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The Dobe Ju/Hoansi:


Transformation from Nomadic to Sedentary- Term Paper














Maham Afzal
997563211
ANT102H5
Professor: Victor Barac
TA: Aaron Kappeler
Wednesday, November 27, 2013

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"In a typical day, we encounter dozens-- if not dozens upon dozens-- of moments
when we are delayed, frustrated or confused by complexity. Our lives are filled with
gadgets we can't use, instructions we can't follow and forms we can't decipher", were the
words from a recent essay in the Wall Street Journal describing a 'crisis of complexity' in
modern life. The complexities and the increasing strife of modern human life pushes us to
learn more about the normal and the simple human cultural experiences, so that the fast
paced evolving human lifestyles can be better understood. That is the significance of
cultural anthropology. It helps us to analyze human behavior in relation to culture and
society while also gaining an in depth understanding of the other endangered ways of life.
The life and culture of the Dobe Ju/'Hoansi, an indigenous tribe in the southwestern sub-
Saharan section of Africa known as the Kalahari Desert presents the advanced western
people with such simple and natural cultural experiences that give us peak into the way of
life of a dying breed. Moreover, Richard Lee has provided great details on how these
people survive and deal with everyday issues such as foraging for a living, marriage and
sexuality, how they solve disputes, how they eat and much more in his ethnography. In
addition, in this highly globalized world especially during an era of technology, effects of
modernization in the lifestyles of the Dobe Ju/'Hoansi were bound to be noticed as they
adapt to the changing world around them. The Dobe Ju/Hoansi also evolved as a society
in ways such as, reliance on governmental institutions, shifting from hunting and
gathering to labor work and marriage and sexuality.

The Ju/'Hoansi are a hunting and gathering society who are the living epitome of
simplicity. In the 1950's, Richard Lee wanted to research these people so he could dispel
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two leading myths. He wanted to illustrate that these people were not the 'missing links'
and that they were not prehistoric creatures as they were once thought to be (Lee, 2013).
Upon arriving to the Kalahari Desert, he did just that. The Ju/'Hoansi had nothing in
common with the technologically advanced western society. They were a mobile
hunting and gathering society living near waterholes and surviving on small vegetation
and meat occasionally with no geographical knowledge of the world around them,
quoting Lee, They were surprised to learn that they lived on a large body of land called
Africa More striking was the fact that none of the Ju were aware of the Atlantic Ocean,
which was less than 800 kilometers west of Dobe (Lee, 2013). The society however has
gone through drastic changes due to the impact of colonialism and urbanization.
Although the pace of these changes has been sufficiently slow, they are beginning to
move on from a static and unchanging to an open-minded society willing to progress.
One significant change is the introduction of governmental institutions. When Lee first
visited the Dobe in the 1950s, there was complete absence of state institutions or any
commercial activities. However, the Botswana government opened up its first primary
school at !Kangwa in 1973 (Lee, 2013). Although they faced many conflicts with sending
their children off to school initially such as being unable to afford the fees, the lack of
sympathy for the children expressed by the schoolteachers, and fearing the children might
get physically exploited, the Ju/Hoansi began to see the importance of education in the
bigger picture (Lee, 2013). Furthermore, a clinic staffed by a nurse was opened in 1980
as well. The Ju/Hoansi were moving from self-made healing methods which were
believed to have placebo effects to relying on governmental institution to heal the sick
and wounded (Marshall, 1951). The clinic has been upgraded through the decades by
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making it possible for doctors to be flown in and to evacuate seriously ill people to a
hospital (Lee, 2013). Having such services at hand has caused a shift in reliance of
nature to governmental facilities.
Along with the implementation and the Ju/Hoansis reliance on governmental
institutions, many other aspects of their lifestyle has changed since they were first studied
in the 1950s. Unlike the assumption of many outsiders, the amount of work required to
thrive by living off the land in Kalahari Desert was only 20 hours a week, as Lee noted
(Lee, 2013). They were a society that could survive solely off of the food gathered by
men and women without any need of meat. By the middle of the century, however, the
western two thirds of Ju/Hoansi land consisted of waterless waste where hunting,
gathering and subsistence farming became virtually impossible (Marshall, 1957).
Furthermore, the Ju/Hoans struggle to hold onto their last few bits of land and farm for
their survival was accelerated as the administration planned to complete their
dispossession by expropriating their land for a game reserve (Marshall, 1957). Although
children were learning to read and write, they were being deprived of learning traditional
skills which were needed for survival. Just when hopes had seemed to diminish,
opportunities arrived in the form of army (Marshall, 1957). Moreover, with no other way
to make a living, Ju/Hoansi grabbed this opportunity with hopes of regaining their
subsistence powers. Furthermore, it was not long after that the practice of labor work in
gold fields of South Africa had reached the Dobe area as well in 1968 (Lee, 2013). The
entire population became dependent on the salaries and rations of young men (Marshall,
1957). This is one of the major changes that can be seen in the way the Ju/Hoansi make
a living. Hunting and gathering, which served the Ju/Hoansi with 85 percent of their
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calories now supplied barely 30 percent of their food (Lee, 2013). A survey was taken to
indicate where the cash to purchase food was coming from. The results revealed three
important sources; wage labor, pensions, and commodity productions, demonstrating the
degree of dependence these people have on the cash economy (Lee, 2013). The Dobe
Ju/Hoansi went from being a society of foragers surviving totally on hunting and
gathering to a society who make a living by herding, farming, and through waged labor.

