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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.
\
Il NIrI(
AM^
t c ANPYII
900
10
8/9/2019 y Ellen Kung
9/9
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
