The Kalahari Debate: A Bibliographical Essay

Alan Barnard is a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh, and has been attached to the Centre of African Studies since 1980. He has carried out fieldwork with Bushmen and other Khoisan groups in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa (1973, 1974–75, 1979, 1982, and 1991). His books include Research practices in the study of kinship (with Anthony Good, 1984), A Nharo Wordlist, with Notes on Grammar (1985), and Hunters and herders of southern Africa: a comparative ethnography of the Khoisan peoples (1992).

Aknowledgements

Thanks are due to Ben Fuller, Robert Gordon, Adam Kuper, Mathias Guenther, Thomas Widlok, and Edwin Wilmsen for providing indispensable bibliographical information at short notive.

The Kalahari Debate: A Bibliographical Essay

1. Introduction

The ‘Kalahari Debate’, ‘Great Kalahari Debate’, ‘Bushman Debate’, ‘(Second) Great Bushman Debate’, ‘Kalahari Bushman Debate’, ‘Kalahari San Debate’, ‘Revisionist Debate’, ‘Forager Controversy’, or ‘Crisis in Hunter-Gatherer Studies’ shows no signs of ending. So why produce a bibliography at this stage of the game? The fact is that the debate, though of enormous significance for anthropology and indeed of a wider concern within African studies, well beyond the study of African hunter-gatherers, has become too complex for many interested parties to follow. My purpose is primarily to simplify the proceedings by presenting a list of key publications, including background material from the past, and summarizing these with reference to the debate. My intention is to be fair to both sides, but equally to offer my own assessment of the problems involved where appropriate. The length of each abstract generally reflects the importance of the given item to the debate, and not necessarily the length of the source.

The Kalahari Debate proper erupted in the late 1980s, with the publication of Wilmsen’s then long-awaited Land filled with flies (ref. ***). Yet the debate had already been simmering for some ten years, after it became common knowledge among Khoisan specialists in anthropology that there were serious theoretical flaws in the received views of the !Kung and other Kalahari groups. While Lee and others had always been careful to mention the presence of Herero in !Kung country, most members of their general readership too little notice. Lee, like the functionalist writers on other parts of Africa, had described relations with such outsiders, but he had de-emphasized them and placed them in a context of ‘social change’. The problem here, of course, is: when does ‘traditional’ life end and ‘social change’ begin?

One of the earliest to point out flaws in the implicit line of reasoning followed by the ethnographers of the 1960s was Shula Marks (ref. ***). Writing, not on the Kalahari as such but on ‘hunters’ and ‘herders’ of the Cape in past centuries, she provided evidence of people shifting, back and forth, between these two means of production depending on whether any specific small group had access to cattle or not at any one time. The ‘San’ of the Cape were not necesarily a distinct ethnic group from their Khoe neighbours, but rather simply Khoe who had lost their cattle and been forced to hunt and gather or to raid other people’s cattle for a living. This argument was a challenge both to the established mode of discourse in Bushman ethnography and to the ‘liberal’ tradition in South African historiography. In the years which followed, a great number of writers, including historians, archaeologists, and social anthropologists, entered the discussion. Two sides emerged. One side, the traditionalists or isolationsists (epitomized by Lee), defended with varying degrees of flexibility the received view that Bushman groups represent cultural isolates which can be analysed as such. The other side, the revisionists or integrationists, following Shula Marks but more often nodding to Karl Marx (and epitomized by Wilmsen), argued that any view of the Bushmen which retained them as a cultural isolate was ill-founded. Rather, the revisionists came to see the Bushmen of the Kalahari as an underclass in contact with and subjugated by a host of outsiders. Moreso, this was perceived as not a recent phenomenon, but a longstanding one.

The prospect of commenting from the sidelines here is to me light relief after recently having completed my own major survey of Khoisan studies. That book (ref. ***) was written outside the direct context of this debate, though I did include some discussion there on the progress of the ‘recent debate’, as I prematurely called it. There can be little doubt now that the debate is an ongoing and not just a recent one, and indeed one which may well last for the remainder of the decade or longer. Before the nuances get too complex for the uninitiated, there is time to catch up. This occasional paper will, I hope, make that easier, especially for those with but a casual interest in the proceedings.

Although an ideological neutral, I am not impartial on all the subtle underlying arguments within this ‘Great Debate’. Indeed, this occasional paper may, in a way, serve as a small contribution to the main dialogue itself. I cannot convere all the material that may be relevant, as this would surely have taken several hundred pages. Instead, I shall try to look at all the important works and otherwise concentrate my efforts in those areas which I think are interesting and about which I have something to say.

Since this work is therefore as much a ‘bibliographical essay’ as an ‘annotated bibliography’, I have given the entries under categories which reflect the diversity of materials touching on the debate. In this way, I hope it may be more conducive to browsing and casual reading as well as for looking things up. Under the categories, alphabetical listings are used on the whole, though I depart from this practice on some occasions in order to group together smaller sets of writings on the same theme or to place writings in their historical sequence. The arrangement of entries thus follows my commentary, and not the other way around.

2. Overviews of Khoisan studies

Khoisan studies have been in existence since the first Dutch commentators arrived at the Cape in the mid-seventeenth century. Yet the term ‘Khoisan’ (khoi, ‘person’, i.e., herder; san, ‘foragers’) dates from the 1920s. It was popularized by Schapera as a generic term for those then called ‘Hottentots’ (Khoekhoe) and those called ‘Bushmen’ (or San). It remains in current use, though the rigid distinction Schapera made between groups called by these two terms has since broken down (see section 6).

At present, there are two major overviews of Khoisan studies, published at an interval of 62 years. To a large extent, my attempt (ref. ***) is a re-make of Schapera’s (ref. ***). There are theoretical differences between our approaches, and these reflect the times in which we have written as well as the sources availabale to us. Nevertheless, Schapera’s book is indispensable to anyone with a serious interest in Khoisan studies, and particularly anyone interested in the condition of the Khoisan peoples in colonial times.

Schapera, I. 1930. The Khoisan peoples of South Africa: Bushmen and Hottentots. London: George Routledge & Sons.

Reprinted many times, this has long been the ‘bible’ of Khoisan studies. Most of it appeared in Schapera’s thesis ‘The tribal system in South Africa: a study of the Bushmen and the Hottentots (2 vols.; University of London, 1929), based on a survey of literature then available on Khoisan groups. Part I, on ‘ethno-geography’, describes physical features of the lands of the Khoisan and their own biological makeup. Part II, on the ‘culture of the Bushmen’, describes social organization, habits and customs, religion and magic, etc., for these people. Part III, ‘culture of the Hottentots’, does the same for the Khoekhoe. Part IV is a brief overview of Khoisan languages. The theoretical perspective is structural-functionalist, and in the Bushman section there is little differentiation between the various groups. These are distinguished by geography — Northern, Central and Southern. References to specific groups are given where appropriate, but the picture which emerges is one of uniformity and not cultural difference.

Yet, far from being dated, Schapera’s volume is as valuable as ever as a summary of obscure literature (now even more obscure) on Khoisan groups throughout southern Africa. This is especially true of the works, mainly in German, on Bushman groups in the northern Kalahari.

Barnard, Alan. 1992. Hunters and herders of southern Africa: a comparative ethnography of the Khoisan peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Whereas Schapera’s book was based exclusively on library research, mine is based mainly on library research, but partly also on fieldwork, and to a great extent on placing the Khoisan ethnography in a new theoretical framework. This framework, known as ‘regional structural comparison’, consists not so much of understanding Bushmen as part of a ‘region’ of economically interdependent groups (as in revisionist theory), but of seeing them as possessing, along with other Khoisan groups, a complex of cultural knowledge and practice which varies according to linguistic relationships, physical environment, and social factors. The theory is broadly structuralist, but neither in the universalistc sense of French, nor in the narrow, culture-specific sense of British, anthropology. Instead, it is explicitly regional.

Part I includes discussions of the theoretical basis of the book and the prehistory and ethnic classification of the Khoisan peoples. Part II is ‘a survey of Khoisan ethnography’, similar to Schapera’s but with nine rather than two basic ethnographic divisions. Part III treats ‘comparisons and transformations’, including the complex relations between environmental conditions, ethno-linguistic boundaries, and processes of change. Kinship receives much consideration, and there are chapters on settlement patterns, politics and exchange, and religion. For those specifically interested in the Kalahari Debate, there is some discussion of differences between Lee and Wilmsen on the !Kung, and a great deal of background information on historical change and on the context of the huge amount of ethnographic materials which exist on these and other Bushman groups. What is not included (either in my book or in Schapera’s) is any major discussion of relations between Bushmen and other peoples.

Apart from Schapera’s Khoisan peoples and the thesis on which it is based, there are related, minor writings in his corpus which touch on relevant issues. These include:

Schapera, I. 1926. A preliminary consideration of the relationship between the Hottentots and the Bushmen. South African journal of science 23: 833–66.

Schapera, I. 1927. The tribal divisions of the Bushmen. Man 27: 68–73.

In addition to Schapera and Barnard, there have been shorter or less widely-circulated commentaries on the history and state of Bushman studies. Among such general treatments of the topic are:

Guenther, Mathias G. 1980. From ‘brutal savages’ to ‘harmless people’: Notes on the changing Western image of the Bushmen. Paideuma 26: 123–40.

A splendid account of the connotations of ‘Bushmanliness’ in Western thought. Guenther captures better than anyone the spirit of each age from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. His paper has extensive references and quotations.

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1978. A history of research among Basarwa in Botswana. Unpublished paper deposited in the Botswana National Archives.

A virtually complete summary of research to 1978 on Botswana’s Basarwa, with details of institutional affiliation, dissertation topics, government connections, etc., of anthropologists and others who worked in that country. (Basarwa is the polite Tswana term for ‘Bushmen’ and is used in a Botswana context in writings in English as well as Tswana.) A related paper is included in the Marshall festschrift (ref. ***).

A major new attempt to cover the field is a thesis on the history of Bushman studies in anthropology and allied fields, by Klauss Keuthmann of the University of Bayreuth (formerly of Bonn and Cologne). When finished, Keuthmann’s thesis will undoubtedly command much interest both within Khoisan studies and beyond.

3. Early colonial literature

Though in the early twentieth century the term ‘Hottentots’ meant ‘herders’, in earlier times its meaning was ambiguous. Seventeenth-century Dutch writers at the Cape frequently used the term to include both herders and foragers. Its derivation has been the subject of enormous speculation, even in recent times, but the commonest assumption is that it was from a Dutch word for ‘stammerer’ and referred to either the pronounciation of click consonants or a chant used in ritual dances.

The word ‘San’ (common gender plural) in the literature also dates from the seventeenth century, though it was then usually given in its masculine plural form ‘Soaqua’ or ‘Sonqua’. It was a term used by herders to refer to those without livestock, and had connotation of scavenging, begging, or robbing; and indeed it is likely to have referred very frequently to Khoekhoe herders who had lost their cattle. ‘Bushmen’, in the Dutch form ‘Bosjesmans’, dates from roughly the same period. Few writers at that time referred primarily to foraging groups, and none referred to foraging groups in the Kalahari. Nevertheless, a number of works in the early period are important background pieces for the Kalahari Debate of today, not least because they form the main sources used by those historians in the 1970s and 1980s who began the challenge to the ‘pristine hunter-gatherer’ model.

A few of the most important texts are given below, roughly in chronological order. A number of others, of less direct relevance, have been reprinted in the twentieth century by the Van Riebeeck Society of Cape Town.

Schapera, I. (ed.). 1933. The early Cape Hottentots. Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society (Vol. 14).

Includes three texts whose significance lies primarily in their early date. They describe the ‘Hottentots’ both in the state in which the Dutch found them and in their contact with the Dutch.

Dapper, Olfert. 1668. Kaffrarie, of lant der Hottentots (Kaffraria, or land of the Hottentots), with translation by I. Schapera. pp 6–77.

Ten Rhyne, W. 1686. Gentis Hottentotten nuncupatae descripto (An account of the Hottentots), with translation by B. Farrington. pp 84–157.

Grevenbroek, Johannes Guilielmus [Jan Willem de Graevenbroek]. 1695. Gentis Hottentotten nuncupatae descriptio (An account of the Hottentots), with translation by B. Farrington. pp 161–299.

Mossop, E.E. (ed. and trans.). 1931. Journals of the expeditions of the Honorable Ensign Olof Bergh (1682 and 1683) and the Ensign Isaq Schrijver (1689). Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society (Vol. 12).

Mossop gives transcriptions of the Dutch with English translations. Both Bergh and Schrijver describe forager-raiders in the interior of South Africa. Bergh seems to have been the first ever to use the word ‘Bushman’: ‘We came to some Hottentots, they being Somquaas alias Bushmen [bosjesmans]’ (p 85). Bibliographical details are as follows:

Bergh, Olof. 1682–1683. [Journals]. pp 1–191.

Schrijver, Isaq. 1689. [Journal]. pp 193–259.

Schreyer, Johann. 1931. Reise nach dem Kaplande und Beschreibung der Hottentotten, 1669–1677. The Hague: Nijhoff.

An influential seventeenth-century account. Suggested by Peter Carstens (in his introduction to the Kolb reprint) as a possible source for some of Kolb’s material, though Kolb himself does not acknowlege Schreyer.

Kolb, Peter [Peter Kolbe, Peter Kolben]. 1968 [1731]. The present state of the Cape of Good Hope, Vol. I (trans. Guido Medley). New York and London: Johnson Reprint Company.

This has little to say directly on Bushmen as we know them, but it does refer to mountain groups of ‘Sonquas’ who raided for cattle. More significantly, Kolb’s account stood in the eighteenth century as a paradigm ethnography of the ‘Hottentots’ generally. It was used to support both the notion that these people were among the most depraved on earth and the contrary notion (held not least by J.J. Rousseau) that they were perhaps benighted but nevertheless noble examples of humanity’s ‘natural’ savage existence.

Kolb’s account was originally written in German (published in 1719) and translated into Dutch (1727), English (1731), and French (1741). The first English edition was published by W. Innys, London.

Wikar, Hendrik Jacob. 1935 [1779]. Berigt aan den Weleedelen Gestrengen Heer Mr. Joachim van Plettenbergh ... (Report to His Excellency Joachim van Plettenbergh ...), with translation by A.W. van der Horst. In E.E. Mossop (ed.), The journals of Wikar, Coetse and van Reenen. Cape Town: The van Riebeeck Society, Vol. 15). pp 20–219.

Wikar’s journal includes probably the first attempt to classify the Khoisan peoples, most specifically the various groups of ‘Hottentots’ in the Cape.

4. Early travelogue, ethnography, and commentary

The period of exploration, especially in the late nineteenth century, is of prime importance for Wilmsen’s argument that there existed vast trade networks in the Kalahari prior to the European conquest of that area. Indeed, Wilmsen himself (e.g., in Wilmsen and Denbow, ref. ***) sees an early rehearsal for the Kalahari Debate between Fritsch (an isolationist) and Passarge (a proto-revisionist).

The early travellers who ventured into the northern Kalahari were a mixture of gentleman adventurers, hunters, traders, missionaries, and (especially in later years) military officers. The standard biographical source for the earlier years is:

Tabler, Edward C. 1973. Pioneers of South West Africa and Ngamiland, 1738–1880. Cape Town: A.A. Balkema.

Of course, not all the 333 ‘adult male foreigners’ who meet this criterion for inclusion among Tabler’s ‘pioneers’ wrote narratives, and not all those who did wrote narratives of relevance to the Kalahari Debate. Nevertheless, a quite significant number did.

An annotated bibliography which contains useful information on some of the works listed below is:

Schoeman, Stanley and Elna Schoeman (eds.). 1984. Namibia (World Bibliographical Series, Vol. 53). Oxford: Clio Press.

Travellers’ tales and commentary

The alphabetical list below includes most of the key writings prior to Schapera (ref. ***) which touch on conditions of indigenous Kalahari peoples or, in some cases, on conditions of Bushmen in the interior of South Africa and elsewhere where images of ‘the Bushman’ were being made by Western minds.

Alexander, Sir James E. 1838. An expedition of discovery into the interior of Africa (2 vols.). London: Henry Colburn.

One of the finest travelogues of the nineteenth century, Alexander’s account was also among the earliest descriptions of the peoples of present-day Namibia. Alexander wrote extensively of the Nama of Great Namaqualand, the Damara, and the Bushmen of the northwestern Kalahari. In 1967 his book was reissued both by Struik (Cape Town) and, in one volume, by the Johnson Reprint Company (New York).

Anderson, A.A. 1888. Twenty-five years in a wagon. London: Chapman and Hall.

A.A. Anderson travelled along the southern part of the Kalahari and commented on relations between Tswana and Bushmen. Although favourably inclined towards the Tswana, he noted that some of them were guilty of ill-treating Bushmen with whom they came into contact.

Andersson, Charles John. 1855. Explorations in South Africa with the route from Walfisch Bay for Lake Ngami. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 25: 79–107.

Andersson, Charles John. 1856. Lake Ngami; or explorations and discoveries during four years’ wanderings in the wilds of south western Africa. London: Hurst and Blackett.

Andersson, Charles John. 1861. The Okavango river: a narrative of travel, exploration, and adventure. London: Hurst and Blackett.

Andersson, Charles John. 1873. The lion and the elephant (ed. Llewellyn Lloyd). London: Hurst and Blackett.

Andersson, Charles John. 1875. Notes on travel in South Africa (ed. Llewellyn Lloyd). London: Hurst and Blackett.

Andersson travelled very widely in southern Africa and wrote several narratives and ornithological works, some not published until after his death (which occurred in 1867 on his return journey from the Kunene). Involved in extensive trade himself, he commented on the pre-existing trade networks in which he became involved and the political and military intrigues (such as between Nama and Herero) which often accompanied them. Andersson’s accounts of journeys to Lake Ngami, in 1853, and the Okavango river, in 1858–59, include among the earliest descriptions of the northern Kalahari. These were reprinted by Struik (Cape Town) in 1967 and 1968 respectively. In addition to the English version, there is an ‘improved and enlarged’ Swedish edition of Lake Ngami (also published in 1856), and the German edition of 1857 is based on this one.

The editor of Andersson’s posthumous books was his father. Christened Karl Johan, ‘Andersson the Swede’ bore the masculine form of his mother’s surname but preferred the English style of his Christian names.

