8 - Ju/’hoansi or !Kung

Summary

The !Kung of the Botswana/Namibia border area, who are now generally called Ju/’hoansi, are the most studied and the best known of all Bushman groups. Yet they are certainly not the only Bushmen in the Kalahari. This chapter outlines the important ethnography of Lorna Marshall, Richard Lee, Megan Biesele, Edwin Wilmsen and several others, with the focus being on settlement and band structure, kinship, ritual and religious belief, among other things. I will deal here with important ethnographic findings, and to also on the debates that have emerged on the significance of this work. For example, have the Ju/’hoansi been isolated as hunter-gatherers, as supposedly claimed by Lee and others, or part of a larger political economy of the Kalahari, as Wilmsen maintains? Does this tell us anything about the ‘original affluent society’ as described by Marshall Sahlins, or not? I also touch briefly on other !Xũ-speaking groups, such as !Xun proper in the north and the ≠Au//eisi in the south.