Aside from an increased reliance on governmental institutions and altering their
means for obtaining food, social changes have inevitably affected the Dobe Ju/Hoansi in
many ways as well. Especially in aspects such as marriage and sexuality, education has
had a prominent effect on not just their mentality, but also their outlook on life. Lee
illustrates the rituals and customs that were not uncommon in the Dobe regarding
marriages such as, the controversial marriage-by-capture ceremonies in which a groom
steals a bride (Lee, 2013). Although the girls may try to show displeasure by kicking and
screaming, the struggles of the bride during the ceremony serve notice that she is a force
to be reckoned with a prize that is won after a struggle is always more appealing than
one that is handed over on a platter (Lee, 2013). Furthermore, the Dobe community
lived as an isolated society thus being cut off from the outside world. This caused them to
be unable to differentiate between the known universal good and bad. Moreover, when
Lee first observed The Ju/Hoansi in the 1950s, they had a very carefree and uninhibited
view of sex and believed it was completely normal to experiment with different partners
starting from a young age (Lee, 2013). All of this was not viewed as socially immoral,
but quite natural in their culture at the time. The situation however, is very different in the
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present. Education has certainly been the main cause of eliminating this mentality as
more and more people become aware of the harmful results such practices could yield to.
Furthermore, few individuals such as Chu!ko N//auwe, the first student to reach high
school went on to pursue a career as a family planning educator. She now advises her
fellow Ju/Hoansis on birth control, family planning, explaining their options to rural
women as well as giving AIDS education (Lee, 2013). In addition, it should also be noted
that the health and disease reports reinforce the findings which indicate that HIV and
AIDS levels are relatively low amongst the Ju/Hoansi (Shoshtak, 2006). As well as,
modernization has also influenced birthing practices where women are now moving away
from the bushes to clinics or hospitals to give birth (Shoshtak, 2006).

All in all, progress is hard to define merely by stating that it is an improvement in
standard of living. Sometimes it can just be a transition from one way of living to
another, with neither of it being better than the other. Popularly known as the Bushmen,
a society that lived essentially by hunting and foraging until the 1960s, now became a
tourist attraction to many westerners who would marvel at their overly simplistic way of
living especially in this gadget and technology-obsessed world. However, what is less
known to the world are the dramatic changes people of Dobe have been through. Not
only can we see their increasing reliance on governmental institutions for their basic
necessities, or their shift from hunting and gathering to waged labor as means of earning
and joining the cash economy but also in their views on sexuality and marriage, where
once marriage-by-capture ceremonies were prominent. Once thought of as uncivilized
barbarians living in the plastic Stone Age, these people are now questioning the world
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around them, as G=/Kao Dabe complains, Is it right that we should still be wearing
loincloths? [Eating well] is a good thing, but it doesnt mean our women should have to
expose their stomach and buttocks again by wearing skin clothing (Lee, 2013).




















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References

1. Howell, Nancy. Life Histories of the Dobe !Kung: Food, Fatness, and Well-being Over
the Lifespan. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 2010

2. Lee, Richard. B. The Dobe Ju/'Hoansi 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage
Learning, 2013.


3. Marshall, John. The Hunters. Documentary Educational Resources (DER), 1957. Web.

4. Marshall, Lorna J. First Film. Documentary Educational Resources (DER), 1951. Web


5. Shoshtak, Marjorie. The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman, 2nd ed. Harvard University
Press, 2006

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