Andersson, Charles John. 1987. The Matchless Copper Mine in 1857 (ed., Birgitte Lau). Windhoek: National Archives (Archeia series).

Andersson, Charles John. 1989. Trade and politics in central Namibia (ed., Birgitte Lau). Windhoek: National Archives (Archeia series).

In addition works published in his lifetime or shortly after, Andersson left an enormous amount of other written material, including correspondence, diaries and notebooks. The originals are in private hands, but microfilm copies of some 17 volumes are held in the Namibia National Archives. Andersson’s diaries in general are important for today’s Kalahari Debate, as Wilmsen’s (ref. ***) reading places Andersson in Nyae Nyae !Kung country, while that of Lee and Guenther (ref. ***), following Fisch (ref. ***), places him well to the west.

The two recent volumes noted above, edited from the explorer’s diaries by the leading Andersson scholar, should add grist to the mill.

Baines, Thomas. 1864. Explorations in south-west Africa. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, and Green.

Baines travelled with Livingstone until the latter (unjustly) ejected him on suspicion of theft. Baines also accompanied Andersson as ornithological artist on some of his journeys, though the two fell out over various matters including Baines’ unkept appearance and Andersson’s blood lust. With Chapman (see ref. ***), he travelled to the Lake Ngami in 1861–63. His Kalahari account is perhaps not as significant as those of Andersson, but his ethnographic drawings and scenic water colours made his travels famous.

Baines also wrote a number of other accounts, based on his travels in Natal, Rhodesia, and Australia (see also ref. ***).

Barrow, John. 1801–04. Travels in the interior of Southern Africa in the years 1797 and 1798 (2 vols.). London: Cadell and Davies.

An account famous for its early, sympathetic, ‘harmless people’, portrayal of the Bushman (see Pratt, refs. *** and ***).

Burchell, W.J.A. 1822–24. Travels in the interior of southern Africa (2 vols.). London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green.

Regarded ‘Bushmen’ on the southern Kalahari fringe as benighted beings, but also reports their possession of cattle (as later did Livingstone).

Campbell, John. 1815. Travels in South Africa, undertaken at the request of the [London] Missionary Society. London: Black and Parry.

Campbell, John. 1822. Travels in South Africa, undertaken at the request of the London Missionary Society, being a narrative of a second journey in the interior of that country (2 vols.). London: Westley.

Campbell describes Bushman cattle raids on the Tswana in 1813 and 1820 as if they were a common practice.

Chapman, James. 1868. Travels in the interior of South Africa. (2 vols). London: Bell and Daldy.

Along with Andersson and Baines, one of the key players in the saga of exploration in the northwestern Kalahari. He describes his travels through Nharo and !Kung country, as well as to Lake Ngami (in the 1850s). There is a 1971 reprint by A.A. Balkema (Cape Town).

Currle, L. 1913. Notes on the Namaqualand Bushmen. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 3: 113–20.

Franáois, Hugo von. 1896. Nama und Damara. Deutsch SÅd-West-Afrika. Magdeburg: Baensch.

Fritsch, G. 1863. Die Eingeborenen SÅd-Afrikas. Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt.

Fritsch, G. 1868. Drei Jahre in SÅd-Afrika. Breslau: Ferdinand Hirt.

Fritsch, G. 1880. Die afrikanischen BuschmÑnner als Urrasse. Zeitschrift fÅr Ethnologie 12: 289–300.

Fritsch, G. 1906. [Review of ref. ***]. Zeitschrift fÅr Ethnologie 38: 71–79.

Fritsch’s review of Passarge and Passarge’s reply (ref. ***) are, according to Wilmsen and Denbow (ref. ***), the ‘first’ Great Kalahari Debate. Fritsch accuses Passarge of having come too late to see the essential Bushman of the Kalahari (cf. ref. ***).

Galton, Francis. 1853. The narrative of an explorer in tropical South Africa. London: John Murray.

The grandson of Erasmus Darwin and cousin of Charles Darwin, Galton is most famous today as the founder of eugenics. His exploration narrative is not as impressive as some others, but he was important in the history of exploration as the first to reach Ovamboland from the south. He was also the first to go as far east as the Rietfontein of the present border between Namibia and Botswana (the middle one of the three ‘Rietfonteins’ in the Kalahari). Both these trips were in 1851, two years before Andersson passed through Rietfontein on his way to Lake Ngami.

There is a 1971 reprint of Galton’s narrative by the Johnson Reprint Company (New York).

Gillmore, Parker. 1878. The great thirst land: a ride through Natal, Orange Free State, Transvall, and Kalahari Desert. London: Cassell, Petter & Galpin.

Says little about Bushmen, but portrays the Kalahari as horribly inhospitable.

Green, Frederick. 1857. Narratives of an expedition to the northwest of Lake Ngami, extending to the capital of Debabe’s territory, via Souka River, hitherto an unexplored portion of Africa. Eastern Province monthly magazine 1(12): 661–69.

The title says it all. A copy of Green’s diary, in Andersson’s hand, is in the National Archives of Namibia (A.83, vol. 17).

Hahn, Carl Hugo. 1984–1985. Carl Hugo Hahn TagebÅcher (ed. Birgitte Lau; 5 vols.). Windhoek: National Archives (Archeia series).

C.H. Hahn, not to be confused with trader Theophilus Hahn or administrator C.H.L. Hahn, was a trader-missionary established at Barmen and later at Otjimbingwe. He travelled extensively in northern Namibia (most notably one trip to western !Kung country, Hai//om country and Ovamboland, with Johannes Rath in 1857–1858), and often tried to act as peacemaker between warring Nama and Herero factions. He is perhaps most noted as a pioneer of Herero linguistics.

Hahn, Theophilus. 1867. Die Nama-Hottentotten. Ein Beitrag zur sÅdafrikanischen Ethnographie. Globus 12: 238–42, 275–79, 304–07, 332–36.

Hahn, Theophilus. 1870. Die BuschmÑnner. Ein Beitrag zur sÅdafrikanischen Vîlkerkunde. Globus 18: 65–68, 81–85, 102–05, 120–23, 140–43, 153–55.

Hahn, Theophilus. 1878. The graves of Heitsi-eibeb. A chapter on the pre-historic Hottentot race. Cape monthly magazine 16 (May): 257–65.

Hahn, Theophilus. 1881. Tsuni-//goam: the supreme being of the Khoi-khoi. London: Trubner & Co.

These ethnographic texts were important sources for Schapera (ref. ***). The son of a local missionary (Samuel Hahn), Theophilus Hahn was a trader noted for his inability to stay out of trouble, with missionaries, chiefs, and politicians alike. Globus was a German geographical journal, and Hahn, a virtual native-speaker of Nama and advocate of Bushman land rights, reported his knowledge of these peoples there for the benefit of his European readers.

Hahn’s monograph on Khoekhoe belief and mythology was important for its consideration of the Khoekhoe and Bushmen as part of the same people (whom he called ‘Hottentots’). It forshadowed later attempts at regional comparison and indeed structuralist methodology.

Holub, Emil. 1881. Seven years in South Africa: travels, researches, and adventures between the diamond fields and the Zambesi (1872–79). London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.

Kaufmann, Hans. 1910. Die ÿAuin. Ein Beitrag zur Buschmannforschung. Mitteilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebeiten 23: 135–160.

A key source in Schapera (ref. ***), this paper is an ethnographic treatment of the ÿAuin or ÿAu//eisi. These are usually known in early German writings as the ‘Auen’ and today often called ‘Makaukau’. Linguistically and culturally, they are in fact the southernmost !Kung, though they were until the late twentieth century thought of as a separate, if related, ‘people’.

Lebzelter, Viktor. 1928. Die religiosen Vorstellen der //Khun-BuschmÑnner, der BuschmÑnner der Etoshapfanne und des Ovambo-Landes, und der Ovambo-Bantu. In Festschrift P.W. Schmidt. Vienna. pp 407–15.

Lebzelter, Viktor. 1928–1929. Bei den !Kun-Buschleuten am oberen Omuramba und Ovambo (SÅdwestafrika). Mitteilungen der Anthropologische Gesellschaft Wien 59: 12–16.

Lebzelter, Viktor. 1934. Eingeborenenkulturen in SÅdwest- und SÅdafrika. Leipzig: Karl W. Hiersemann.

I include Lebzelter here because in spirit, if not in date of publication, his work can be described as ‘pre-Schapera’. His work is often lacking in accuracy, but it is of some use in helping to establish the degree of contact between the various groups in northern Namibia. As such it deserves at least a look by those presently embroiled in the Kalahari Debate.

Lichtenstein, Henry [M. Hinrich C.]. 1928–30 [1811–12]. Travels in Southern Africa in the years 1803, 1804, 1805 and 1806 (2 vols; trans. Anne Plumtre). Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society (Publication Nos. 10, 11).

Originally published in German, Lichtenstein’s narrative is important for its description of Bushman groups in the interior, and also for its distinction of ‘Bushmen’ (foragers) from ‘Hottentots’ (herders). This distinction is still with us, and overthrew the older notion of ‘Hottentots’ as a generic, economy-aspecific term.

Livingstone, David. 1857. Missionary travels and researches in South Africa. London: John Murray.

This is Livingtsone’s most famous narrative, and records his journey to Lake Ngami. It also gives a great deal of ethnographic information on the Tswana and some on the Bushmen, particularly with regard to their relations with the Tswana. The American edition was published by Harper & Brothers (New York) in 1858 and reprinted by the Johnson Reprint Company in 1971.

Many of Livingstone other writings have been published in the years since his death (including editions of his correspondence and diaries edited by I. Schapera), but none bear much direct relation on the question at hand.

MacKenzie, John. 1971 [1871]. Ten years north of the Orange river: a story of everyday life and work among the South African tribes from 1859 to 1869. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas.

MacKenzie, John. 1883. Day dawn in dark places. London: Cassel.

Missionary accounts of early Bechuanaland. There is also a biography by Anthony Sillery.

McKiernan. Gerald. 1954. The narrative and journal of Gerald McKiernan in South West Africa, 1874–1879 (ed. P. Serton). Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society, vol. 35.

Published from the manuscript of this American trader, who wrote it (apparently for friends) upon his return to the United States.

Moffat, Robert. 1969 [1842]. Missionary labours and scenes in southern Africa. New York: Johnson Reprint Company.

Livingstone’s predecessor and father-in-law.

Mohr, Edward. 1876. To the Victoria Falls of the Zambezi. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington.

Mueller, Hauptmann. 1912. Die Buschleute im Kaukauveld. Detsche-SÅdwest-afrikansche Zeitung 65: 66.

Capt. Mueller was the probably the first to portray Bushmen explicitly as ‘harmless people’.

Palgrave, W. Coates. 1877. Report of W. Coates Palgrave, Esq. Special Commissioner to the tribes north of the Orange River, of his mission to Damaraland and Great Namaqualand in 1876. Cape Town: Cape of Good Hope, Ministerial Department of Native Affairs.

The title is fairly explicit about the contents of this narrative. Already a well-known traveller, he was sent by British authorities in the Cape to enquire from the Herero about the annexation of South West Africa. His trip resulted in the British acquisition of Walvis Bay in 1878. Palgrave was subsequently responsible for attempts to settle the Dorsland Trekkers in 1878–79, but Germany rather than Britain succeeded in taking the interior.

Passarge, Siegfried. 1904. Die Kalahari. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.

Passarge, Siegfried. 1905. Das Okawangosumpfland und seine Bewohner. Zeitschrift fÅr Ethnologie 37: 649–716.

Passarge, Siegfried. 1905. Die Grundlinien im ethnographischen Bilde der Kalahari-Region. Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fÅr Erdkunde zu Berlin. Berlin: Mittler.

Passarge, Siegfried. 1905. Die BuschmÑnner der Kalahari. Mitteilungen von Forschungsreisenden und Gelehrten aus dem Deutschen Schutzgebieten Berlin: Mittler. pp 194–287.

This paper begins with the famous statement, which Passarge borrowed from Fritsch: Der Buschmann ist das unglÅckselige Kind des Augenblicks (i.e., ‘The Bushman is the unluckiest child of our time’). In his review, Fritsch (ref. ***) claims that Passarge himself was the ‘unluckiest child of our time’ because he was unable to see much of the true, isolated Bushman.

It goes on to recount Passarge’s journeys through Nharo and !Kung (especially ÿAu//eisi) country in the late 1897–98. This was the time the rinderpest epidemic, which had spread throughout much of Africa from the Sudan to the Cape, hit the Kalahari. As a result, huge herds of game, as well as livestock, died, and groups of up to 300 Bushmen, of mixed ethnic origin, converged to feast on the rotting flesh. The extent to which the practices Passarge witnessed were typical of life before that is, of course, a matter of dispute. While Wilmsen and Denbow (ref. ***) place great store in Passarge’s account, while their critics (see infra., comments by Gordon and Ross) downplay his significance.

Ref. *** is a more accessible reprint with minor changes.

Passarge, Siegfried 1906. [Response to Fritch]. Zeitschrift fÅr Ethnologie 38: 411–14.

Passarge, Siegfried. 1907. Die BuschmÑnner der Kalahari. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer.

Passarge, Siegfried. 1908. SÅdafrika: eine Landes-, Volks- und Wirtschaftskunde. Leipzig: Quelle & Meyer.

Petermanns geographische Mitteilungen (Dr. A. Petermanns Mitteilungen aus Justus Perthes Geografischer Anstalt).

Articles in this journal are frequently cited by Wilmsen, Lee and others in the Kalahari Debate. Relevant pieces include:

Reise der Herrn Hugo Hahn und Rath im sÅdwestlichen Afrika, Mai bis September 1857. P.g.M. 1859, No. 7: 295–303.

Ladislaus Magyar’s Erforschung. P.g.M. 1860, No. 6: 227–31.

Der Cunene-Strom von Fr. Green erreicht. P.g.M. 1867, No. 1: 8–12.

Neueste Deutsche Forschungen in SÅd-Afrika: von Karl Mauch, Hugo Hahn und Richard Brenner, 1866 und 1867. P.g.M. 1867, No. 8: 281–98.

Reise Herero-Land: Land und Leute. P.g.M. 1878, No. 8: 306–11.

Philip, John. 1828. Researches in South Africa, illustrating the civil, moral and religious condition of the native tribes (2 vols.). London: Duncan.

Missionary John Philip held a sympathetic view of Bushmen, even likening them to John the Baptist. He also regarded some Bushmen, at least, as former livestock-owners who were forced by historical circumstances to take to raiding.

Schinz, Hans. 1891. Deutsch SÅdwest Afrika: Forschungsreisen durch die deutschen Schutzgebeiten Gross-Nama- und Hereroland, nach dem Kunene, dem Ngami-See und der Kalahari, 1884–1887. Oldenburg and Leipzig: Schulzesche Hof-Buchhandlung und Hof-Buchdruckeri.

Schinz is virtually the only traveller-narrator to pass directly through Nye Nyae and Dobe !Kung lands (from northwest to southeast) in the late nineteenth century. He is also responsible for more species names (including the mongongo nut, Ricinodendron rautanenii Schinz) than any other scientist to describe the southern African interior.

Schultze, L. 1907. Aus Namaland und Kalahari. Jena: Gustav Fischer.

Schultze, L. 1914. Das Deutsche Kolonialreich (ed. Hans Meyer), Vol. 2, Part 2: SÅdwestafrika. Leipzig and Vienna: Bibliographischen Instituts. pp 131–295 (plus appendices).

Mainly physical georgraphy, but includes some ethnographic information on Bushmen and other groups.

Schultze, L. 1928. Zur Kenntnis des Kîrpers der Hottentotten und BuschmÑnner. Zoologische und anthropologische Ergebnisse einer Forschungsreise im westlichen und zentralen SÅdafrika, Bb. v, Lfg. iii, 147–227.

A bio-anthropological treatise. Its significance lies simply in the fact that it is the first work to employ the term ‘Khoisan’ (actually Koãsan). Schultze (also known as Schultze-Jena in order to distinguish him from other Schultzes of his time) intended it as a label for a presumed physical type which, since the change in meaning of the term ‘Hottentot’, had no name.

Schwarz, E.H.L. 1928. The Kalahari and its native races. London: H.F. & G. Witherby.

Seiner, Franz. 1909. Ergebnisse einer Bereisung des Gebiets zwischen Okawango und Sambesi (Caprivi-Zipfel) in den Jahren 1905 und 1906. Mitteilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten 22: 1–111.

Seiner, Franz. 1910. Die BushmÑnner des Okawango- und Sambesigebietes der Nordkalahari. Globus 97 (No. 22): 341–45, and 97 (No. 23): 357–360.

Reports on Bushmen losing their culture and taking on the ways of their neighbours. An English translation by Helga Vierich-Esche appears in Botswana notes and records 9: 31–36 (1977).

Seiner, Franz. 1912. Die Buschmannsgefahr in Deutsch-SÅdwestafrika. Deutsche Kolonial Zeitung [1912]: 311–12.

Seiner, Franz. 1913. Ergebnisse einer Bereisung der Omaheke i.d. Jahre 1910–1912. Mitteilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten 26: 225–316.

Seiner, Franz. 1913. Beobachtungen an den Bastard-Buschleuten der Nord-Kalahari. Mitteilungen der Anthropologische Gesellschaft Wien 43: 311–324.

Seiner, Franz. 1913. Die Buschmannfrage im nordlichen Deutsch-SÅdwestafrika. Deutsche Kolonial Zeitung [1913]: 745–76.

Seiner ******** [from Gordon]******

Selous, Frederick Courteney. 1893. Travel and adventure in South-East Africa (third edition). London: Rowland Ward & Co.

Selous is commonly believed to be the prototype for Rider Haggard’s fictional Allan Quatermain. Chapter 5 of this book contains much on the Bushmen and Kgalagari.

Selous, Frederick Courteney. 1907. A hunter’s wanderings in Africa: nine years amongst the game of the far interior of South Africa. London: Macmillan & Co.

Selous, Frederick Courteney. 1908. African nature notes and remeniscences. London: Macmillan & Co.

Selous’s 1908 volume is the most interesting of his books. Not strictly travelogue, it is dressed up as a naturalist’s notes and diary and contains a foreword by then U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt. Selous writes especially on the Bushmen of the eastern Kalahari fringe. Of special interest is his Chapter 20, ‘Notes on the Masarwa: the Bushmen of the interior of South Africa’.

Selous first encountered Bushmen in 1872 on the banks of the Orange. His account is sympathetic but evolutionist, Bushmen being a ‘race whose development was arrested long ago’.

Seydel, E. 1910. Aus der Namib. Deutsches Kolonialblatt 31: 501–06.

Smith, Andrew. 1975. Andrew Smith’s journal of his expedition into the interior of South Africa, 1834–36 (ed. W.F. Lye). Cape Town: A.A. Balkema for the South African Museum.

The subtitle says it all: ‘an authenthic narrative of travels and discoveries, manners and customs of the native tribes, and the physical nature of the country’.

There is also a Van Riebeeck Society edition entiteld The diary of Dr. Andrew Smith, 1834–36 (2 vols., edited by Percival R. Kirby), V.R.S. vols. 20–21).

Sparrmann, Anders. 1975–77 [1785–86]. A voyage to the Cape of Good Hope towards the antarctic polar circle round the world and to the country of the Hottentots and Caffres from the year 1772–1776 (trans. V. and I. Rudner). Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society (Second Series, Nos. 10, 11).

Along with Barrow (ref. ***), one of the earliest sympathetic accounts of Bushmen, and one perhaps partly responsible for the image of the Bushman as docile and meek.

The Johnson Reprint Company (New York) published an edition with the shortened title Voyage to the Cape of Good Hope in 1975.

Tindall, Joseph. 1959. The journal of Joseph Tindall, missionary in South West Africa, 1839–55 (ed., B.A. Tindall). Cape Town: Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society (Vol. 40).

Trenk, P. 1910. Die Buschleute der Namib, ihre Rechts- und Familienverhaltnisse. Mitteilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten 23: 166–70.

Werner, H. 1906. Anthropologische, ethnologische und ethnographische Beobachtungen uber die Heikum und Kungbuschleute. Zeitschrift fÅr Ethnologie 38: 241–68.

Wilhelm, J.H. 1954 [1914–19]. Die !Kung Buschleute. Jahrbuch des Museums fÅr Vîlkerkunde zu Leipzig 12: 91–189.

Finally here, one indigenous writer whose account is of special historical significance is the Nama chief Hendrik Witbooi.

Witbooi, Hendrik. 1929. Die dagboek van Hendrik Witbooi, kaptein van die Witbooi-Hottentotte, 1884–1905. Cape Town: Cape Town: The Van Riebeeck Society (Vol. 9).

There is a partial English translation published as:

Witbooi, Hendrik. 1984. Diary and letters of Nama chief Hendrik Witbooi, 1884–1894 (ed. Georg M. Gugelberger). Boston: African Studies Centre, Boston University.

The first ‘true ethnography’

Apart from the colonial literature in which can be included travelogue and incidental ethnography, it is useful to distinguish what might grandly be called ‘true ethnography’. By his I mean ethnography whose intent is the description of people or peoples against a conscious theoretical background, even if the ‘theory’ of such works is confined simply to classifying aspects of culture. Crude functionalism can be found in several of the German colonial works (and even structuralism in the writings of Theophilus Hahn), but ethnographic understanding as we know it becomes prevalent only after the turn of the century. Notable are the works of Bleek, Dornan, and Fourie, all of whom had considerable first-hand experience of Bushman people.

Bleek, D.F. 1928. The Naron: a Bushman tribe of the central Kalahari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bleek, D.F. 1928. Bushmen of Central Angola. Bantu studies 3: 105–25.

Dorothea Bleek, daughter of German linguist and folklorist W.H.I. Bleek, accomplished a number of remarkable field studies in southern and eastern Africa. She wrote a great deal on Bushmen (see bibliography in Barnard, ref. ***), but only the two works cited above are of direct relevance here.

Bleek’s Naron (Nharo) study was the first monograph on any Bushman people. It is seriously flawed in many ways, but was a valiant attempt. Her paper on the Angolan !Kung is virtually the only detailed account on those people in English, and reveals the extent of !Kung culture to the north, and indeed the degree of acculturaltion !Kung in Angola experienced as a result of contact with their agricultural neighbours.

Dornan, S.S. 1917. The Tati Bushmen (Masarwas) and their language. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 47: 37–112.

Dornan, S.S. 1925. Pygmies and Bushmen of the Kalahari. London: Seeley, Service & Co.

In spite of their titles, both these works concern mainly the Hiechware (Hietshware) of eastern Botswana. Long in very close contact with Bantu-speakers, these are present-day inhabitants of the lands believed by Denbow and Wilmsen to have been part of the Great Zimbabwe empire. Dornan’s work has now been superseded by that of Cashdan (e.g., ref. ***) and others.

Fourie, Louis. 1926. Preliminary notes on certain customs of the Hei-//om Bushmen. Journal of the S.W.A. Scientific Society 1: 49–63.

Fourie, Louis. 1928. The Bushmen of South West Africa. In C.H.L. Hahn, H. Vedder and L. Fourie, The native tribes of South West Africa. Cape Town: Cape Times. pp 79–105.

In my view underrated, Fourie’s work is important because of its early indication of the degree to which Hai//om culture is part of a cultural complex which transcends not only the Bushman/Khoekhoe/Damara boundaries, but also the Bushman/Bantu-speaker one. His writings concern the people at the heart of the trade routes described by Gordon, Wilmsen, and others. The Hai//om have since the turn of the century been regarded as former !Kung who at some unknown time in the past took on the Nama/Damara language, but they are also much influenced by Ovambo and/or Herero customs.

Other papers in the latter volume include ones on the Nama, the Damara, the Ovambo, and the Herero — making comparisons easy (see also under ref. ***).

5. Modern ethnography of Bushmen and their neighbours

Ethnography of the Bushmen

The modern ethnographic record on Bushmen and other peoples of the Kalahari is enormous. The list below is intended primarily as a checklist of important works which touch on the theme of the Kahalahri Debate. I have, for the most part, excluded works on Bushmen beyond the Kalahari and works on Kalahari Bushmen which are primarily concerned with belief, ritual, art, language, and other aspects of culture which lie outside the concerns of the debate. I have concentrated instead on general ethnographies and on works which emphasize economics, social organization, and relations between groups.

Separate lists give details of relevant ethnographic works on the Bantu-speakers and other groups in contact with Bushmen (beginning with ref. ***), and of works on Khoisan biology (beginning with ref. ***).

Almeida, Antonio de. 1965. Bushmen and other non-Bantu peoples of Angola: three lectures. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press for the Institute for the Study of Man in Africa (Publication No. 1).

A short summary of Portuguese research on the Kwankhala and Sekele (!Kung), the Zama or Kwengo (probably mixed Sekele and Mbukushu), and the Kwadi. Includes some information on trade and a useful bibliography.

Barnard, Alan. 1976. Nharo Bushman kinship and the transformation of Khoi kin categories. Ph.D. thesis, University of London.

In two parts. The first part is an ethnographic account of the Nharo kinship system in the context of Nharo society. The second is an attempt to place Nharo kinship within various comparative and theoretical frameworks. Central to the argument is the understanding of the Nharo as a Khoi (Khoe) as well as a San people.

Barnard, Alan. 1978. Universal systems of kin categorization. African studies 37: 69–81.

Barnard, Alan. 1981. Universal kin categorization in four Bushman societies. L’Uomo 5: 219–37.

Barnard, Alan. 1987. Khoisan kinship: Regional comparison and underlying structures. In Ladislav Holy (ed.), Comparative anthropology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. pp 189–209.

Barnard, Alan. 1988. Kinship, language and production: A conjectural history of Khoisan social structure. Africa 58: 29–50.

These four papers describe Khoisan and particularly Bushman kinship in terms of two central themes: universal kin categorization and underlying structures. The former is the mechanism or ideology of classifying everyone in a given society as a member of some kin category in relation to everyone else. The latter are those elements of kinship systems which are held constant within the culture area across ethnic boundaires. They include especially the practice of distinguishing individuals as ‘joking’ partners (with whom easy relations are permitted, e.g., grandparents/grandchildren, spouses) and ‘avoidance’ partners (with whom a respect relationship exists, e.g., parents/children, opposite-sex siblings). The relevance of these distinctions to the Kalahari Debate is that they define a context of social relations within Bushman or Khoisan society, which is characteristic of hunter-gatherer societies more generally while being distinct from the social structures of, e.g., the Bantu-speaking peoples. Kinship practices are also central to indigenous Bushman social relations.

Barnard, Alan. 1979. Kalahari Bushman settlement patterns. In Philip Burnham and Roy F. Ellen (eds.), Social and ecological systems. London: Academic Press (A.S.A. Monographs 18). pp 131–44.

Barnard, Alan. 1980. Basarwa settlement patterns in the Ghanzi ranching area. Botswana notes and records 12: 137–48.

Barnard, Alan. 1986. Rethinking Bushman settlement patterns and territoriality. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 7(1): 41–60.

Barnard, Alan. 1992. Social and spatial boundary maintenance among southern African hunter-gatherers. In Michael J. Casimir and Aparna Rao (eds.), Mobility and territoriality: social and spatial boundaries among foragers, fishers, pastoralists and peripatetics. New York: Berg Publishers. pp 137–51.

These four papers each present a different, but related, understanding of Bushman settlement patterns. The first characterizes Bushman settlement in terms of a continuum from more territorial to less territorial. The second examines variation in one specific area, the Ghanzi farm block. The third and fourth are, in a slightly more direct sense, contributions to the Kalahari debate in that they examine relations between ethnic groups and the definition of property rights. The third, in particular, takes into account Wilmsen’s critique of the !Kung ethnography of Lee and Marshall.

Barnard, Alan. 1986. The present condition of Bushman groups. Edinburgh: Centre of African Studies (Occastional Paper No. ***)

Barnard, Alan. 1987. Une population encerclÇe: les Bushmen. Ethnies 6–7: 37–46.

These two papers (now slightly dated) are virtually identical, though the former has a more extensive bibliography and the latter, accompanying photographs. The former is now out of print.

Barnard, Alan. 1988. Structure and fluidity in Khoisan religious ideas. Journal of religion in Africa 18: 216–36.

This paper argues for a consideration of Khoisan religion as a flexible belief system, which nevertheless possesses structures which transcend ethnic group, and even hunter-herder, boundaries.

Biesele, Megan. 1978. Sapience and scarce resources: Communication systems of the !Kung and other foragers. Informations sur les sciences sociales / Social science information 17(6): 921–47.

Biesele, Megan, with Robert Gordon and Richard Lee (eds.). 1986. The past and future of !Kung ethnography: critical reflections and symbolic perspectives, essays in honour of Lorna Marshall. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 4).

A collection of 15 papers, though not all of them are very original or of relevance for present concerns. Among the most relevant are:

Gordon, Robert. Once again: How many Bushmen are there?. pp 53–68.

Gordon, Robert. A Namibian perspective on Lorna Marshall’s ethnography. pp 359–74.

Guenther, Mathias G. ‘San’ or ‘Bushmen’?. pp 27–51.

Hitchcock, Robert K. Ethnographic research and socioeconomic development among Kalahari San: Some tables. pp 375–423.

Konner, Melvin and Marjorie Shostak. Ethnographic romanticism and the idea of human nature: parallels between Samoa and the !Kung San. pp 69–76.

Wiessner, Polly. !Kung San networks in a generational perspective. pp 103–36.

Of these, Gordon’s latter paper is one which stands out. Interestingly, he looks at images of the Bushmen as seen through some little-known popular works of the Afrikaans volkekunde school (see also section 8, below). As Gordon notes, genocide is rarely mentioned; yet the Bushmen are forever portrayed as ‘dying out’.

Wiessner’s paper is important too for its suggestion that continued hunting and gathering activities are best seen as a niche which !Kung exploit rather than as a product of isolation. She demonstrates hxaro (gift-giving) networks between hunters and farm-based !Kung, over a vast area, for three generations.

Konner and Shostak’s paper alludes to the recent debate sparked by Derek Freeman’s critique of Margaret Mead’s Samoan research of the 1920s. This has parallels to the literary aspects of the Kalahari Debate (see section 7, below).

Biesele, Megan, Mathias Guenther, Robert Hitchcock, Richard Lee, and Jean MacGregor. 1989. Hunters, clients, and squatters: the contemporary socioeconomic status of Botswana Basarwa. African study monographs 9: 109–51.

Brownlee, Frank. 1943. The social organization of the !Kung (!Un) Bushmen of the North-western Kalahari. Africa 14: 124–29.

A little-known paper by a colonial adminstrator.

Cashdan, Elizabeth A. 1977. Subsistence, mobility, and territorial organization among the //Ganakwe of the northeastern Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Botswana. Unpublished report to the Botswana government.

Cashdan, Elizabeth Ann. 1979. Trade and reciprocity among the River Bushmen of Northern Botswana. Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico.

This dissertation, along with papers based on it, are of great interest for the Kalahari debate. Cashdan’s ‘River Bushmen’ are not those of the Okavango but those of the Botletli (Boteti), including Deti, G//ana, and others. Much of her work centres on comparisons between different groups, some mainly foragers and some mainly food producers, in the eastern Kalahari. Thus it has particular relevance for the interpretation of archaeolgical material such as that which Denbow and Wilmsen are now working on in the same area.

Cashdan, Elizabeth A. 1980. Property and social insurance among the //Gana. Deuxiäme congräs international sur les sociÇtÇs chasseurs-cuelliers / Second International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies. Quebec: DÇpt. d’anthropologie, UniversitÇ Laval. pp 717–34.

Cashdan, Elizabeth A. 1980. Egalitarianism among hunters and gatherers. American anthropologist 82: 116–20.

Cashdan, Elizabeth. 1983. Territoriality among human foragers: ecological models and an application to four Bushman groups. Current anthropology 24: 47–66.

Similar to Barnard, ref. ***. A regional comparative study of four well-known groups

Cashdan, Elizabeth. 1984. G//ana territorial organization. Human ecology 12: 443–63.

Cashdan, Elizabeth. 1984. The effects of food production on mobility in the central Kalahari. In J. Desmond Clark and Stephen A. Brandt (eds.), From hunters to farmers: the causes and consequences of food production in Africa. Berkeley, University of California Press. pp 311–27.

Cashdan, Elizabeth A. 1985. Coping with risk: Reciprocity among the Basarwa of Northern Botswana. Man (n.s.) 20: 454–74.

Cashdan, Elizabeth. 1986. Hunter-gatherers of the northern Kalahari. In Rainer Vossen and Klaus Keuthmann (eds.), Contemporary studies on Khoisan 1. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung, Vol. 5.1). pp 145–80.

Cashdan, Elizabeth A. 1986. Competition between foragers and food producers on the Botletli River, Botswana. Africa 56: 299–318.

Cashdan, Elizabeth A. 1987. Trade and its origins on the Botletli River, Botswana. Journal of anthropological research 43: 121–38.

Cashdan, Elizabeth A. and William J. Cahsko, Jr. 1976. Report on the Bakgalagadi settlements of Molapo and /oÿwe in the Central Reserve. Gaborone: Ministry of Local Government and Lands.

Cashdan, Elizabeth A. and William J. Chasko, Jr. 1977. People of the middle and upper Nata River area: Origins, population, economics and health. Unpublished report to the Botswana government.

Childers, Gary W. 1976. Report on the survey/investigation of the Ghanzi farm Basarwa situation. Gaborone: Government Printer.

Dart, Raymond A. 1937. The hut distribution, genealogy and homogeneity of the /?auni-ÿkhomani Bushmen. Bantu studies 11: 159–74.

Draper, Patricia. 1975. !Kung women: contrasts in sexual egalitarianism in foraging and sedentary contexts. In Rayna P. Reiter (ed.), Toward an anthropology of women. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp 77–109.

Draper, Patricia. 1975. Cultural pressure on sex differences. American ethnologist 2: 602–16.

Draper, Patricia. 1978. The learning environment for aggression and anti-social behavior among the !Kung. In Ashley Montagu (ed.), Learning non-aggression: the experience of non-literate societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp 31–53.

Draper, Patricia and Elizabeth Cashdan. 1988. Technological change and child behaviour among the !Kung. Ethnology 27: 339–65.

Eibl-Eibesfeldt, IrenÑus. 1974. The myth of the aggression-free hunter and gatherer society. In R.L. Holloway (ed.), Primate aggression, territoriality and xenophobia. New York: Academic Press. pp 435–57.

One of Eibl-Eibesfeldt’s many papers on !Xì aggression. Their aggression is the result, not of contact with the outside world, but of human nature inherent in ‘isolated’ Bushman societies themselves. Thus he disagrees with peace-theory isolationsists (e.g., Elizabeth Marshall Thomas) and the war-theory integrationists (e.g., Robert Gordon) alike.

Estermann, Carlos. 1946–49. Quelques observations sur les Bochimans !kung de l’Angola mÇridionale. Anthropos 41–44(4–6): 711–22.

The earliest ethnographer of the !Kung of Angola, Father Estermann spent virtually his whole adult life in the area. (See also refs. *** and ***.)

Gordon, Robert. 1985. Conserving Bushmen to extinction in southern Africa: the metaphysics of Bushman hating and empire building. Survival International review 44: 22–42.

Gordon, Robert. 1987. Point de vue: fait-il approuver les projets de ‘conservatoires culturels’? Le cas des Bushmen de Namibie et de l’Afrique du Sud. Ethnies 6–7: 47–53.

The latter piece is extracted and from the former. Ethnies is the journal of Survival International France. This issue contains articles on several threatened African populations (cf. Barnard, ref. ***), though Gordon’s goes against the trend in questioning the notion of ‘conserving’ Bushman culture.

There is also a German version of the longer piece in Peripherie 20: 18–25 (1985), reprinted in E. Wiedenroth et al. (eds.), Afrika: Mythos, Rassimus, SolidartÑt (Mainz, 1986).

Guenther, Mathias G. 1973. Farm Bushmen and mission Bushmen: socio-cultural change in a setting of conflict and pluralism of the San of the Ghanzi District, Republic of Botswana. Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto.

Guenther, Mathias G. 1974. Farm Bushmen: socio-cultural change and incorporation of the San of the Ghanzi district, Republic of Botswana. Unpublished report to the Botswana government.

These two works by Guenther are virtually identical. They represent the first in-depth study to be carried out on the processes of social change in Bushman society. Earlier works on Bushman-outsider relations tended to be peripheral to the main interests of the ethnographers involved and to be focused on the outsiders rather than on the Bushmen.

Guenther, Mathias G. 1975. San acculturation and incorporation in the ranching areas of the Ghanzi district: Some urgent anthropological issues. Botswana notes and records 7: 167–70.

Guenther, Mathias G. 1977. Bushman hunters as farm labourers. Revue canadienne des Çtudes africaines / Canadian journal of African studies 11: 195–203.

Guenther, Mathias G. 1983. BuschmÑnner (Nharo). In Klaus E. MÅller (ed.), Menschenbilder frÅher Gesellschaften: Ethnologische Studien Zum VerhÑltnis von Mensch und Natur. Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag. pp 75–107.

Guenther, Mathias G. 1986. Acculturation and assimilation of the Bushmen of Botswana and Namibia. In Rainer Vossen and Klaus Keuthmann (eds.), Contemporary studies on Khoisan 1. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 5.1). pp 346–73.

Guenther, Mathias G. 1986. From foragers to miners and bands to bandits: On the flexibility and adaptability of Bushman band societies. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 7(1): 133–59.

These five articles are but a few of Guenther’s numberous publications on social change among the Nharo. The highlight the processes of incorporation of Bushman groups into outside economic activities, while nevertheless regarding Bushmen as still belonging to ‘ethnic’ groups. Indeed, ethnicity is one of Guenther’s main interests. Yet his interest in these papers is in recent rather than nineteenth-century changes in Bushman society.

To put it simply, Guenther’s work has both isolationist and revisionist elements. He has recently aligned himself with broadly with the former (see ref. ***).

Guenther, Mathias G. 1981. Bushman and hunter-gatherer territoriality. Zeitschrift fÅr Ethnologie 106: 109–20.

Along with Cashdan (ref. ***) an important overview of the territoriality debate, which has potential for incorporation into the ‘Great Debate’ of concern here.

Guenther, Mathias G. 1979. The farm Bushmen of the Ghanzi District, Botswana. Stuttgart: Hochschul Verlag.

Guenther, Mathias G. 1986. The Nharo Bushmen of Botswana: tradition and change. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 3).

Guenther, Mathias G. 1989. Bushman folktales: oral traditions of the Nharo of Botswana and the /Xam of the Cape. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden.

These three books consider themes drawn out in Guenther’s shorter works. The first is a paraphrase of earlier his papers and Ph.D. dissertation on the pluralist nature of Ghanzi society. The second is an ethnography of the Nharo (Bleek’s Naron). The third, although ostensibly a book on folktales, actually has a great deal to say about ethnicity, culture contact, and processes of incorporation, as these are revealed in the folkore of the Nharo and the /Xam.

Gusinde, Martin. 1966. Von gelben und schwarzen BuschmÑnnern. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt.

Heinz, H.J. 1966. The social organization of the !kì Bushmen. M.A. thesis, University of South Africa.

Heinz, H.J. 1972. Territoriality among the Bushmen in general and the !ko in particular. Anthropos 67: 405–16.

Heinz, H.J. 1975. Elements of !ko Bushmen religious beliefs. Anthropos 70: 17–41.

Heinz, H.J. 1975. Acculturation problems arising in a Bushman development scheme. South African journal of science 71: 78–85.

Heinz, H.J. 1979. The nexus complex among the !xì Bushmen of Botswana. Anthropos 74: 465–80.

Heinz, H.J. n.d. [ca. 1970–73]. The people of the Okavango delta. Unpublished manuscripts.

I. The /xokwe Bugakwe

II. The end of a people (the swamp //anekwe)

III. The river //anekwe

IV. The /andakwe Bugakwe

V. The Tzexa

VI. Tales and fables of the //anekwe, Yei, and Bugakwe

These manuscripts are currently being edited for publication in the series Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung (Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg).

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1978. Kalahari cattle posts: a regional study of hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, and agriculturalists in the western sandveld region, Central District, Botswana (2 vols.). Gaborone: Ministry of Local Government and Lands.

A very important study in its depth of statistical and other documentation. Its relevance to the present debate is its detail on the recent occupation of the eastern Kalahari, the use of water and other resources, and, implicity, relations between Bushmen, Tswana, and other groups in the area.

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1980. Tradition, social justice and land reform in central Botswana. Journal of African law 24: 1–34. (Reprinted in ref. ***).

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1982. The ethnoarchaeology of sedentism: mobility strategies and site structure among foraging and food producing populations in the eastern Kalahari Desert, Botswana. Ph.D. dissertation, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1982. Patterns of sedentism among the Basarwa of eastern Botswana. In Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee (eds.), Politics and history in band societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paris: êditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. pp 223–68.

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1985. Foragers on the move: San survival strategies in Botswana parks and reserves. Cultural Survival quarterly 9(1): 31–36.

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1987. Socioeconomic change among the Basarwa in Botswana: An ethnohistorical analysis. Ethnohistory 34: 220–55.

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1987. Sedentism and site structures: organizational changes in Kalahari Basarwa residential locations. In Susan Kent (ed.), Method and theory for activity area research: an ethnoarchaeological approach. New York: Columbia University Press. pp 374–423.

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1988. Settlement, seasonality, and subsistence stress among the Tyua of northern Botswana. In Rebecca Huss-Ashmore, with John J. Curry and Robert K. Hitchcock (eds.), Coping with seasonal constraints. Philadelphia: The University Museum, University of Pennsylvania (MASCA Research Papers in Science and Archaeology, Vol. 5). pp 65–85.

Hitchcock, Robert K. 1988. Decentralization and development among the Ju/Wasi, Namibia. Cultural Survival quarterly 12(3): 31–33.

Hitchcock, Robert K. and Rodney Branddenburgh. 1990. Tourism, conservation and culture in the Kalahari desert, Botswana. Cultural Survival quarterly 14: 20–24.

Hitchcock, Robert K. and James I. Ebert. 1984. Foraging and food production among Kalahari hunter/gatherers. In J. Desmond Clarck and Steven A. Brandt (eds.), From hunters to farmers: the causes and consequences of food production in Africa. Berkeley, University of California Press. pp 328–48.

Hitchcock, Robert K. and James I. Ebert. 1989. Modeling Kalahari hunter-gatherer subsistence and settlement systems. Implications for development policy and land use planning in Botswana. Anthropos 84: 47–62.

Hitchcock, Robert K. and John D. Holm. 1985. Political development among the Basarwa of Botswana. Cultural Survival quarterly 9(3): 7–11.

Howell, Nancy. 1979. Demography of the Dobe !Kung. New York: Academic Press.

Katz, Richard. 1982. Boiling energy: community healing among the Kalahari Kung. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kent, Susan. 1988. Changing mobility patterns and diversity among former nomadic foragers of the Kalahari, Botswana. Paper presented at the Fifth International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies, Darwin, N.T., Australia, August-September 1988.

Kent, Susan. 1989. And justice for all: the development of political centralization among newly sedentary foragers. American anthropologist 91: 703–12.

Kent, Susan. 1989. The cycle that repeats: shifting subsistence strategies among Kalahari Basarwa. Paper presented at the 88^th annual meeting of the Ameican Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.

Kent, Susan and Helga Vierich. 1989. The myth of ecological determinism — anticipated mobility and site spatial organization. In Susan Kent (ed.), Farmers as hunters — the implications of sedentism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp 96–130.

Kîhler, Oswin. 1989-. Die Welt de KxoÇ-Buschleute im sÅdlichen Afrika. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.

Band I: Die KxoÇ-Buschleute und ihre ethnische Umbgebung. 1989.

Band II: Die Grundlagen des Lebens. 1991.

Band III: Materielle AusrÅstung. In press, 1992.

Band IV: Familie und Gesellschaft. In preparation.

Band V [as yet untitled]. In preparation.

Kîhler has been conducting linsuistic and ethnographic research with the Kxoe of the Caprivi Strip for over forty years. His extensive publications, for the most part, do not touch directly on the main issues of the current debate (but for bibliography see volumes listed above or Barnard, ref. ***). The present, very expensive, series comprises numerous short informants’ accounts in the KxoÇ language, with German translations and extensive footnotes, as well as excellent photographs. The volume of most relevance here is the first, which describes the Kxoe in their ‘ethnic environment’. Included in it are accounts of slavery, raiding, and trade in past times.

A review by Wilmsen of the first two volumes is to appear shortly in American ethnologist.

Lee, Richard B. 1965. Subsistence ecology of !Kung Bushmen. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California at Berkeley.

The classic study, widely circulated but never published in its original form. In spite of later recriminations on the part of others, Lee does describe both the !Kung and their pastoralist neighbours, though he does emphasize the relative isolation of the !Kung in comparison to other Bushman groups.

Lee, Richard B. 1969. !Kung Bushman subsistence: an input-output analysis. In David Dama (ed.), Contributions to anthropology: ecological essays. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada (Bulletin No. 230). pp 73–94. (Reprinted in ref. ***.)

Lee, Richard B. 1969. Eating Christmas in the Kalahari. Natural history December 1969: 14–22, 60–63. (Reprinted in ref. ***.)

Lee, Richard B. 1972. Population growth and the beginnings of sedentary life among the !Kung Bushmen. In Brian Spooner (ed.), Population growth: anthropological implications. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. pp 329–42.

Lee, Richard B. 1972. The intensification of social life among the !Kung Bushmen. In Brian Spoonner (ed.), Population growth: anthropolgical implications. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press. pp 343–50.

Lee, Richard B. 1972. Work effort, group structure and land use in contemporary hunter-gatherers. In P.J. Ucko, R. Tringham, and D.W. Dimbleby (eds.), Man, settlement and urbanism. London: Duckworth. pp 177–85.

Lee, Richard B. 1972. !Kung spatial organization: an ecological and historical perspective. Human ecology 1(2): 125–47. (Reprinted in ref. ***.)

Lee, Richard B. 1972. The !Kung Bushmen of Botswana. In M.G. Bicchieri (ed.), Hunters and gatherers today. New York: Holt Rinehart and Winston. pp 327–68.

Lee, Richard B. 1973. Mongongo: the ethnography of a major wild food resource. Ecology of food and nutrition 2: 307–321. (Reprinted in ref. ***.)

Lee, Richard B. 1974. Male-female arrangements and political power in human hunter-gatherers. Archives of sexual behavior 3(2): 167–73.

Lee, Richard B. 1979. Hunter-gatherers in process: the Kalahari Research project, 1963–1976. In George M. Foster, Thayer Scudder, Elizabeth Colson, and Robert V. Kemper (eds.), Long-term field research in social anthropology. New York: Academic Press. pp 303–21.

Lee, Richard B. 1979. The !Kung San: men, women, and work in a foraging society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lee, Richard B. 1981 [1978]. Politics, sexual and nonsexual, in an egalitarian society: the !Kung San. In Gerald D. Berreman (ed.), Social inequality: comparative and developmental approaches. New York: Academic Press. pp 83–102.

Lee, Richard B. 1984. The Dobe !Kung. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Lee, Richard B. and Irven DeVore (eds.). 1976. Kalahari hunter-gatherers: studies of the !Kung San and their neighbors. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Papers of relevance to the Kalahari Debate include these, among others:

Blurton Jones, Nicolas and Melvin J. Konner. !Kung knowledge of animal behavior (or: the proper study of mankind is animals). pp 325–48, 402.

Guenther, Mathias G. From hunters to squatters: social and cultural change among the Ghanzi farm Bushmen. pp 120–33.

Harpending, Henry. Regional variation in !Kung populations. pp 152–65, 398.

Tanaka, Jiro. Subsistence ecology of the Central Kalahari San. pp 98–119.

Yellen, John E. Settlement patterns of the !Kung: an archaeological perspective. pp 47–72.

Yellen, John E. and Richard B. Lee. The Dobe-/Du/da environment. pp 27–46.

Lee, Richard and Susan Hurlich. 1982. From foragers to fighters: South Africa’s militarization of the Namibian San. In Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee (eds.), Politics and history in band societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press / Paris: êditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. pp 327–45.

Marshall, John and Claire Ritchie. 1984. Where are the Ju/wasi of Nyae Nyae? Changes in a Bushman society: 1958–1981. Cape Town: Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town (Communications No. 9).

Marshall, Lorna. 1960. !Kung Bushman bands. Africa 30: 325–55. (Reprinted in ref. ***.)

Marshall, Lorna. 1961. Sharing, talking, and giving: relief of social tensions among !Kung Bushmen. Africa 31: 231–49. (Reprinted in ref. *** and in ref. ***.)

Marshall, Lorna. 1965. The !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. In James L. Gibbs, Jr. (ed), Peoples of Africa. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp 241–78.

Marshall, Lorna. 1976. The !Kung of Nyae Nyae. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Oliveira Santos, Carlos A.M. de. 1958. Os Vassekele do Cuando — ContribuiáÉo para o seu estudo. Lisbon: Intituto Superior de Estudos Ultramarinos.

The Vassekele (Sekele) are the northeasternmost !Kung. They inhabit the area between the Okavango and Cuando rivers, the latter marking the border between Angola and Zambia. They live among Bantu-speaking agriculturalists and have long practised agriculture themselves.

Osaki, Masakazu. 1990. The influence of sedentism on sharing among the central Kalahari hunter-gatherers. African study monographs 12: 59–87.

Potgieter, E.F. 1955. The disappearing Bushmen of Lake Chrissie: a preliminary survey. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik.

Lake Crissie is in the eastern Transvaal. This short book is interesting because it reveals some apparent Khoe features in Batwa (//Xegwi) culture and because of the process of acculturation to Swazi and Zulu ways which is depicted.

Reining, H. and Wendy Wortley. 1973. Psychological studies of the Bushmen. Johannesburg: National Institute for Personal Research (Psychologia Africana Monograph Supplement No. 7).

From a hardened, cultural anthropological point of view, one of the oddest monographs ever to appear. Includes the results of ‘tests’ of clay modelling, mosaic contruction, musical preference, sand drawing, etc., among ‘“wild” Bushmen’, ‘borehole Bushmen’, and other categories of Bushmen. Among the conclusions: ‘There is no indication, as far as we can see, of any mental shortcomings in Bushmen ....’ On the contrary, Bushmen were found to be highly endowed with manual dexterity, artistic abilities, and knowledge which ‘could be of tremendous benefit to mankind’ (pp 104–05). While the conclusions do not at all surprise me, the presuppositions of the psychologists are perhaps worthy of study.

Ritchie, Clare. 1987. The political economy of resource tenure in the Kalahari: San survival in Namibia and Botswana. M.A. thesis, Boston University.

Sheller, Paul. 1977. The people of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve: A report on the reconnaissance of the Reserve, July — September 1976. Gaborone. Unpublished report.

Silberbauer, George B. 1965. Report to the Government of Bechuanaland on the Bushman Survey. Gaberones [Gaborone]: Bechuanaland Government.

The ‘Bushman Survey Report’, as it is often called, is the result of Silberbauer’s six years as Bushman Survey Officer of the Bechuanaland Government. Though a classic, it is now superseded by his Hunter and habitat in the central Kalahari desert.

Silberbauer, George B. 1972. The G/wi Bushmen. In M.G. Bicchieri (ed.), Hunters and gatherers today. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp 271–326.

Silberbauer, George B. 1973. Socio-ecology of the G/wi Bushmen. Ph.D. thesis, Monash University.

Silberbauer, George B. 1979. Social hibernation: the response of the G/wi band to seasonal drought. In Madalon T. Hinchey (ed.), Symposium on drought in Botswana. Gaborone: The Botswana Society, in collaboration with Clarck *** University Press. pp 112–20.

Silberbauer, George B. 1981. Hunter and habitat in the central Kalahari desert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Based on the author’s thesis (ref. ***), this is among the very finest works on any Khoisan people. Silberbauer is particularly skilled at capturing the ethos of G/wi socio-ecology. He manages to explain this simultaneously as the G/wi see it and as a scientific observer would understand it. Thus he rises splendidly above the extremes of both positivism and romanticism, though his reliance on a fixed ‘ethnographic present’ of the early 1960s leaves his open to revisionist criticism.

Silberbauer, George B. 1982. [Review of Tanaka, ref. ***.] Man (n.s.) 17: 803–04.

In general, I have avoided considering book reviews in this essay, but this one merits inclusion because of its special relevance in what can be regarded as a side-debate between Silberbauer (with his description of band-based group structure) and Tanaka (with his assertion of more random movements of individuals). Silberberbauer tries to account for such contradictions and concludes that transformations took place in group structure in the late 1960s, after his own fieldwork but before or at the time of Tanaka’s (see also ref. ***).

Silberbauer, George B. 1982. Political process in G/wi bands. In Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee (eds.), Politics and history in band societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paris: êditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. pp 23–35.

Steyn, H.P. 1971. Die socio-ekonomiese lewe van die Nharo. M.A. thesis, Universiteit van Stellenbosch.

Steyn, H.P. 1971. Aspects of the economic life of some nomadic Nharo Bushman groups. Annals of the South African Museum 56: 275–322.

Steyn, H.P. 1980. Die San versus die patrilineere bende. Ethnologie / Ethnology (South African journal of ethnology) 3: 9–17.

Sugawara, Kazuyoshi. 1984. Spatial proximity and bodily contact among the Central Kalahari San. African study monographs, Supplementary Issue No. 3, pp 1–43.

Sugawara, Kazuyoshi. 1988. Visiting relations and social interactions between residential groups of the Central Kalahari San: hunter-gatherer camp as a micro-territory. African study monographs 8: 173–211.

Sugawara, Kazuyoshi. 1991. The economics of social life among the Central Kalahari San (G//anakhwe and G/wikhwe) in the sedentary community at !Koi!kom. Senri ethnological studies 30: 91–116.

Tanaka, Jiro. 1969. The ecology and social structure of Central Kalahari Bushmen: A preliminary report. Kyoto University African studies 3: 1–26.

Tanaka, Jiro. 1979. A study of the comparative ecology of African gatherer-hunters with special reference to San (Bushman-speaking people) and Pygmies. Senri ethnological studies 1: 189–212.

Tanaka, Jiro. 1980 [1971]. The San, hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari: a study in ecological anthropology (trans. by David W. Hughes). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.

Ostensibly a translation of Tanaka’s Busshuman: Seitai jinruigakuteki kenkyu (first published in 1971 by Shisaku-sha, Tokyo), though extensively updated. Takaka takes a broadly environmental-determinist line. The strength of the book lies in its documentation of precise numbers of animals killed, details of plant species exploited, exact movements of individuals and bands, etc. (cf. ref. ***).

The translation was commissioned by Edwin Wilmsen.

Tanaka, Jiro. 1982. Adaptation to arid envirnment: a comparative study of hunter-gatherers and pastoralists in Africa. African study monographs, Supplementary Issue 1, pp 1–12.

Tanaka, Jiro. 1987. The recent changes in the life and society of the Central Kalahari San. African study monographs 7: 37–51.

Tanaka, Jiro. 1989. Social integration of the San society from the viewpoint of sexual relationships. African study monographs 9: 153–65.

Tanaka, Jiro. 1991. Egalitarianism and the cash economy among central Kalahari San. Senri ethnological studies 30: 117–34.

Tobias, P.V. 1964. Bushman hunter-gatherers: a study in human ecology. In D.H.S. Davies (ed.), Ecological studies in southern Africa. The Hague: Junk. pp 67–86.

Tobias, Phillip V. (ed.). 1978. The Bushmen: San hunters and herders of southern Africa. Cape Town and Pretoria: Human and Rousseau.

Hailed as a definitive statement of the Bushmen, possibly the last to be produced from an evolutionist-ecological point of view. In retrospect, it seems naively isolationist, but it is well-produced, very well illustated, and does contain a number of excellent papers. The contents is worth listing in full:

Tobias, Phillip V. Introduction to the Bushmen or San, pp 1–15.

Tobias, Phillip V. The San: an evolutionary perspective. pp 16–32.

Inskeep, Ray R. The Bushmen in Prehistory. pp 33–56.

Rudner, Jalmar and Ione. Bushman art. pp 57–75.

Jeffreys, M.D.W. An epitaph to the Bushmen. pp 88–93.

Singer, Ronald. The biology of the San. pp 115–29.

Traill, A. The languages of the Bushmen. pp 137–47.

Heinz, Hans J. The Bushmen’s store of scientific knowledge. pp 148–61.

Biesele, Megan. Religion and folklore. pp 162–72.

Heinz, Hans J. The Bushmen in a changing world. pp 173–78.

Silberbauer, George B. The future of the Bushmen. pp 179–86.

Valiente Noailles, Carlos. 1988. El circulo y el fuego: sociedad y derecho de los k£a. Buenos Aires: Ediar.

Valiente Noailles, Carlos. 1991. Homme-femme: diffÇrenciation et complÇmentaritÇ chez les Kua (Bochiman) de la rÇserve centrale du Kalahari au Botswana. Bulletin annuel du MusÇe d’Ethnographie de Genäve, No 31–32 [pp 1–64].

These works examine the changing social structure, inter-group, and ecological relations among the G//ana, Kgalagari, and others in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Valiente Noailles uses the term Kua as a generic label for ‘Bushmen’. He is, at present, completing an English-language book on these groups, under contract with A.A. Balkema (Rotterdam).

Vedder, H. 1937. Die BuschmÑnner sÅdafrikas und ihre Weltanschauung. South African journal of science 34: 416–36.

Viegas Guerreiro, Manuel. 1968. Bochimanes !khñ de Angola: Estudo ethnogr†fico. Lisbon: Instituto de InvestigaáÉo Cientifica de Angola, Junta de Investigaáìes do Ultramar.

A very important ethnography of the Angolan !Kung. It is especially useful in pointing out details of ways in which the culture of Angolan groups differs from that of the !Kung of Nyae Nyae (studied by Marshall) and Dobe (studied by Lee). It also contains a good deal of comparison between eastern (Sekele) and western (Kwankala) Angolan !Kung groups.

Vierich-Esche, Helga. 1977. Interim report on Basarwa and related poor Bakgalagadi in Kweneng District. Gaborone: Ministry of Local Government and Lands.

Vierich, Helga. 1982. The Kua of the southern Kalahari: A study of the socio-ecology of dependency. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto.

Vierich, Helga. 1982. Adaptive flexibility in a multi-ethnic setting: the Basarwa of the southern Kalahari. In Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee (eds.), Politics and history in band societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paris: êditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. pp 213–22.

Widlok, Thomas. n.d. Social relations between hunter-gatherers and their neighbours. The case of the Hai//om of northern Namibia. Thesis to be submitted to the University of London. ***

Widlok’s thesis is currently in progress. In it, the author intends to examine the construction of the ethnic identity of the Hai//om in light of their subsistence and social strategies. He will argue that the Hai//om are best described neither as a peripheral underclass nor as a marginalized pristine group of hunter-gatherers, but as a diverse people with complex relations with outside groups.

Wiessner, Polly. 1977. Hxaro: a regional system of reciprocity for reducing risk among the !Kung San (2 vols.). Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Wiessner, Polly. 1980. Hunting and continuity in !Kung San reciprocal relationships. In Deuxiäme congres international sur les sociÇtÇs de chasseurs-collecteurs / Second International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies. QuÇbec: Dept. d’anthropologie, UniversitÇ Laval. pp 766–91.

Wiessner, Polly. 1982. Risk, reciprocity, and social influence on !Kung San economics. In Eleanor Leacock and Richard Lee (eds.), Politics and history in band societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. / Paris: êditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. pp 61–84.

Wily, Elizabeth. 1982. Botswana’s development strategy for its indigenous desert people, the Kalahari Bushmen. In United Nations Institute for Training and Research — Alternative strategies for desert development and management, Vol. 4. New York: Pergamon Press, pp 1108–21.

Wily, Elizabeth. 1982. A strategy of self-determination for the Kalahari San (The Botswana government’s programme of action in the Ghanzi farms). Development and change 13: 291–308.

Some of the publications mentioned above appear in the series Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung. This series is edited by Rainer Vossen (formerly of Cologne and Bayreuth, now at the University of Munich) and comprises seven works to date and more in the pipeline. It is the only multi-author series devoted specifically to the publication of material on the Khoisan. Volumes volumes to date, in numerical order, are as follows:

Traill, A. 1985. Phonetic and phonological studies of !X¢ì Bushman. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 1).

Hewitt, Roger L. 1986. Structure, meaning and ritual in the narratives of the Southern San. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 2).

Guenther, Mathias G. 1986. The Nharo Bushmen of Botswana: tradition and change. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 3).

Detailed above as ref. ***.

Biesele, Megan, with Robert Gordon and Richard Lee (eds.). 1986. The past and future of !Kung ethnography: critical reflections and symbolic perspectives, essays in honour of Lorna Marshall. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 4).

Detailed above as ref. ***.

Vossen, Rainer and Klauss Keuthmann (eds.). 1986. Contemporary studies on Khoisan: in honour of Oswin Kîhler on the occasion of his 75^th birthday (2 vols.). Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 5.1 and 5.2).

This festschrift for Oswin Kîhler includes a wide variety of articles on linguistic, historical, social, and cultural issues. Some are discussed elsewhere in this essay.

Schmidt, Sigrid. 1989. Katalog der Khoisan-VolkserzÑhlungen des sÅdlichen Afrikas / Catalogue of the Khoisan Folktales of southern Africa (2 vols.). Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 6.1 and 6.2).

Q.K.F. 6.1 is subtitled Quellen und Register / Sources and Indices, and Q.K.F. 6.2. is subtitled Die ErzÑhlungen / The tales. In spite of the English in the title, the tales are given in German only.

Vossen, Rainer (ed.). 1988. New perspectives on the study of Khoisan. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 7).

Like volumes 5.1 and 5.2, a mixture of things from phonetics to the forager controversy. Several of relevance to the latter will be discussed later in this essay.

Ethnography of the Bushmen’s neighbours

There is, of course, a vast amount of literature on groups which are in contact with and culturally related to Bushmen. Influences include that of other Khoisan peoples (namely the Khoekhoe and Damara), Bantu-speaking populations (themselves quite disparate), and groups of European origin. The ethnography of neighbouring peoples will be kept to a bare minimum here, and will be presented in the following order: (1) Khoisan, (2) Angolan, (3) Southern Bantu-speakers, (4) black-Bushman relations, (5) white-Bushman relations, and (6) general studies.

Khoisan ethnography includes studies of the Khoekhoe populations of South Africa, Botswana, and especially Namibia, and also studies of the Damara. The Khoekhoe include the Nama, the Korana, Cape Khoekhoe, and some smaller groups. Many Damara in Namibia, as well as Nama, now use the term Khoekhoe (‘people of people’) as a self-referent, although others prefer to emphasize their distinctness, while still others do not like any premise of ethnicity at all.

Budack, K.F.R. 1977. The ÿAonin or Topnaar of the lower !Kuiseb valley and the sea. In A. Traill (ed.), Khoisan linguistic Studies 3. Johannesburg: African Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand. pp 1–42.

Budack, K.F.R. 1983. A harvesting people on the South Atlantic coast. Ethnologie / Ethnology (South African journal of ethnology) 6(2): 1–7.

Budack, K.F.R. 1986. Die Klassifikation der Khwe-khwen (Naman) in SÅdwestafrika. In Rainer Vossen and Klaus Keuthmann (eds.), Contemporary studies on Khoisan 1. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 5.1). pp 107–43.

These papers are on Nama groups. The former two are highly relevant to the question of the forager/non-forager divide within Khoisan society itself.

Carstens, W. Peter. 1969. Some aspects of Khoikhoi (Hottentot) settlement patterns in historical perspective. In David Damas (ed.), Contributions to anthropology: ecological essays. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada (Bulletin No. 230). pp 95–101.

Carstens, Peter. 1983. The inheritance of private property among the Nama of southern Africa reconsidered. Africa 53: 58–70.

Engelbrecht, J.A. 1936. The Korana: an account of their customs and their history, with texts. Cape Town: Maskew Miller.

HoernlÇ, A. Winifred. 1923. South-West Africa as a primitive culture area. South African geographical journal. 6: 14–28.

HoernlÇ, A. Winifred. 1923. The expression of the social value of water among the Nama of South West Africa. South Africa journal of science 20: 514–26.

Really about the social-ecological value of water. Reprinted in ref. ***.

HoernlÇ, A. Winifred. 1925. The social organization of the Nama Hottentots of Southwest Africa. American anthropologist 27: 1–24.

The classic statement on Khoekhoe social organization. Reprinted in ref. ***.

HoernlÇ, A. Winifred. 1985. The social organization of the Nama and other essays (edited by Peter Carstens). Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

HoernlÇ, A. Winifred. 1987. Trails in the thirstland: the anthropological field diaries of Winifred Hoernle (edited by Peter Carstens, Gerald Klinghardt, and Martin West). Cape Town: Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town (Communications No. 14).

Kîhler, Oswin. 1969. Die Topnaar-Hottentotten am untern Kuiseb. In Ethnological and linguistic studies in honour of N.J. van Warmelo. Pretoria: Government Printer (Ethnological Publications, No. 52).

Maingard, L.F. 1932. Studies in Korana history, customs and language. Bantu studies 6: 103–62.

Vedder, Heinrich. 1923. Die Bergdama (2 vols). Hamburg: L. Friedrichsen & Co.

Vedder, Heinrich. 1930. Die Bergdama in SÅdwest-Afrika. Africa 3: 178–90.

Wuras, C.F. 1929. An account of the ÔKorana. Bantu studies 3: 287–96.

There is a large body of Portuguese literature on the peoples of southern Angola, almost all of it written prior to the civil war. There is also a growing literature on the Central Bantu-speaking peoples of Botswana and Namibia. These groups are linguistically and culturally distinct from Southern Bantu-speakers such as the Tswana, Kgalagari, Xhosa, Zulu, etc., who inhabit most of southern Africa. Central-Bantu-speakers include Herero, Ovambo, Mbukushu, and other pastoralist and agricultural groups of northern Namibia and Botswana, as well as peoples who live to the north. In some areas they are in very close contact with !Kung, Hai//om, and Kxoe Bushmen, who have all absorbed elements of Central Bantu culture. Whether or not trade links with them were ever as extensive as writers such as Wilmsen (ref. ***) and Gordon (ref. ***) suggest, there is no doubt that the Khoisan/Bantu cultural boundary has become blurred over the last several centuries through the diffusion of agricultural techniques, notions of kinship and descent, practices of name transmission, religious beliefs and rituals, magical practices, folktales, music, and games.

The list below is a representative sample of key works on the central Bantu-speakers of southern Africa in contact with Bushmen.

Campbell, A.C. 1976. Traditional utilisation of the Okavango Delta. In Proceedings of the Symposium on the Okavango Delta and Its Future Utilisation. Gaborone: Botswana Society. pp 163–73.

Correia, J.A. 1925. Une êtude de l’ethnograhie d’Angola. Anthropos 10: 321–31.

Estermann, Carlos. 1976–81 [1957]. The Ethnography of southwestern Angola (3 vols.). (ed. Gordon D. Gibson). New York: Africana Publishing Company.

Vol. I: The non-Bantu peoples, and The Ambo ethnic group. 1976.

Vol. II: The Nyaneka-Nkumbi ethnic group. 1979.

Vol. III: The Herero people. 1981.

These volumes were first published in Portuguese in 1957, and a French translation followed in 1977. The information on the Bushmen (in vol. 1) and the Herero (in vol. 3) is patchy, but the ethnography of the surrounding groups is among the best available. Gibson’s preface to vol. 1 is useful in sorting out the maze of ethnic group names.

Estermann, Carlos. 1983. Etnogr†fia de Angola: sudoeste e centro, Vol I. Lisbon: Instituto de InvestigaáÉo Cient°fica Tropical.

A collection of 31 articles by the late Father Estermann. The disposition of subsequent volumes in unknown.

Gibson, Gordon D. 1956. Double descent at its correlates among the Herero of Ngamiland. American anthropologist 58: 109–39.

Gibson, Gordon D. 1962. Bridewealth and other forms of exchange among the Herero. In Paul Bohannan and George Dalton (eds.), Markets in Africa. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. pp 617–39.

Contains historical information on trade with other groups and comments on bartering and begging.

Gibson, Gordon D., Thomas J. Larson, and Cecilia R. McGurk. 1981. The Kavango peoples. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag (Studien zur Kulturkunde 56).

A detailed Notes and queries style monograph, entirely in English, on these otherwise little-known groups. Includes chapters on the Kwangari (by McGurk and Gibson), the Mbundza (by McGurk), the Sambyu (by McGurk), the Gciriku (by Gibson), and the Mbukushu (by Larson). Also contains extensive bibliography of English, German, and Portuguese literature.

Larson, Thomas J. 1965. The political structure of the Ngamiland Mbukushu under the rule of the Tawana. Anthropos 60: 164–76.

Larson, Thomas J. 1970. The Hambukushu of Ngamiland. Botswana notes and records 2: 29–44.

Larson, Thomas J. 1989. The Bayeyi of Ngamiland. Botswana notes and records 21: 23–42.

A small sample of Larson’s large output on peoples of the Okavango delta of Botswana. These people are agriculturalists and fishermen, and are also involved in hunting, gathering, herding, and trading. They are culturally similar in many respects to the Kavango peoples of Namibia and Angola (see ref. ***).

Luttig, Hendrik Gerhardus. 1933. The religious system and social organization of the Herero: a study in Bantu culture. Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon N.V.

This thesis comprises a good summary of the early German literature on the Herero. Similar in some respects to Schapera (ref. ***) on the Khoisan.

Redinha, JosÇ. 1962. DistribuiáÉo etnica de Angola. Luanda: Centre de InformaáÉo e Tourismo.

Urquhart, Alvin W. 1963. Patterns of settlement and subsistence in southwestern Angola. Washington, DC: National Academy of Sciences — National Research Council (Pubication No. 1096).

Williams, Frieda-Nela. 1991. Precolonial communities of southwestern Africa: a history of Owambo kingdoms, 1600–1920. Windhoek: National Archives of Namibia.

The Southern Bantu-speaking peoples include the black inhabitants of South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, parts of Zambia and Malawi, and much of Mozambique. In South Africa, the two main branches of this language group include the Nguni (Zulu, Xhosa, Swazi, etc.) and Sotho (Sothern Sotho, Tswana, and Kgalagari) dialect areas. The Venda and Tsonga (Thonga) are more distantly related.

Nguni groups farther north, often offshoots of the mfecane or difeqane (meaning ‘forced migration’) period of the early nineteenth century, are numerous. The Ndebele of Zimbabwe are the best-known group. The other large Bantu-speaking population group in Zimbabwe, the Shona, are linguistically distinct from the Nguni-Sotho peoples but are important here for their longstanding habitation of south-central Africa, particularly in the period of trade of interest to Wilmsen and Denbow in their archaeological work (e.g., ref. ***). Shona-speaking people may well have lived in what is now Botswana prior to the migrations of the Kgalagari and Tswana themselves beginning in the eighteenth century.

Hammond-Tooke, W.D. (ed.). 1974. The Bantu-speaking peoples of southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Essentially a re-write of Schapera (ref. ***). The most important chapter, hardly changed from the Schapera edition, is N.J. van Warmelo’s ‘The classification of cultural groups’ (chap. 3 in both editions).

Kuper, Adam 1970. Kalahari village politics: an African democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kuper, Adam. 1975. The social structure of the Sotho-speaking peoples of southern Africa. Africa 45: 67–81, 139–49.

Kuper, Adam. 1979. Regional comparison in African anthropology. African affairs 78: 103–13.

Kuper, Adam. 1980. Symbolic dimensions of the Southern Bantu homestead. Africa 50: 8–23.

Kuper, Adam. 1982. Wives for cattle: bridewealth and marriage in Southern Africa. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Kuper, Adam. 1987. South Africa and the anthropologist. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Schapera, I. (ed.). 1937. The Bantu-speaking tribes of South Africa: an ethnographic survey. London: George Routledge & Sons.

The classic overview of the Bantu-speaking peoples. Still of great interest, in spite of the 1974 re-write (ref. ***).

Schapera, I. 1938. A handbook of Tswana law and custom. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.

Scholarly and definitive, this book was originally produced as Schapera’s D.Sc. thesis (University of London, 1936). Relevant sections include four chapters on the tribal constitution and three chapters on the law of property.

A second edition was published by Frank Cass in 1966.

Schapera, I. 1943. Native land tenure in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Cape Town: The Lovedale Press.

