Anthropology 1312, Spring 2009 (Hadder)

Optional Writing Assignment #1 of 3 (Opt.#2)

• Assessment criterion is demonstration that you have read and understand
course materials.
• Success on depends on how well the paper uses our readings.
• Very concisely report on “the literature” for the benefit of an audience who
may not have read it and use this evidence to flesh out your discussion.

GRADING RUBRIC
20% Demonstrated understanding of anthropological concepts
20% Use of ethnographic examples
20% Well-reasoned overall argument paper has a thesis and develops it)
20% Paper organization and clarity (flow and paragraph development)
20% Writing (grammar, spelling, sentence structure), Other plusses or minuses that demand note

Discuss !Kung as described by Richard Lee in the 1960s,

give adequate definitions--
• Largely studied by Canadian anthropologist Richard Lee (Oct. 1963- Jan. ’65)
• Fieldwork conducted in Dobe area of 8 permanet water-holes on South-West
African border, 125 mi South of Okavango River
• Consisted of 466 bushmen, 379 permanent residents living in independent
camps or associated with Bantu cattle posts.
• Area is shared with 340 Bantu pastoralists of Herero & Tswana tribes.
• Ju/’hansi-Kung of Kalahari Desert in Botswana

Subsistence: a type of economy associated with smaller groups, occurs at a local

level and depends on non-market-exchange mechanisms, in this case reciprocity,
also frequent among horticulturists.
• ***Agriculture displaced foraging as the main subsistence technique.***
• Technology is simple
• Depend on more vegetables & marine resources than meat, spend little time
collecting food.
• Entirely dependent on hunting & gathering; Hunter-gatherer subsistence
base is routine and reliable, at best surprisingly abundant. Continue b/c there
is no viable alternative locally available
• Mongongo (mangetti) nut is the most important food source due to its
abundance, reliability, drought resistance, in addition to its extraordinary
nutritional values; it counts for 50% of vegetable diet.
• Work force is considered to be in the 20-60 year age range supporting a
surprisingly large nonproductive population- about 40%
• The work force is working about 2.5 days a week for only 6 hours a day;
roughly 12-19 hours a week at a max of 32, hunters doing more work than
women. Their consistency is dependent on several variable including
divinations.
• Because the aren’t pastoralist or agriculturalists famine rarely does not effect
them in the same manner as others.
Settlement patterns:; since changed
• During the Dry season (May-October) entire population is clustered around
water holes.
• Camps: an open aggregate of cooperating persons which changes in size &
composition from day to day –reason for not labeling them a band.
• Inhabit the semi-arid northwest region of Kalahari Desert, in Botswana; only
receive 6-9 inches of rainfall annually. This unalluring quality, be that as it
may, is the liableness for containment from surrounding pastoralist &
agricultural neighbors.*** Dobe area !Kung have had some conact with
outsiders since the 1880’s. –They move their camps frequently (5-6 times a
year) but they do not move them far, based on these terms they can not be
considered nomadic.
• ***Households are organized to meet subsistence needs, formed using
members of lineages (descent groups) and affines (in-laws), operating
through a division of labor (men, women, children) which result in systems of
obligation within & between families for the exchange of labor and goods.***
• Small group claims to have ownership to a water hole but this does not
visitors or those living with them. Neighboring bands are related through
marriage and often visit for months; other must make requests to use the
watering hole but are seldom refused.
• Politically under the nominal rule of the Tswana headman; they pay no taxes
and receive very few government services. -Recognized leaders, mostly
male, speak out more than others and listened to with a bit more difference,
but have no formal authority. Their headmen, powerful chiefs, include
everyone -“we are all headmen, we are headmen over ourselves”
• The youthful !Kung are warned about wanting to be a “big man”; it is a job
that requires to work harder and give more generously simultaneously
opening the door to vulnerability of acquiring nemesis’ .
o Siuai of the South Paciffic island of Bougainville, in the Solomon
Islands; big men are known as “Mumis”. Ambitious youths aspire to
become one however, it is perilous to ruin as one challenges an elder
at a Muminai feast; as one donates gifts to the challengers party,
these must be reciprocated, increasing the demands on their
supporters. If the guests fail to reciprocate, their mumi suffered
humiliation, in kind an immediate dispelling of their aspiration.
Further, life as a Mumi is synonymous with deprivation; the title is all
about giving things away.
• ***Chiefdom often leads to states, states to empires- a beast that has taken
us to the brink of annihilation; “marginal isolates” (p108) of hunter-gatherer
peoples are vanishing into pages of the past.*
• *It is a biological imperative to for our kind in hierarchical groups; in the
beginning it would have seemed as if we were destined to egalitarian apart
from sex and age, as determined by the affairs of early human society.***

Reciprocity: sort of distribution reciprocal exchange btw kin and close

friends.
 • Trading of foodstuff is minimal between camps
• Surplus is kept to a minimum due to constant relocation and a strong
emphasis on sharing, leading to a continual maintenance in subsistence
efforts.
• Do not specify how much or exactly what they expect back or when they
expect to get it, which would besmirch its basis, making it similar to
bartering or buying.
• To call attention to one’s generosity is to indicate that others are in debt to
you and that you expect them to repay you. Repugnant to egalitarian ppls
even to suggest that they have been treated generously.
• When a man kills much meat he thinks of himself as a big man or chief, and
thinks of the rest of us as his servants or inferiors. We can’t accept this. We
refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. –
why we always speak of his meat as worthless
• They shared everything equally, even with those who had stayed behind.
• In small prestate societies, it was in everybody’s best interest to maintain
each other’s freedom of access to the natural habitat.
• If a man were to declare himself king he would be alone to exercise a useless
sovereignty.
• Richard Gould, “the greater the amount of risk, the greater extent of sharing-
a small societies bank”. P285
• ***An absence of private ownership probably meant that a form of
communism existed btw prehistoric hunter gatherer societies. Though
“personal effects” do exist in the form of weapons, clothing, containers,
ornaments & tools- there are not many of these, as the group relocates
frequently, removing the desire for extra possessions. ***In addition groups
are so small, everyone knows everyone, to steal would be fool hearted, and
requests are honored since the rules of reciprocity do not accept denial of
such.
• Freeloaders are eventually punished, they attribute death & misfortune to the
malevolent conspiracy of sorcerers, identification of these individuals is the
responsibility of shaman. Shaman remain responsive to public opinion during
their trances; such freeloaders ought to watch out as their reputation makes
them liable to accusations.

Discuss aspects of !Kung lives that have changed between then and now:

Explain why some of these changes threaten !Kung culture while others
don’t:

Raising cattle:
Using dogs:
Guns: ”When I take my rifle & go hunting with them, they laugh at me for
the rest of the day. But if I hit & bring one down, it’s no better.”
Pickup trucks to hunt:
Increase of day labor jobs:
Relocation outside the Central Calahari Game Reserve: