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zed into bands, and each bandad the right to seek food in specifiedeas. During the dry season the mem-
f a single band would congre-etting up camps near a wateryear-round source of drinkingunderstood to belong to that
the camps, individuals or
rs of people would fan outeach day to forage. During the restof the year, when rainfall was morefrequent and rain collected in shal -low depressions in the ground knownas pans, bands would disperse; smallgroups foraged in less trafficked are-as, staying for as short as a day (andrarely as long as two months) beforemoving on.
The band system actually made iteasy for people to migrate to moredesirable places when the territoryallotted to a given band was unpro -ductive or becoming depleted. Band
membership was rather fluid, and so afamily could readily join a different, band having more luck.
Consider the options open to a hus -band and wife, who would have hadfew possessions to hamper their trav-els. They could claim the right to join
means that at leastwere open to them.
rothers or sisters hade
.couple also hadmarriedst
might, alternatively, for-the children's spouses
direct kinship ties and
ues of theSung com-
flexible band system,re that food was
eq-
hic
of sharing formed the core ofhe self-described Knng system of
values. Families were expected to wel-come relatives who showed up at theircamps. Moreover, etiquette dictatedthat meat from large kills be sharedoutside the immediate family, whichwas obviously a sound survival strate-gy: a hunter who killed a large ante-lope or the like would be hard pressed,even with
the
help of his wife andchildren, to eat all its meat.
By
distrib-uting his bounty, the hunter
ensured
that the recipients of his largesswould be obliged to return the favorsome time in the future.
Similarly, individuals also estab-lished formal relationships with non-relatives in which two people
gave
TYPICALRAINY-SEASONCAMPof the past was often maintained for just a day or two
before its inhabitants moved to a new location. When people were in camp, theycongregated around rooking hearths, which were placed just outside lean-to-likehuts. Dry-season camps were similar in form but were occupied for weeks or months.Today many families no longer leave "dry-season" camps during the rainy season.
LJNTTR digging for tubers exemplifies the Kunglstraditional,generalist approachto obtaining food. 'Ihe Kungcoped with the Kalahari's unpredictable food supplyby being flexible. If one food was unavailable, they accepted a range of substitutes.
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Il NIrI(
AM^
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did? The impetus may well havelargely from internal stresses
ving the society's
. , .
skills; instead they preferred the easi - Dobe are following now; that is, theer task of herding. acquisition of goods led to a lack of
Meanwhile the acquisition of goods mobility and to sorietal stresses fatallimited mobility, a change that came to the group's cohesion.to be reflected in the erection of semi- Today the issue of whether thepermanent mud-walled huts. ?'he lack Kungexperience is applicable to for-of nobility fueled still more change, agjng societies of the past can best bein part because the people could no resolved by comparing the forces act-longer resolve serious arguments in ing on (he Kung with those acting onthe traditional manner, by joining rela- the remnants of other foraging socie-tives elsewhere in Kung territories. ties in Africa, Asia and South America.
With the traditional means of se t- Ihesc groups merit intense and iin-tling disputes now gone, the Kung mediate scrutiny. If they are ignored,turned to local Bantu chiefs for arbi- an important opportuni~yto under-tration. In the process they sacrificed stand more about the ways o f pastautonomy and, like other San groups, foraging groups ant1 about the forcesincreased their reliance on, and incor- leading to their dernisc will soon passporation into, Bantu sociely. In fact, forever.many Kung families currently have
Bantu and look on them as protectors. 1-UKI t I IR RIADINGFor thejr part, the ~~~t~ have ac.
K A I M I A I U
~ ~ J N I L K - ~ A I I ~ ~ I ~ I I < S .lIJ1 ILS
cept ed [he often speaking
of
O F 11"' KuN(; ANAND 7 H IR
NI IG I I
uon~ts.Edited by Richard Ic e andBushmen." Marriage of Kung women
Irverl
L)e ore, llarvard [,"iversity press,
to Bantu men is now fairly common,]g76,
imes isolated and fenced. Hearths,
AGING S~m~r"(;lrs.John E . Yclleri in
--
1990