Schapera, I. 1952. The ethnic composition of Tswana tribes. London: London School of Economics (L.S.E. Monographs in Social Anthropology No. 11).

Schapera, I. 1984 [1953]. The Tswana. London: Kegan Paul International.

The best general book on the Tswana. The 1984 edition contains a suplementary chapter on the Tswana from 1953 to 1975 by John Comaroff and a new bibliography covering the same period by Adam Kuper.

Solway, Jacqueline. Commercialization and social differentiation in a Kalahari village. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto.

Werbner, Richard P. 1982. Land reform in the making: tradition and public policy and ideology in Botswana. London: Rex Collings.

A collection of papers on the Tribal Grazing Land Policy and other contemporary issues, but several include information of direct relevance to the Kalahari Debate. Included are papers on the Mbanderu (by Uri Almagor) and Yeyi (by Alistair J. Sutherland), as well as on Tswana-speakers.

The collection is reprinted from The journal of African law, vol. 24, no. 1 (1980).

Relations between blacks and Bushmen have been the subject of several reports and studies, sometimes peripheral to other interests of the ethnographers concerned. Key studies, in chronological order, include the following:

Tagart, E.S.B. 1933. Report on the conditions existing among the Masarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve of the Bechuanaland Protectorate and certain other matters appertaining to the Natives living therein. Pretoria: Government Printer.

London Missionary Society. 1935. The Masarwa (Bushmen): report of an inquiry by the South African District Committee of the London Missionary Society. Alice: Lovedale Press.

Joyce, J.W. 1938. Report on the Masarwa in the Bamangwato Reserve, Bechuanaland Protectorate. League of Nations Publications, C112, M98, VI.B., ‘Slavery’, Annex 6, pp 57–76.

Schapera, I. 1939. A survey of the Bushman question. Race relations 6 (2): 68–83.

Silberbauer, G.B. and A.J. Kuper. 1966. Kgalagari masters and Bushman serfs: some observations. African studies 25: 171–79.

Motzafi-Haller, Pnina. 1987. Transformations in the Tswapong region, central Botswana: national policies and local realities. Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis University.

Studies of white-Bushman relations are far fewer in number. This is an area where further research in needed, particularly in view of changes now taking place in Namibia, as this country moves towards a more equitable distribution of its territorial resources.

Russell, Margo. 1976. Slaves or workers? Relations between Bushmen, Tswana, and Boers in the Kalahari. Journal of southern African studies 2: 178–97.

Russell, Margo and Martin Russell. 1979. Afrikaners of the Kalahari: white minority in a black state. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

There are some general studies of southern Africa worthy of note. The seemingly random list below is my choice of interesting though, unfortunately, not necessarily easily accessible works which touch on issues in the Kalahari Debate.

Hahn, C.H.L., H. Vedder, and L. Fourie. 1928. The native tribes of South West Africa. Cape Town: Cape Times.

Fourie, L. The Bushmen of South West Africa. pp 79–105.

Hahn, C.H.L. The Ovambo. pp 1–36.

Vedder, H. The Berg Dama. pp 37–78.

Vedder, H. The Herero. pp 153–211.

Vedder, H. The Nama. pp 107–52.

An excellent survey of literature to 1928 by some of the recognized authorities of the time. Fourie’s article is treated in this essay under ref. ***. The volume was reprinted by Frank Cass & Co. (London) in 1966.

Schott, RÅdiger. 1955. Die BuschmÑnner in SÅdafrika: eine Studie Åber Schwierigkeiten der Akkulturation. Sociologus 5: 132–49.

Schott, RÅdiger. 1964. Die sozialen Beziehungen zwishcen ethnischen Gruppen in SÅdafrika. Habilitation thesis, University of Bonn.

Van der Merwe, J.H. (ed.). 1983. National atlas of South West Africa (Namibia) / Nationale atlas van Suidwes-Afrika (Namibia). Windhoek: Directorate of Development Co-ordination.

Van Warmelo, N.J. 1951. Notes on the Kaokoveld (South West Africa) and its people. Pretoria: Government Printer.

Vuyk, Trudeke. n.d [1979]. Men and women; cattle and agriculture in a Kalahari village. Unpublished paper.

Biological studies

Finally here, there are a number of works which fall outside the usual domain of ‘ethnography’ but which touch on ethnos in a sense which is readily understood in a southern African context — that of biological relationship. It has long been known by human biologists that the classification systems employed by biologists of past generations, by the South African government, by social scientists and linguists, and by ordinary people of all ethnic groups, are culturally constructed. They bear little relation to the genetic affinities of population groups. It is tempting to ignore them entirely, but the very fact that the evidence suggests a complex history of interbreeding may indeed be of relevance to the Kalahari Debate.

There is now renewed interest in genetic studies, not least since techniques have improved and numbers of genetic markers that can be tested have grown exponentially over the last fifteen years. The results of this new research is awaited, but in the meantime the following works present a good deal of important background information on broad issues concerning the connections between population groups. (The most technical works, giving the results of very specific studies, are excluded here.) I begin with a few important works from the 1950s for the sake of comparison.

Tobias, P.V. 1955. Physical anthropology and somatic origins of the Hottentots. African studies 14: 1–15.

Tobias, P.V. 1956. The evolution of the Bushmen. American journal of physical anthropology (n.s.) 14: 384.

Tobias, P.V. 1956. On the survival of the Bushmen. Africa 26: 174–86.

Singer, R. and J.S. Weiner, 1963. Biological aspects of some indigenous African peoples. Southwestern journal of anthropology 19: 168–76.

Jenkins, Trefor. 1972. Genetic polymorphisms of man in southern Africa. M.D. thesis, University of London.

Ostensibly a thesis in genetics, this is a useful as a summary of biological relations (insofar as these were known in 1972) and how these relate to linguistic and cultural divisions. (See also refs. *** and ***.)

Harpending, Henry and Trefor Jenkins. 1973. Genetic distance among Southern African populations, In M.H. Crawford and P.L. Workman (eds.), Methods and theories of anthropological genetics. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. pp 177–99.

Nurse, G.T. 1977. The survival of the Khoisan race. Bulletin of the International Committee for Urgent Anthropological and Ethnological Research 19: 39–46.

Nurse, G.T. and T. Jenkins. 1977. Health and the hunter-gatherer: biomedical studies on the hunting and gathering populations of southern Africa. Basel: S. Karger.

Nurse, G.T. and T. Jenkins. 1977. Health and the hunter-gatherer: biomedical studies on the hunting and gathering populations of southern Africa. Basel: S. Karger.

Nurse, G.T., J.S. Weiner, and Trefor Jenkins. 1985. The peoples of southern Africa and their affinities. Oxford: The Clarendon Press (Research Monographs on Human Population Biology No. 3).

This is the definitive work on biological realtionships. Combines studies in genetics with those in migration history and ecological adaptation to present a broad overview of human ecology in southern Africa. Also contains an excellent bibliography.

Jenkins, Trefor. 1986. The prehistory of the San and the Khoikhoi as ercorded in their blood. In Rainer Vossen and Klaus Keuthmann (eds.), Contemporary studies on Khoisan 2. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 5.2). pp 51–77.

Quite technical. Includes assessment of attempts to relate the !Kung to the Hadza and Sandawe of Tanzania, as well as relations among southern African groups.

Vigilant, Linda, RenÇe Pennington, Henry Harpending, Thomas Kocher, and Allan Wilson. n.d. Mitochondrial DNA sequences in single hairs from a southern African population. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (in press).

Mitochondrial DNA is inherited from mother to child only (not from father to child). This, latest study suggests that !Kung are genetically different not only from their neighbours but from the rest of the world too. If confirmed, it should fuel the flames.

6. Modern history and archaeology

Khoisan classification

Historical works can be grouped into three disciplinary areas: lingustic prehistory, archaeology, and history proper. Each of these will be taken in turn, but first a brief look at a related debate may be helpful. This is the debate, among linguists, archaeologists, and historians, on the meaning of and usage of words like ‘Bushman’, ‘Hottentot’, ‘Khoe’ and ‘San’.

Some historians (such as South African, Anna Boâseken) have argued that it is best to keep historical labels for historical peoples, whereas others (such as American, Richard Elphick) prefer to use ‘politically correct’ terms for past as well as present situations. Their debate was preceded scholarly research on historical usage by linguist G.S. Nienaber, and has been followed with some sythesizing and insightful comments by archaeologist Mike Wilson. Jenkins and Tobias’s positivist pronouncements on the problem now seem oddly out of place in the chronology.

Nienaber, G.S. 1963. Hottentots. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik.

In Afrikaans, this book outlines the multitudenous theories of the origin of the word ‘Hottentot’ and related problems.

Nienaber, G.S. 1963. The origin of the name ‘Hottentot’. African studies 22: 65–90.

Boâseken, A.J. 1972–1974. The meaning, origin and use of the terms Khoikhoi, San and Khoisan. Cabo 1(1) (Aug. 1972): 5–10; 2(2) (Jan. 1974) 8–10.

Elphick, Richard. 1974–1975. The meaning, origin and use of the terms Khoikhoi, San and Khoisan [reply to Boâseken]. Cabo 2(2) (Jan. 1974): 3–7; 2(3) (Nov. 1975): 12–15.

Boâseken, A.J. 1975. On changing terminology in history [reply to Elphick]. Cabo 2(3) (Nov. 1975): 16–18.

Jenkins, Trefor and Phillip V. Tobias. 1977. Nomenclature of population groups in southern Africa. African studies 36: 49–55.

This was an attempt to prescribe the terminology to be used to deliniate population groups. It grew from a conference held in Johannesburg in 1971 and was based on a rather simplistic view of the issues involved. The people of concern here were to be called ‘San’ (as a biological entity), ‘Bushmen’ (as speakers of ‘Bushman languages’), and ‘hunters’ or ‘hunter-gatherers’ (in terms of their economic pursuits). The problem is that none of these description is fully adequate for the use intended, and at least one (the linguistic label) is downright misleading. ‘Bushman language’ is a concept with as little linguistic meaning as, say, ‘industrialized language’ would be in reference to English, German, and Japanese.

From a revisionist point of view, the paper’s importance lies in its naivity — as a work drafted by two brilliant and experienced researhers on the basis of extensive disussions by many of the leading lights of southern African studies, but one which nevertheless casts darkness over the issues then emerging.

Wilson, M.L. 1986. Notes on the nomenclature of the Khoisan. Annals of the South African Museum 97(8): 251–66.

Wilson, M.L. 1986. Khoisanosis: The question of separate identities for Khoi and San. In Ronald Singer and John K. Lundy (eds.), Variation, culture and evolution in African populations: papers in honour of Dr Hertha de Villiers. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press. pp 13–25.

Wilson’s work is the best on this issue. He concentrates on early literature, especially in relation to groups at the Cape around the time of Dutch settlement in 1652.

Linguistic prehistory

Linguistic prehistory is of much greater importance in understanding Khoisan history that in understanding the history of most comparable aboriginal populations of other parts of the world. This is largely because of the fact that the Khoisan, alsomst by definition, include both ‘herders’ and ‘hunters’. However, these categories do not coincide directly with the linguistic classification, since the ‘Central Bushmen’ speak Khoe and not San languages. Indeed San, in a linguistic sense, is at best a residual category meaning ‘non-Khoe’. The Nharo, G/wi, G//ana, Bukakhwe and other ‘Central Bushmen’ are related more closely to the Cape Khoekhoe, Korana, Nama, and Damara than they are to the /Xam, !Xì or !Kung.

In the narrower field of linguistic classification, as opposed to lingusitc prehistory, there are two broad perspectives: one (associated with Traill) which groups all Khoisan languages as part of the same language family, and another (associated with Westphal) which has been cautious about assuming ‘genetic’ linguistic relationships on the basis of material which could indicate linguistic contact rather than a common linguistic origin. The former is now the generally accepted view, although scholars are not in agreement about the relationships of any but the Khoe languages. The Khoe languages are unquestionably all related, and the degree of relatedness can be traced quite accurately. This has been the subject of work by Westphal, Traill, Kîhler, and most recently Vossen, among others.

The amount of work done on Khoisan linguistic classification and prehistory is considerable. The following works are but a sample, though one which is indicative of the range of available material.

Ehret, Christopher. 1967. Cattle-keeping and milking in eastern and southern African history: the linguistic evidence. Journal of African history 8: 1–17.

Ehret, Christopher. 1982. The first spread of food production to Southern Africa. In Christopher Ehret and Merrick Posnansky (eds.), The archaeological and linguistic reconstruction of African history. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp 158–81.

Ehret is one of the few scholars in any discipline who has attempted to put together the data from his with that of the others: in this case, lingustic data with historical and archaeological. His earlier paper, though often cited, was preliminary, and is not now to be regarded as at all definitive. The latter marks a conscious effort on Ehret’s part to update the data and theory of the former.

Greenberg, Joseph H. 1950. Studies in African linguistic classification: IV. The click languages. Southwestern journal of anthropology 6: 223–37.

Greenberg, Joseph H. 1955. Studies in African linguistic classification. New Haven: Compass Publishing Company.

Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. The languages of Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore and Linguistics (Publications No. 25).

Greenberg was the first to classify ‘Central Bushman’ languages among the ‘Khoi’ (Khoe) rather than the ‘San’. This is interesting, as he is not a Khoisan specialist, and therefore was perhaps less inhibited by the incorrect supposition on the part of generations of Khoisan scholars that ‘real’ Bushmen ought to speak ‘Bushman languages’.

Jeffreys, M.D.W. 1968. Some Semitic influences in Hottentot culture (Fourth Raymond Dart Lecture, 1967). Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press for the Institute for the Study of Man in Africa.

This paper is decidely old-fashioned, but as a historical piece it is worth a mention. Jeffreys remained an arch-diffusionist, and as such he propogated the idea that Khoekhoe culture was in part derived from that of the Middle East. While it is true that livestock spread through Africa from the far north, scholars today agree that most aspects of Khoisan culture are indigenous to southern Africa.

Kîhler, Oswin. 1960. Sprachkrititsche Aspekt zur Hamitentheorie Åber die Herkunft der Hottentotten. Sociologus 10: 69–77.

Kîhler, Oswin. 1966. Die Wortbeziehungen zwischen der Sprache Kxoe-BuschmÑnner und dem Hottentottischen als geschichtliches Problem. In Johannes Lukas (ed.), Neue Afrikanistische Studien. Hamburg: Deutsches Institut fÅr Afrika-Forschung. pp 144–65.

Kîhler, Oswin. 1971. Die Khoe-sprachigen BuschmÑnner der Kalahari. Ihre Verbreitung und Gliederung. In Kîlner geographische Arbeitennen (Festschrift Karl Kayser). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner. pp 373–411.

Kîhler, Oswin. 1977. New Khoisan linguistic studies. African studies 36: 255–78.

Kîhler, Oswin. 1981. Les langues khoisan. In Jean Perrot (ed.), Les Langues dans le monde ancien et moderne. Paris: êditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. pp 455–615.

Maingard, L.F. 1934. The linguistic approach to South African prehistory and ethnology. South African journal of science 31: 117–43.

Stopa, Roman. 1972. Structure of Bushman and its traces in Indo-European. Crakow: Polska Akademia Nauk — Oddzial W Krakowie (Prace Komisji Orientalistycznej N2 10).

Along with Reining and Wortley (ref. ***), this is among the oddest monographs in the literature. Stopa regards ‘Bushman’ as lying between chimpanzee calls and Indo-European languages, and he gives much detail on the supposed relations between ‘Bushman’ and each. Such crude evolutionist thinking is not uncommon in Indo-European studies; êmile Benveniste sought the roots of Indo-European kinship in Australian Aboriginal social structure. What makes Stopa unusual among writers of our time is the explicitness of his discussion of what he calls ‘primitivity’, including ‘psychical infantilism’. On this, he cites Passarge and misappropriates Passarge’s phrase to suggest that the Bushman really is the ‘child of our time’, p 42).

Traill, A. 1986. Do the Khoi have a place in the San? New data on Khoisan linguistic relationships. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 7.1: 407–30.

Vossen, Rainer. 1984. Studying the linguistic and ethno-history of the Khoe-speaking (central Khoisan) peoples of Botswana, research in progress. Botswana notes and records 16: 19–35.

Vossen, Rainer. 1988. Khoe linguistic relationships reconsidered. Botswana notes and records 20: 61–70.

Vossen, Rainer. 1988. Khoe linguistic relationships reconsidered: The data. In Rainer Vossen (ed.), New Perspectives on the study of Khoisan. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 7). pp 67–108.

Vossen’s is the most comprehensive study of the relationships between Khoe (including especially central Kalahari Bushman) dialects. The former 1988 paper concentrates on the findings, whereas the latter gives the data in great depth.

Vossen, Rainer. 1990. Die Khoe-Sprachen. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung der Sprachgeschichte Afrikas. Habilitation thesis, University of Bayreuth.

Westphal, E.O.J. 1963. The lingustic prehistory of southern Africa: Bush, Kwadi, Hottentot, and Bantu linguistic relationships. Africa 33: 237–65.

Westphal, E.O.J. 1971. The click languages of southern and eastern Africa. In Thomas A. Sebeok (ed), Current trends in linguistics, Vol. 7, Linguistics in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Hague: Mouton. pp 367–420.

Westphal, E.O.J. 1980. The age of ‘Bushman’ languages in southern Africa. In J.W. Snyman (ed.), Bushman and Hottentot linguistic studies, 1979. Pretoria: University of South Africa. pp 59–79.

Winter, Jurgen C. 1981. Die Khoisan-Familie. In Bernd Heine, Thilo C. Schadeberg and Ekkehard Wolff (eds.), Die Sprachen Afrikas. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag. pp 329–74.

Winter’s is the most comprehensive survey of Khoisan linguistic studies to date. It is useful in its comparisons between the classifications of Westphal, Kîhler, etc. of the multitudinous Khoisan dialects.

Archaeology

Archaeological studies of Khoisan peoples have, until recently, been concentrated in South Africa rather than in the Kalahari. Much of this has been directed towards the understanding of Bushman rock art, now virtually an academic discipline in its own right. Rock art research is not covered in this paper, though its debates parallel the Kalahari debate in intensity and obstinacy. Only those South African studies of the highest importance and relevance for present concerns are mentioned below.

