ǃKung people
The ǃKung (/ˈkʊŋ/[1][a] KUUNG) are one of the San peoples who live mostly on the western edge of the Kalahari desert, Ovamboland (northern Namibia and southern Angola), and Botswana.
[3] Today, the great majority of ǃKung people live in the villages of Bantu pastoralists and European ranchers.
[citation needed] Amongst the ǃKung there is a strong belief in the existence of spirits of the dead (llgauwasi) who live immortally in the sky.
[6] There is no particular connection to personal ancestors but the ǃKung fear the llgauwasi, pray to them for sympathy and mercy as well as call on them in anger.
Nisa, a ǃKung woman, reported through anthropologist Marjorie Shostak that a healer in training is given a root to help induce trance.
In the ǃKung state of mind, having health is equivalent to having social harmony, meaning that relationships within the group are stable and open between other people.
Their training includes the older healer having to "go into a trance to teach the novices, rubbing their own sweat onto the pupils' centers – their bellies, backs, foreheads, and spines.
While they dance, "in preparation for entering a trance state to effect a cure, the substance [the nǀum] heats up and, boiling, travels up the healer's spine to explode with therapeutic power in the brain.
In order to obtain the gwah power the women, "chop up the root of a short shrub, boil it into a tea and drink it.
[3] ǃKung women often give birth unassisted, walking away from the village camp as far as a mile during labour and bearing the child alone, delivering it into a small leaf-lined hole dug into the warm sand.
If a laboring woman is delayed in returning to the village once she has left to give birth, the older women will come looking for her to assist; however, it is said to be a rare occurrence.
[3] Traditionally, especially among Juǀʼhoansi ǃKung, women generally collect plant foods and water while men hunt.
[11][page needed] ǃKung women often share an intimate sociability and spend many hours together discussing their lives, enjoying each other's company and children.
[9] On the marriage day, the tradition is the "marriage-by-capture" ceremony in which the bride is forcibly removed from her hut and presented to her groom.
Domestic violence is prevented because villages are small and close and houses are open so that neighbors and relatives can intervene as needed.
[11] Girls who are displeased with their parents' selection may violently protest against the marriage by kicking and screaming and running away at the end of the ceremony.
Anthropologist Marjorie Shostak generalizes that, "Everyone in the village expresses a point of view" on the marriage and if the couple should be divorced or not.
[9] Unlike other complex food-foraging groups[citation needed], it is unusual for the ǃKung to have a chieftain or headman in a position of power over the other members.
Chieftainship within these San groups is not a position with the greatest power, as they have the same social status as those members of "aged years".
This duty entails such roles as dividing up the meat from hunters' kills; these leaders do not receive a larger portion than any other member of the village.
Kinship I follows conventional kin terms (father, mother, brother, sister) and is based on genealogical position.
An older man will inquire about his hunt and remark upon his failure, to which the hunter must avoid credit and accept humility.
Additionally, the kill may belong not to him, but to the person who gave him arrows (man or woman), who then follows rules on how to distribute the meat to everyone in the group.
The ǃKung promote the belief of community well-being, and so the village elders or "those of mature years" will allot meat to the members of the group.
[citation needed] In addition to the problems involved in sharing water with cows, the Juǀʼhoansi are less mobile than in the past.
The current governments of Namibia and Botswana, where the Juǀʼhoansi live, encourage permanent settlements with European style houses.
[11] The ǃKung also face problems since their traditional lands are sought after by cattle ranchers, wildlife reserves, and state governments.
