://www.kalaharipeoples.net/article.php?i=4&c=3
http://www.kalahari-trophy-hunting.com/bushmen.html

Hunting Methods

On the previous post, there was a video giving us an idea on how the San people hunt. Now that we have a general idea, let's talk about some of their methods.

The San hunters are very excellent at what they do. Other than making traps, they are good using a bow and arrow. Instead of killing animals instantly, they sometimes slowly poison animals to death, which takes from a few hours to a few days depending on the size of the animal.


bushmen making arrows


They get their poison from different sources: poisonous caterpillars, larvae from of a small beetle, poisonous plants, and snake venom. Once they get the poison, the poison is boiled repeatedly until it looks like red currant jelly. Once it is done cooling down, it is put on the arrow inside the reed collar so that the hunters or anyone else won't be harmed by the poison. When the arrow hits an animal, the hunters would have to track it  until it dies.

You would think that the poison will contaminate the prey completely, making it uneatable, but the poison does not spread throughout the body. Once the animal that is hunted falls, the San cut around the area where the arrow hit and throw it away.


The San are clever when it comes to traps. One thing they would do is dig funnel shaped pitfalls near rivers and plant a sharp stake in the middle, then covering the hole with branches.
For smaller animals, they make traps out of twisted gut or fibers from plants. When a small animal enters a snare to collect the bate that was left for them, the trap strangles them.
There are other ways trap and catch animals, and these were just a couple ways.

Not only were they good in traps, but they also know how to track animals by studying there habits and learning where the herds are gathering.

No doubt that the San are clever when it comes to hunting. Their ability to track animals, make weapons, and create traps are what make them good hunters.



http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_bushmen_p2.html

Hunting Video

Here's a video that will give you the idea of their hunting abilities.

History

The San were hunter-gatherers. Before the migration of the Bantu, the San inhabited the entire southern Africa region. They did not have a permanent place to live. Instead, they carefully would plan to migrate seasonally between mountain ranges and coastlines for plant foods, and would take shelter in caves, rocky overhangs and other temporary shelters.

These people did not domesticate animals, and even though they have a vast knowledge of flora and fauna, they did not cultivate crops.

During the beginning of the Christian Era, another type of tribe called Khoihoi began to move southward from the sub-Saharan desert. Then the Bantu began southward also, bringing the ideas of settled life in villages and farming.

Because the San were hunter-gatherers, they couldn't live with settled community. The San fought against the Bantu, but were at a disadvantage with numbers and lack of weapons.When Europeans came, they fought with their lives, even though they had much fewer people and lack of advance weapons. Those that were caught, were forced into slavery.Colonialism would destroy the San's migrating way of life.

http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_bushmen.html

http://goafrica.about.com/library/bl.san.htm

Who are the San people?

The San is the oldest inhabitants of Southern Africa. Nobody knows how long they have been around, but it is believed that they were around for over 20,000-100,000 years, probably making them one of the oldest, if not the oldest tribe in the world.
The San go by other names: Bushmen and Bansarwa.



The San people live without a general leader or rulers. Although there are leaders for things such as rituals and hunting, the people are usually  in charge of governing their lives themselves. Sometimes though, there are disputes amongst each other and it can be difficult to have someone express their thoughts.

We will learn more about the San from their history to their culture.

http://www.africapoint.com/newsletters/san-people.htm

http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_bushmen.html