In South Africa, coastal and riveriene cave sites have proved to be the most intersting and most profitable in terms of providing hard data on settlement patterns and social interaction between groups. The most important work being carried out in the Kalahari is now being done with reference to the possible relationship between structures like Great Zimbabwe and eastern Kalahari settlements of the same period.

Brooks, Alison. 1989. Past subsistence and settlement patterns in the Dobe area: an archaeological perspective. Paper presented at the 88^th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. (November 1989).

Brooks, Alison and John Yellen. 1979. Archaeological excavations at ÿgi: a preliminary report on the first two field seasons. Botswana notes and records 9: 21–30.

Caton Thompson, Gertrude. 1971 [1931]. The Zimbabwe culture: ruins and reactions (second edition). London: Cass.

One of the early proponents of a ‘medieval’ as opposed to an ‘ancient’ theory of Great Zimbabwe. (See also Summers, ref. ***.)

Cooke, C.K. 1965. Evidence of human migrations from rock art of Southern Rhodesia. Africa 35: 236–85.

Deacon, H.J. 1976. Where hunters gathered: a study of Holocene Stone Age people in the eastern Cape. Claremont: South African Archaeological Society (Monograph Series 1).

Deacon, Janette. 1982. The Later Stone Age of southernmost Africa. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (International Series 213).

Deacon, Janette (ed.). 1989. Goodwin’s legacy. Vlaeberg: The South African Archaeological Society (Goodwin Series Vol. 6).

Includes ten papers on Late Stone Age and Early Iron Age in South Africa. Of interest, but much less relevant than Vol. 5 (ref. ***).

Denbow, James R. 1982. The Toutswe tradition: a study in socio-economic change. In RenÇe Hitchcock and Mary R. Smith (eds.), Settlement in Botswana. Marshalltown, South Africa: Heinemann Educational Books. pp 73–86.

Denbow, James R. 1984. Prehistoric herders and foragers of the Kalahari: the evidence of 1500 years of interaction. In Carmel Schrire (ed.), Past and present in hunter-gatherer studies. Orlando: Academic Press. pp 175–93.

Denbow, James R. 1986. A new look at the later prehistory of the Kalahari. Journal of African history 27: 3–28.

Denbow, James and Alec Campbell. 1986. The early stages of food production in southern Africa and some potential linguistic correlations. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 7.1: 83–103.

Denbow, James R. and Edwin N. Wilmsen. 1983. Iron Age pastoralist settlements in Botswana. South African journal of science 79: 405–08.

Denbow, James R. and Edwin N. Wilmsen. 1986. Advent and course of pastoralism in the Kalahari. Science 234: 1509–15.

Garlake, Peter. 1973. Great Zimbabwe. London: Thames and Hudson.

Probably the best of the great many books on the Zimbabwe ruins. See also Paver (ref. ***) and Summers (ref. ***).

Hall, Martin. 1987. The changing past: farmers, kings, and traders in southern Africa, 200–1860. Cape Town: David Philip.

The best overview of the period. Hall skilfully presents opposing viewpoints and arguments, for a general audience. The book contains a great deal on migration routes, material culture, the introduction and impact of pastoralism and farming, and reconstructions of social organization from the archaeological record. It also has an excellent bibliography, especially of archaeological works, and it is profusely illustrated.

Hall, Martin and Andrew B. Smith (eds.). 1986. Prehistoric pastoralism in southern Africa. Vlaeberg: South African Archaeological Society (Goodwin Series Vol. 5).

Includes twelve papers, the majority of which are highly relevant to the Kalahari Debate. Among them:

Hall, Martin. The role of cattle in southern African agropastoral societies: more than bones alone can tell. pp 83–87.

Hall, S.L. Pastoral adaptations and forager reactions in the eastern Cape. pp 42–49.

Kinahan, J. The archaeological structure of pastoral production in the central Namib desert. 69–82.

Klein, Richard G. The prehistory of Stone Age herders in the Cape Province of South Africa. pp 5–12.

Penn, N.G. Pastoralists and pastoralism in the northern Cape frontier zone during the eighteenth century. pp 62–68.

Sampson, C. Garth, Model of a prehistoric herder-hunter contact zone: a first approximation. pp 50–56.

Smith, Andrew B. Competition, conflict and clientship: Khoi and San relationships in the western Cape. pp 36–41.

Voigt, Elizabeth A. Iron Age herding: archaeological and ethnoarchaeological approaches to pastoral problems. pp 13–21.

Webley, Lita. Pastoralist ethnoarchaeology in Namaqualand. pp 57–61.

Helgren, D. and Alison Brooks. 1983. Geoarchaeology at ÿgi, a Middle and Later Stone Age site in the northwest Kalahari. Journal of archaeological science 10: 181–97.

Huffman, Thomas N. 1982. Archaeology and ethnohistory of the African Iron Age. Annual review of anthropology 11: 133–50.

Humphreys, A.J.B. 1987. Prehistoric seasonal mobility: what are we really achieving? The South African archaeological bulletin, vol. 42, no. 145, pp 34–38.

Jacobson, L. 1987. The archaeology of the Kavango. Journal of the South West African Scientific Society 40/41: 149–57.

Kinahan, John and Jill Kinahan. 1984. An archaeological reconnaissance of Bushmanland and southern Kavango. Report to the South West Africa Department of Agriculture and Nature Conservation, Windhoek.

Kinahan, John. 1986. Settlement patterns and regional exchange: evidence from recent Iron Age sites on the Kavango River, northeastern Namibia. Cimbebasia 3: 109–16.

Kinahan, John. 1991. Pastoral nomads of the central Namib desert: the people that time forgot. Windhoek: Namibia Archaeological Trust / New Namibia Books.

Lewis-Williams, J.D. 1981. Believing and seeing: symbolic meanings in southern San rock paintings. London: Academic Press.

Lewis-Williams, J.D. (ed.). 1983. New approaches to southern African rock art. Cape Town: South African Arachaeological Society (Goodwin Series Vol. 4).

Lewis-Williams, David, and Thomas Dowson. 1989. Images of power: understanding Bushman rock art. Johannesburg: Southern Book Publishers.

These books go well beyond the traditional concerns with stylistic matters in Bushman rock art. They portray Bushman art as fundamentally derived from trance performance, and therefore from beliefs in communication with the spirit world. Lewis-Williams employs ethnographic analogy, whereas Dowson goes further in accepting universalistic psychological explanations. Their work is relevant to the Kalahari Debate in its concern with the pan-Bushman psyche. At times their discussion of artists’ out-of-body travel bears a faint resemblance to the metaphors of time-travel implicit in the works of Laurens van der Post (cf. Barnard, ref. ***).

Manhire. Anthony. 1987. Later Stone Age settlement patterns in the sandveld of the south-western Cape Province, South Africa. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (International Series 351 / Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 21).

Parkington, J.E. 1984. Changing views of the Later Stone Age of South Africa. Advances in world archaeology 3: 89–142.

Parkington, John and Martin Hall (eds.). 1987. Papers in the prehistory of the Western Cape, South Africa (2 vols.). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports International Series 332.

Of the many papers in these volumes, the most significant for our purposes is Parkington’s general introduction, ‘Changing views of prehistoric settlement in the Western Cape’, vol. 1, pp 4–23. Parkington is regarded as a revisionist and has long been excavating in the Western Cape with an eye to hunter-herder interaction.

Paver, B.G. 1957. Zimbabwe cavalcade: Rhodesia’s romance (revised edition). London: Cassell & Company.

Not a book to be taken too seriously, but interesting as a contrast to Summers (ref. ***). Gives a romantic account of the history of the study of Great Zimbabwe. If some writers romanticize foragers, others romanticize the inhabitants of the Iron Age ruins which stand on the edge of Bushman Africa.

Robbins, L.H. 1984. Toteng, a Late Stone Age site along the Nghabe River, Ngamiland. Botswana notes and records 1: 1–6.

Mainly a technical report, but does explicity take up the problem of Iron Age contact following a pre-publication version of Denbow’s key article on the subject (ref. ***).

Sampson, C. Garth. 1974. The Stone Age archaeology of Southern Africa. New York and London: Academic Press.

Sandelowsky, Beatrice. 1979. Kapako and Vungu Vungu: Iron Age sites on the Kavango River. South African Archaeological Society Goodwin series 3: 52–61.

Smith, Andrew B. 1984. Adaptive strategies of prehistoric pastoralism in the south-western Cape. In M.J. Hall, G. Avery, D.M. Avery, M.L. Wilson, and A.J.B. Humphreys (eds.), Frontiers: southern African archaeology today. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (International Series 207 / Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 10). pp 131–42.

Steyn, H.P. 1984. Southern Kalahari San subsistence ecology: A reconstruction. The South African archaeological bulletin 39: 117–24.

Summers, Roger. 1963. Zimbabwe: a Rhodesian mystery. Johannesburg: Nelson.

A scholalry history of the study of Great Zimbabwe (cf. Paver, ref. ***). From 1871, when the geologist Carl Mauch drew plans and stetches of the ruins, dozens of writers have penned theories on ‘Rhodesia’s mystery’. Wilmsen and Denbow’s work can be seen as a new theory of the ‘Zimbabwe culture’ as well as a new theory of Bushman society.

Essentially, there are two classic theories. According to one (now universally recognized among scholars as correct), the builders of Great Zimbabwe were Iron Age, Bantu-speaking cultivators. Among early proponents of this theory was Bushman ethnographer S.S. Dornan (writing in 1915), as well as D. Randall MacIver, G. Caton Thompson, and others. Among those favouring the earlier, ‘King Solomon’s Mines’ sort of theory, were E.P. Mathers, J.M. Stuart, J.T. Bent, J. Willoughby, A. Wilmot, A.H. Keane, R.N. Hall, Leo Frobenius, Raymond Dart, and a host of others.

Summers, Roger. 1967. Iron Age industries of Southern Africa, with notes on their chronology, terminology, and economic status. In Walter W. Bishop and J. Desmond Clark (eds.), Background to evolution in Africa. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. pp 687–700.

Wadley, Lyn. 1987. Later Stone Age hunters and gatherers of the southern Transvaal: social and ecological interpretations. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (International Series 380 / Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 25).

Warden, Catrien van. 1991. Stone Age people of Makalamabedi Drift. Botswana notes and records 23: 251–74.

Deals with habitation from 25,000 BP and includes a useful summary table of climatic changes.

Willcox, A.R. 1966. Sheep and sheep-herders in South Africa. Africa 36: 432–38.

Wilson, M.L. 1989. The problem of the origin of the Khoikhoi. The digging stick 6(1): 2–4.

Yellen, John E. 1977. Archaeological approaches to the present: models for reconstructing the past. New York: Academic Press.

Based on Yellen’s field research, mainly on living !Kung populations in Ngamiland, prior to 1975. Yellen’s approach is more individual-centred than Lee’s. Lee follows the old band model of Steward and Service (see, e.g., ref. ***). On this score Yellen resembles Tanaka whereas Lee resembles Silberbauer on G/wi and G//ana social organization. My own sympathies are with the Steward-Service-Silberbauer-Lee approach, rather than the Tanaka-Yellen one, because I believe the former better captures the indigenous understanding of population movement and settlement.

Yellen, John E. 1984. The integration of herding into prehistoric hunting and gathering economies. In M.J. Hall, G. Avery, D.M. Avery, M.L. Wilson, and A.J.B. Humphreys (eds.), Frontiers: southern African archaeology today. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (International Series 207 / Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 10). pp 53–64.

Yellen, John E. 1986. The process of assimilation in Botswana. Botswana notes and records 17: 15–23.

Yellen, John E. 1989. The ethnoarchaeology of !Kung foragers. Paper presented at the 88^th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 1989.

Yellen, John and Henry Harpending. 1972. Hunter-gatherer populations and archaeological inference. World archaeology 4: 244–53.

A famous paper which distinguishes three types of settlement pattern: anucleate, intermediate, and nucleated. Yellen and Harpending regard the !Kung as being on the anucleate end of the scale, with flexibility being an adaptation to desert foraging conditions. (It is also conducive to trade.)

History

South African historiography is generally classified into three traditions, ‘conservative’ (Boer versus Briton, with others in the background), ‘liberal’ (anthropologically-informed), and ‘revisionist’ (Marxist). The conservative tradition is irrelevant here. The liberal tradition, epitomized by The Oxford history of South Africa (ref. ***), has been under challenge since the 1970s, and the revisionists are by far the dominant force. The liberals believed that ‘the central theme of South African history is interaction between peoples of diverse origins, languages, technologies, ideologies, and social systems, meeting on South African soil’ (dustjacket blurb, ref. ***). The revisionists have countered this view with an emphasis on a regional hegemony and class structure, which they hold to be more significant than either ethnicity or autochthonous social systems.

The historiography of Botswana and Namibia has not been that much affected by the finer points of this liberal/revisionist debate, but there is much prominence given to two sometimes (but not necessarily) contrary views. These are the idea of ‘great men’ (or ‘great tribes’), and that of the ‘struggle’ for freedom from outside domination. The ‘struggle’ view of history is, in my view, a kind of Africanist ‘Whig tradition’ which sees the past in terms of an ever-progressing move towards the present or future. Although we all have sympathy for those who were and are oppressed by the brutality of colonial and postcolonial masters, historians in southern Africa have sometimes neglected the ethos of the past in favour of righting today’s wrongs by re-writing yesterday’s truths.

Beach, D.N. 1980. The Shona and Zimbabwe, 900–1850: an outline of Shona history. London: Heinemann.

An excellent, readable account. Includes much on the Mutapa state which may be relevant to the new archaeological material emerging from the eastern Kalahari.

Birmingham, David. 1966. Trade and conflict in Angola: the Mbundu and their neighbours under the influence of the Portuguese, 1483–1790. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Birmingham, David. 1983. Society and economy before A.D. 1400. In David Birmingham and Phyllis M. Martin (eds.), History of Central Africa (2 vols). London: Longman. Vol. I, pp 1–29.

Bley, Helmut. 1971 [1968]. South-West Africa under German rule, 1894–1914 (trans. by Hugh Ridley). London: Heinemann.

Bridgman, Jon M. 1981. The revolt of the Hereros. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Budack, K.F.R. 1972. Die traditionelle politische Struktur der Khoekhoen in SÅdwestafrika (Stamm und Stammersregierung, auf historischer Grundlage). D.Phil thesis, University of Pretoria.

Budack, K.F.R. 1972. Stam en stamkaptein by die Khoe-Khoen in Suidwes-Afrika. In J.F. Eloff and R.D. Coertze (eds.), Ethnografiese studies in Suidlike Afrika. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik. pp 246–90.

Carstens, W. Peter. 1969. Some aspects of Khoikhoi (Hottentot) settlement patterns in historical perspective. In David Damas (ed.), Contributions to anthropology: ecological essays. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada (Bulletin No. 230). pp 95–101.

Drechsler, Horst. 1980 [1966]. ‘Let us die fighting’: the struggles of the Herero and Nama against German imperialism (1884–1915). London: Zed Press.

An excellent, detailed account of Herero-Nama-German interaction. The English title reflects the political climate of the time of the translation. The original German was simply SÅdwestafrika unter deutscher kolonial herrschaft (Akademie-Verlag, 1966).

Elphick, Richard. 1979. The Khoisan to c. 1770. In Richard Elphick and Hermann Giliomee (eds.), The shaping of South African society, 1652–1820. Cape Town and London: Longman. pp 3–40.

Elphick, Richard. 1985. Khoikhoi and the founding of White South Africa. Johannesburg: Ravan Press.

This is a slightly revised and retitled edition of Elphick’s Kraal and castle (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1977).

Esterhuyse, J.H. 1968. South West Africa, 1800–1894: the establishment of German authority in South West Africa. Cape Town: Struik.

First, Ruth. 1963. South West Africa. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Fisch, Maria. 1985. Ursprung und Bedeutung des Namens Okavango. Journal of the South West African Scientific Society 40/41: 7–28.

Ostensibly on etymology of the river names ‘Okavango’ and ‘Kunene’, this article has a great deal to say about the travels of C.J. Andersson (who coined the name ‘Okavango’ and about the migration routes of the Herero.

Fuller, Ben. 1993. Institutional appropriation and social change among agropastoralists in central Namibia, 1916–1988. Ph.D. Dissertation, Boston University.

Based on ethnographic and archival data from two communities: Sesfontein and Otjimbingwe (both ethnically mixed). Fuller suggests that tribal identities are a recent phenomenon resulting from contact with the colonial authorities. Although Fuller’s concern was mainly with Nama/Damara and Herero-speakers, his study has important implications, by analogy, for the Bushman debate.

Gadibolae, Mabunga Nlshwa. 1985. Serfdom (bolata) in the Nata area, 1926–1960. Botswana notes and records 17: 25–32.

Gillett, Simon. 1969. Notes on the settlement in the Ghanzi district. Botswana notes and records 2: 52–55.

Gray, Richard and David Birmingham (eds.). 1970. Pre-colonial African trade: essays on trade in central and eastern Africa before 1900. London: Oxford University Press.

Goldblatt, I. 1971. History of South West Africa from the beginning of the nineteenth century. Cape Town: Juta & Company.

Contains 48 short chapters, each on a major incident of Namibia’s late pre-colonial and colonial history.

Heintze, Beatrix. 1972. BuschmÑnner und Ambo: Aspekte ihrer gegenseitigen Beziehungen. Journal of the South West African Scientific Society 26: 45–56.

How, Marion Walsham. 1962. The Mountain Bushmen of Basutoland. Pretoria: J.L. van Schaik.

Katjavivi, Peter H. 1988. A history of resistance in Namibia. London: James Currey. Addis Ababba: OAU. Paris: Unesco Press.

Mainly on the recent struggles, but with these placed in its historical context.

Lau, Brigitte. 1981. Thank God the Germans came: Vedder and Namibian historiography. In Keith Gottschalk and Chris Saunders (eds.), Africa Seminar: collected seminar papers, vol. 2. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Centre for African Studies.

Legassick, Martin. 1979. The Northern Frontier to 1820: The emergence of the Griqua people. In Richard Elphick and Hermann Giliomee (eds.), The shaping of South African society, 1652–1820. Cape Town: Longman. pp 243–90.

Marks, Shula. 1972. Khoisan resistance to the Dutch in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Journal of African history 13: 55–80.

Miers, S*** and Michael Crowder.. In

Miers, Suzanne and Richard Roberts (eds.). 1988. The end of slavery in Africa. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.

