Introduction
The location of !Kung San in the Dobe area is outside of the main roads of trade and power. The !Kung defended their lands against the attacks from the Blacks and Whites. When the !Kung established client relations with Balck patrons, the terms were more favorable than those prevailing in other parts of the Kalahari. As a result, when systematic ethnographic study began in the 1950s and 1960s, observers saw a society with established key institutions, such as language, kinship, and ritual practices, while other institutions, such as land tenure, dispute settlement, and political dynamics, were not established.
This so called "Kalahari Debate" has been a heated one ever since 1989 when Edwin Wilmsen published his book, Land Filled with Flies. This book challenged all previous ethnographic beliefs about the San. Battles in response to these contesting opinions were fought in articles within Current Anthropology and History in Africa. For example, two major publications that can be found within these two journals are Problems in Kalahari Historical Ethnography and the Tolerance of Error by Richard B. Lee and Mathias Guenther and Further Lessons in Kalahari Ethnography and History by Wilmsen, the revisionist advocate[1]. The debated issue amongst anthropologists is whether the foragers represent a diverse form of human society with characteristic social and economic properties, or whether the identity of the foragers mixes with the identity of a serf, servant, client, slave, or proletariat.
From the perspective of the !Kung, they see themselves as circumscribed and threatened more and more, but still holding a strong sense of themselves. When anthropologists told the !Kung that they were tributaries who were integrated into the economies of powerful neighbors, they were not offended, but instead were surprised.
Kalahari Map
Kalahari Desert and surrounding Countries
Stereotype
- Pre-revisionist ethnographers believe that the San were pristine hunter-gatherers. In reality, by 1965, about 80% of ethnic San people were either herders or farmers, or were clients or sevants on Black cattle posts and ranches.
- Despite recognizing changes elsewhere, ethnographers have held a vision of the Dobe !Kung as unchanging. Kalahari ethnographers have struggled with this issue and have attempted to give an account that properly shows the non-!Kung elements present in the Dobe area (including the presence of the Herero, Tswana, and Europeans).
Arguments
Revisionist
Major Players
James R. Denbow, Edwin N. Wilmsen
Revisionists ponder if foragers are not who they seem to be and call for a major reconsideration in the field. Revisionists believe that, possibly, the common features of hunter-gatherer groups, such as bilateral kinship systems or the sharing of food, are a product of the interaction between foragers and westerners. They also believe that, possibly, the studied and common features are not derived from humanity sharing the same hunter-gatherer lifestyle, but rather foragers just reach similar solutions to similar problems. Revisionists believe that the "isolation" of the African San people is a creation of anthropologists' view of them, not a creation of their history.
Past ethnographers are accused of misreading or ignoring history and political economy, and therefore treating the society as more bounded, isolated, and pristine than in reality. Political-economic revisionists believe that foragers have been assimilated into larger structures of power and exchange for such time that the foragers themselves can show nothing of the hunter-gatherer way of life. Revisionists also accuse ethnographers of writing their ethnographies to be more like fiction writing than scientific writing.
Archaeological excavations over the past 30 years have yielded a different perspective to the history of the San people. Traditionally viewed to have been a hunting and gathering society throughout the course of their past, revisionist beliefs offer a different scenario. Revisionists James R. Denbow and Edwin N. Wilmsen state that "fully developed pastoralism and metallurgy are now shown to have been established in the Kalahari from A.D. 500, with extensive grain agriculture and intra-continental trade added by A.D. 800" (Denbow, Wilmsen 1986:1509). This is in complete opposition with the idea that the San have always used foraging as their mode of subsistence. Denbow and Wilmsen argue that Agropastoral, Bantu-speaking societies came in contact with the San before A.D. 500 and this contact led to the adoption of technology, innovations, agriculture, pastoralism, and later organized trade by San societies.
Revisionist main bodies of evidence
- Bone artifacts of domesticated animals found in groups
- Ceramic artifacts
- Iron artifacts
- Domesticated plant phytoliths
- Linguistic evidence
- Cave paintings
Traditionalist
Major Players
Richard B. Lee, J.S. Solway
Traditionalists believe that the San !Kung Bushman have lived as foragers only until relatively recently when they were exposed to outsider cultural practices and resources. This view point is extensively represented by anthropologist, Richard B. Lee, who supports the idea that the San !Kung Bushman of the Nyae Nyae-Dobe region are historically a hunter-gatherer culture albeit their current behaviors that reflect a society that has been exposed to various outside cultures for centuries. Traditionalists suggest that this cultural transformation took place as recently as from the 1960s to the 1990s and try to emphasize cultural continuity and the cultural integrity of the San peoples [5].
In 1963, anthropologist Richard B. Lee arrived in modern day Botswana in search of an independent foraging San group, which he found in the Dobe Ju/’hoansi. Lee1 noted that the Ju/’hoansi that inhabited the area of the Dobe water hole interacted with Bantu-speaking herdsmen, but chose to focus his research on the environmental adaptations the Ju/’hoansi had developed. This lead to a radical change in the perceptions of the Dobe Ju/’hoansi and subsequently all foragers, as his research suggested that the Ju/’hoansi devoted roughly 22hrs a week2 to acquire an adequate amount of food- contrary to the dominant perception of foragers in a constant struggle for survival. Lee suggested that this was due to a heavy reliance on plant foods collected by women, rather than meat hunted by men, as well as an emphasis on food sharing3.
In response to the revisionist allegations of the Ju/’hoansi as agropastoralists (farmer-herders) and commodity traders until outsiders and climate change forced them to revert to a foraging lifestyle, Lee highlights that the Dobe (and Nyae Nyae) Ju/’hoansi had remained relatively isolated until the late 19th century4. After contact with Europeans and Bantu-speaking herdsmen, the Ju/’hoansi coexisted alongside the newcomers without being politically or economically subjugated.
For example, in a comparative case study conducted by Lee and J.S. Solway, the Dobe Ju/’hoansi were found to have a system of mafisia (cattle farming) with the neighboring Herero farmers. The terms of cattle care were flexible for both parties, and by no means indicated a dependent relationship between them. Solway and Lee concluded that the Dobe Ju/’hoansi “became dependent largely as a consequence of the inability of their land to support a foraging mode of production” (Solway and Lee 1992:196).
The second group studied by Solway and Lee was the Western Kweneng Ju/’hoansi, who have lived along side Bantu-speaking peoples for 200yrs (Solway and Lee 1992:189). In this instance, population pressure on resources (Ju/’hoansi settled due to “fear of lions and thirst”) resulted in the forging of reciprocally beneficial and flexible “employment” of the Ju/’hoansi by the Bantu-speakers (192). Solway and Lee thus concluded that Ju/’hoansi dependency arose as a result of environmental alterations and not as a result of losing their herds.
In summary,
Traditionalists disagree with revisionist methodologies, specifically the imposition of uniformity across varied cultures and the assumption of trade inevitably resulting in a surrender of autonomy. Not only do they disagree with their methodologies, Traditionalist argue there are many problems, misunderstandings, and even mistakes with the evidence said to support the Revisionists' argument. For example, Wilmsen's error of interpreting the word ‘onions’ as ‘oxen’ while reading the handwritten diaries of nineteenth century explorer Charles John Andersson. This misinterpretation implied that the San, specifically the Ju/’hoansi of the Nyae Nyae region owned cattle not wild onions, therefore implying they were partaking in herding behavior [1].
There are two visions of the Ju/’hoansi Bushmen (and it must be recognised that the debate revolves around them alone):
1. That of Richard Lee and the Harvard Kalahari Group who say the Ju/’hoansi, studied between 1950 and 1965, give an idea of independent and relatively affluent hunter/gatherers;
2. That of Ed Wilmsen and others who regard the Bushmen in general, and the Ju/’hoansi in particular, as a dispossessed proletariat marginalised by outside economic interests.[6]
Solway and Lee stress that contact may take many forms, not all of which lead to dependency, incorporation loss of autonomy or abandonment of foraging lifestyle (Solway and Lee 1992: 200).
Other Debates in Studies of Hunter-Gatherer Societies
Evolutionism
Not only has the concept of evolution been a topic of debate amongst anthropologist, but also the use of hunter-gatherer data for understanding the fossil record and evolution of human behavior has been a problematic issue.
Optimal Foraging Strategies
Behavioral ecologists, who study hunter-gatherers, advocate a systematic research strategy and refine the methodologies at the inappropriate time when the field of anthropology itself was diverging in a different direction.
Woman the Gatherer
Beginning in the "Man the Hunter" conference, feminists have raised questions regarding the importance of women's work in gathering plants for subsistence.
World View and Symbolic Analysis
The studies which give the validity to the hunter-gatherer identity have acted as evidence to the obvious critique of the dominant ecological orientation of the hunter-gatherer studies.
Hunter-Gatherers in Prehistory
Archaeologists are working with modern-day hunter-gatherers under the methodologies of ethnoarcheology; the questions raised by archaeologists vary greatly from the problems within which social anthropologists work.
Hunter-Gatherers in History
Anthropologists are striving to link foraging people with the wider world, presently and in the past. A debate is raised here on whether hunter-gatherers should be considered a non-category - a construction of the observers.
Links
Kalahari revisionism, Vienna and the ‘indigenous peoples’ debate
Winnowing the "Great Kalahari Debate"; Its Impact on Hunter-Gatherer Studies
