kung san :: essays papers

kung san Among the many cultures in Africa, one of the most well known cultures would be the Kung San. The Kung San are a very unique culture and are the most studied foraging society in the world. As with numerous other cultures around the world, the Kung San are faced with many problems. But one problem the Kung San don't face is that of being a nonentity, partially because of the popularized view of the Kung San shown in the movie The Gods Must Be Crazy. The Kung San are a hunting and gathering people living in southern Africa. Kung San are a varied people in terms of looks and language, and include people living Angola, Botswana, Zambia, and Namibia. The Kung San, like many human groups, have a rigid sexual division of labor, with women doing most of the gathering, food preparation and child care, and men doing hunting and some complementary gathering. There does exist a limited socioeconomic hierarchy by age, with adults controlling more resources and manufactured goods than children. The Kung San usually eat small meals during the day and eat a large supper with the whole family in the evening. Water is a limiting factor in the Kung San environment. The Kung San will disperse in the wet season, and aggregate in camps in the dry season around the few permanent water holes. A Kung San encampment consists of grass huts arranged roughly in a circle, constructed around an area of clearing in the center; these huts are constructe d quickly and rarely used for more than a few months at a time. The Kung San maintain a level of egalitarianism so that no one person is revered more than the next and so that no one thinks they are any better than the next. In the Kung San culture, many are married as young as eight years old in order to keep conflicts and extramarital relations down to a minimum. One of the Kung San's favorite activities is to sit in the shade talking amongst themselves. They are afraid of angry words and violence so the occasional dispute is worked out before it becomes a major one. Since competition might bring dispute, they try to live as equals. The Kung San effectively employ talking and joking to