A sequel to Miers and Kopytoff (cf. ref. ***). In spite of its title, the book addresses the problem of the continuation of slavery after 1900. Includes a paper by Suzanne Miers and Michael Crowder on ‘The politics of slavery in Bechuanaland: power struggles and the plight of the Basarwa on the Bamangwato Reserve, 1926–1940’, as well as other relevant material, notably chapters by Linda Heywood on slavery in Ovimbundu (Angola) and by Claude Meillassoux on distinctions between ‘slavery’ and ‘serfdom’ (in a Sudanese context).

Miller, Joseph C. 1976. Kings and kinsmen: early Mbundu states in Angola. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Miller, Joseph C. 1983. The paradoxes of impoversishment in the Atlantic zone. In David Birmingham and Phyllis Martin (eds.), History of Central Africa (2 vols.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vol 1, pp 118–59.

Newton-King, Susan and V.C. Malherbe. 1981. The Khoikhoi rebellion in the Eastern Cape (1799–1803). Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town (Communications No. 5).

Actually long papers bound together: Newton-King’s ‘The rebellion of the Khoi in Graaff-Reinet: 1799 to 1803’ and Malherbe’s ‘The Khoi captains in the third frontier war’.

Okihiro, G. 1976. Hunters, herders, cultivators, and traders: interaction and change in the Kalagadi, nineteenth century. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles.

Parsons, Neil. 1977. The economic history of Khama’s country in Botswana, 1844–1930. In Robin Palmer and Neil Parsons (eds.), The roots of poverty in central and southern Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp 113–42.

Parsons, Neil. 1989. Frantz or Klikko, the wild dancing Bushman: a case study in Khoisan stereotyping. Botswana notes and records 21: 71–76.

A discussion of events surrounding the transportation of a Bushman entertainer to England, probably against his will, around 1912. The first Kalahari Bushmen to be brought to the northern hemisphere for entertainment purposes were taken in 1883, first to New York and then, by Gilarmi Farini (cf. ref. ***), to London.

Perspectives on the southern African past. Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town (Occasional Papers No. 2). 1979.

This collection of papers is derived from a serious of lectures intended for non-specialist audiences. It provides a good overview of many aspects of southern African history.

Peters, Pauline E. 1984. Struggles over water, struggles over meaning: cattle, water and the state in Botswana. Africa 54: 29–49, 127.

Really an essay on political domination, this paper is based on the author’s 1983 Ph.D. dissertation (Boston University) on borehole syndicates. Its relevance here is its emphasis on the mediation between and redefinition of indigenous political ideologies — an area where more work is needed within the Kalahari Debate proper.

Ramsay, Jeff. 1988. Some notes on the Colonial era history of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve region. Botswana notes and records 20: 91–94.

Ross, Robert. 1975. The !Kora Wars on the Orange river, 1830–1880. Journal of African history 561–76.

Schapera, 1970. Tribal innovators: Tswana chiefs and social change, 1795–1940. London: The Athlone Press.

Sillery, Anthony. 1952. The Bechuanaland Protectorate. Cape Town: Oxford University Press.

Sillery, Anthony. 1974. Botswana: a short political history. London: Methuen (Studies in African History 8).

These two volumes cover much the same ground. Sillery was Resident Commissioner of the Bechuanaland Protectorate from 1947 to 1950.

Stow, George W. 1905. The native races of South Africa: a history of the intrusion of the Hottentots and Bantu into the hunting grounds of the Bushmen, the aborigines of the country. London: Swan Sonnenschein.

Completed in 1890 and published posthumously (edited by George McCall Theal), this is the first grand history of southern Africa. Combines ethnographic generalization with historical detail, including much on migration routes. The subtitle is extremely apt.

Strauss, Teresa. 1979. War along the Orange: the Korana and the border wars of 1868–9 and 1878–9. Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town (Communications No. 1).

Szalay, Miklos. 1983. Ethnologie und Geschichte: Zur Grundlegung einer ethnologischen Geschichtssahreibung; mit Beispielen aus der Geschichte der Khoi-San in Sudafrika. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.

Theal, George McCall. 1902. The beginning of South African history. London: T. Fischer Unwin.

Theal, George McCall. 1907–10. History and ethnography of Africa south of the Zambesi (3 vols.). London: Swan Sonnenschein.

Vol. I. The Portuguese in South Africa from 1505–1700. (1907)

Vol. II. Foundation of the Cape Colony by the Dutch. (1909)

Vol. III. The Cape Colony to 1795, the Koranas, Bantu, and Portuguese in South Africa to 1800. (1910)

Theal, George McCall. 1919. Ethnography and condition of South Africa before 1505 (second edition). London: George Allen & Unwin.

Tlou, Thomas. 1977. Servility and political control: botlhanka among the Batawana of northwestern Botswana, ca. 1750–1906. In Suzanne Miers and Igor Kopytoff (eds.), Slavery in southern Africa: historical and anthropological perspectives. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. pp 376–90.

Botlhanka means ‘serfdom’. Batlhanka (serfs) were inherited but could be transferred between households. Tlou differentiates this institution from voluntary clientship, though early European observers often failed to make the distinction.

Tlou, Thomas. 1985. A history of Ngamiland, 1750–1906: the formation of an African state. Gaborone: Macmillan Botswana.

Originally a thesis presented at the University of Wisconsin, this important book chronicles interaction between (to use Tlou’s Tswana spellings) the Batawana, HaMbukushu, BaYei, BaSarwa (including !Kung), and other groups. BaSarwa or Basarwa is the modern (Se)Tswana word for ‘Bushmen’. Tlou, has much to say about migrations, trade, slavery, and other relevant topics, as well as the political history of the Tawana people.

Vedder, Heinrich. 1938 [1934]. South West Africa in early times (trans. and ed. by Cyril G. Hall). London: Oxford University Press.

Das alte SÅdwestafrika is the standard history of German South-West Africa. It also contains summaries of relevant ethnographic information from ninetenth and early twentieth-century sources.

There is a 1966 reprint of the English edition by Frank Cass (London). The longer, German edition was reprinted by the South West Africa Scientific Society in 1981.

Vinnicombe, Patricia. 1976. People of the eland: rock paintings of the Drakensberg Bushmen as a reflection of their life and thought. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

Wallis, John Peter Richard. 1936. Fortune my foe: the story of Charles John Andersson, African explorer, 1827–1867. London: Jonathan Cape.

Wallis, John Peter Richard. 1976 [1941]. Thomas Baines, his life and explorations in South Africa, Rhodesia and Australia, 1820–1875. Cape Town: A.A. Balkema.

A reprint of Wallis’s rare Thomas Baines of King’s Lynn (Jonathan Cape, 1941). This edition has, in addition, a lavish selection of Baines’ drawings and water-colours, chosen by another biographer of Baines, F.R. Bradlow. The rich pictoral evidence of relevance to the Kalahari Debate has hardly been touched by any of the protagonists.

Wilson, Monica and Leonard Thompson (eds.). 1969–71. The Oxford history of South Africa (2 vols.). Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

The classic ‘liberal’ history. Volume I contains general overviews of ‘The archaeological background’ by Ray Inskeep (pp 1–39), and of ‘The hunters and herders’ by Monica Wilson (pp 40–74).

Wood, Brian (ed.). 1988. Namibia 1884–1984: readings on Namibia’s history and society. London: Namibia Support Committee.

A collection of over 80 speeches and academic presentations (some previously published) from a conference held in London in September 1984, at the height of the Namibian war of independence. Many papers, some explicitly Leninist, reflect the concerns of that time. Among the historical papers of relevance here are those listed below. Dates in square brackets indicate those original publication, in the case of papers previously published.

Angula, Helmut. Tracing the history of the San, Namibia’s first inhabitants. pp 102–17.

Clarence-Smith, Gervase. The Angolan connection in Namibian history. pp 171–74.

Clarence-Smith, Gervase and Richard Moorsom. [1977]. Underdevelopment and class formation in Ovamboland, 1844–1917. pp 175–89.

Hillebrecht, Werner. How to find out what has been written about Namibia. pp 73–80.

Lau, Brigitte. ‘Pre-colonial’ Namibian historiography: what is to be done? pp 90–101.

Pfouts, Anita. [1983]. Economy and society in pre-colonial Namibia: a linguistic approach (550–1800 A.D.). pp 118–30.

Ranger, Terence. Trends in African historiography and the task facing scholars of Namibia. pp 41–44.

Saunders, Christopher. [1983]. Towards the decolonisation of Namibian history: notes on some recent work in English. pp 81–89.

Shithigona, Tshuutheni Neruru. Trends in the development of property relations in Namibia before 1884. pp 131–37.

There is also an interesting and slightly relevant paper by Lee:

Lee, Richard B. The gods must be crazy, but the state has a plan: government policies towards the San in Namibia and Botswana. pp 539–46.

Wright, John B. 1971. Bushman raiders of the Drakensberg, 1840–1870. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.

7. The ‘Great Kalahari Debate’

The political economy critique

The temptation is great to try to present writings of the debate proper in chronological order. Nevertheless, I have opted for alphabetical order since the chronology is not as clear as one might suppose it should be. This is partly because the debate has always been a tit-for-tat affair. Articles, and indeed the conference papers from which they are sometimes developed, have appeared faster that critics have been able to respond. The time lag between comment and publication means that opponents often talk past each other rather, in more senses than one, rather than respond to arguments in turn.

An additional problem is in defining what really constitutes the ‘debate proper’. The very core of the debate, in my view, is represented by three articles in Current anthropology: refs. *** and *** (each with comments) and ref. *** (itself a long comment on ref. ***). These are cast against a background of the array of other literature discussed in this essay. More specifically, they are attempts to address questions raised since the early 1970s by historians, archaeologists, and ethnographers discontent with the search for the ‘true Bushman’. Other core works include the two book-length treatments in this section, ref. *** and ***.

Argyle, John. 1991. Sheep by any other name would smell as sweet: some linguistic aspects of the Kalahari Debate. Paper preented at the annual conference of the Association for Anthropology in Southern Africa, Johannesburg (September 1991).

Barnard, Alan. 1988. Cultural identity, ethnicity and marginalization among the Bushmen of southern Africa. In Rainer Vossen (ed.), New perspectives on Khoisan. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 7). pp 9–27.

Barnard, Alan. 1992. Primitive communism and mutual aid: Kropotkin visits the Bushmen. In Chris Hann (ed.), Anthropological Approaches to Socialism. London: Routledge (A.S.A. Monographs 30). (In press).

As a counter to the Marxists, I suggested a Kropotkinist ‘reading’ of Bushman society. The paper was presented at the annual conferences of the Association of Social Anthropologiosts (Cambridge) and the Association for Anthropology in Southern Africa (Johannesburg) in 1991. A Russian version is forthcoming in the journal Etnograficheskoe obozrenie.

Bollig, Michael. 1988. Contemporary developments in !Kung research: the !Kung controvery in light of R.B. Lee’s The Dobe !Kung. In Rainer Vossen (ed.), New perspectives on Khoisan. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 7). pp 109–27.

Essentially a review article of Lee (ref. ***), which places it in a context of literature on both the !Kung controversy and hunter-gatherer studies generally.

Denbow, J.R. 1984. Prehistoric herders and foragers of the Kalahari: the evidence of 1500 years of interaction. In Carmel Schrire (ed.), Past and present in hunter gatherer studies. Orlando: Academic Press.

Denbow, J.R. 1986. A new look at the later prehistory of the Kalahari. Journal of African history 27: 3–28.

Denbow, James R. and Edwin N. Wilmsen. 1986. Advent and course of pastoralism in the Kalahari. Science 234: 1509–15.

Gordon, Robert. 1984. The !Kung in the Kalahari exchange: an ethnohistorical perspective. In Carmel Schrire (ed.), Past and Present in hunter gatherer studies. Orlando, FL: Academic Press. pp 195–224.

Gordon, Robert. 1985. Primitive accumulation and Bushman policy in South West Africa. In Carmel Schrire and Robert Gordon (eds.), The future of former foragers: Australian and Southern Africa. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival (Occasional Papers 18). pp 25–36.

Gordon, Robert. 1986. Bushman banditry in twentieth-century Namibia. In Donald Crummey (ed.), Banditry, rebellion and social protest in Africa. London: James Currey / Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. pp 173–89.

Gordon, Robert. 1989. Can Namibian San stop dispossession of their land? In Edwin N. Wilmsen (ed.), We are here: politics of aboriginal land tenure. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp 138–54.

Gordon, Robert J. 1990. Kicking up a Kalahari storm. Southern African review of books. 3(3/4): 18–19.

Influential review of Wilmsen’s Land filled with flies (ref. ***).

Gordon, Robert J. 1991. Buschmannschwarmerei in SÅdafrika. In R. Kapfer, W. Petermann, and R. Thomas (eds.), JÑger und Gejagte: John Marshall und seine Filme. Munich: Tricksterverlag. pp 165–79.

Recent comments on Bushman films. A shorter, related paper was published as ‘People of the Great Sand Face: people of the great white lie?’ in the Commission on Visual Anthropology review in 1990, with an abridged version in Cultural Survival quaterly in 1991.

Gordon, Robert J. 1992. The Bushman myth: the making of a Namibian underclass. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Gordon’s definitive statement of the Bushman Debate. Supremely scholarly, if idiosyncratic. Gordon emphasizes what is in the archives, which with regard to Bushmen is all too often reports of stock theft. Nevertheless, he gives the best portrayal of anyone of the Bushmen as seen through the eyes of colonists and indigenous oppressors of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He also brings the transformations of this portrayal up to the present and, in particular, gives due attention to perceptions of Bushmen and to their position in the recent war of independence. Gordon’s central argument is that, in order to understand the images, we need to know the social contexts which gave rise to them.

Touches on the themes of both Wilmsen’s Land filled with flies (ref. ***) and Haarhoff’s The wild South-West (ref. ***).

Gordon, Robert J. n.d. The making of the ‘Bushmen’. Anthropologica (in press).

An interesting attempt to place the present Kalahari Debate in the historical context of wider anthropological debates (including physical anthropological debates) of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Guenther, Mathias G. 1992. ‘Not a Bushman thing’: witchcraft among the Bushmen and hunter-gatherers. Anthropos 87(1/3): 83–107.

As Guenther points out, !Kung, G/wi, and !Xì do not have witchcraft, but Nharo, Kxoe, and /Xam do. The majority of hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari and elsewhere are oppressed, and the presence of witchcraft may be an indication of this. Although ostensibly a paper on witchcraft, Guenther explicitly frames his theoretical concerns in the context of the present Kalahari Debate.

Hall, Martin. 1988. At the frontier: some arguments against hunter-gatherering and farming modes of production in southern Africa. In Tim Ingold, David Riches, and James Woodburn (eds.), Hunters and gatherers I: History, evolution and social change. Oxford: Berg. pp 137–47.

Suggests, ironically, that in spite of difference forces of production, a single mode of production characterizes social formations in southern Africa between 1000 B.C. and A.D. 1000 — a ‘primitive communist mode of production’. Thus Hall follows the revisionist line in accepting the need to understand incoming farmers in relation to foraging populations, but nevertheless explicitly aligns himself with Lee (ref. ***).

Kent, S. 1992. The current forager controversy: real versus ideal views of hunter-gatherers. Man (n.s.) 27: 45–70.

Emphasizes the cultural variation among Kalahari foragers and suggests that such variation is a result of flexibility in the foraging lifestyle. Kent attacks both sides in the debate for their theoretical biases and warns against ‘merely replacing one illusion with another’.

Lee, Richard B. 1991. The !Kung in question: evidence and context in the Kalahari debate. In Miracle, Preston T., Lynn E. Fisher, and Jody Brown (eds.), Foragers in context: long-term, regional and historical perspectives in hunter-gatherer studies. Ann Arbor: Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan (Michigan Discussions in Anthropology, Volume 10). pp 9–16.

Like a number of other important papers on the controversy, this one was originally presented at the 88^th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, held in Washington, D.C. in November 1989. Lee outlines the evidence (archaeological, historical, and ethnographic) for both opposing views in the Kalahari Debate and cautions against seeing the !Kung as either ‘pristine hunter-gatherers’ or ‘quintessential victims of expanding capital’. Overall, one of the most readable and certainly among the most moderate statements to date.

Lee, Richard B. 1991. Solice or servitude? !Kung images of the colonial encounter. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Anthropological Association, London, Ontario (May 1991).

In this as-yet unpublished paper, Lee denies evidence of pastoralist domination in the Dobe area.

Lee, Richard B. 1992. Art, science, or politics? The crisis in hunter-gatherer studies. American anthropologist 94 (1): 31–54.

This was originally presented at the Sixth International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies, held in Fairbanks in June 1990.

Lee, Richard B. and Megan Blesele. 1991. Dependency or self-reliance? The !Kung San forty years on. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.

Lee, Richard and Mathias Guenther. 1991. Oxen or onions? The search for trade (and truth) in the Kalahari. Current anthropology 32 (1): 592–601.

This is a reply to Wilmsen and Denbow (ref. ***). Drawing on sketch maps in one of Andersson’s diaries and other explorers’ accounts, Lee and Guenther question Wilmsen’s suggestion that Andersson passed through Nyae Nyae in 1858–59. They argue that the trade routes alluded to by Andersson and others are in fact not in Nyae Nyae at all but farther west. They further question the reading of a word in Andersson’s diary. Wilmsen (ref. ***) renders this word as ‘oxen’, thereby establishing the presence of pastoralism in Nyae Nyae in the 1850s, whereas Lee and Guenther suggest the reading ‘onions’, implying merely food gathering.

Lewin, Roger. 1988. New views emerge on hunters and gatherers. Science 240: 1146–1148.

The best popular account of the Kalahari Debate. Includes quotations from interviews with Irven DeVore, John Yellen, Carmel Schrire, and others.

Lewin distinguishes two paradigms in the study of hunter-gatherers: the evolutionary-ecological approach and the historical particularist approach. The former is characterized by analysis of hunter-gatherer society as an ahistorical, closed entity and an emphasis on the importance of hunter-gatherers in reconstructing past societies. The latter emphasises relations between hunter-gatherers and neighbouring groups.

Marshall, John. 1991. Tîdliche Mythen. In R. Kapfer, W. Petermann, and R. Thomas (eds.), JÑger und Gejagte: John Marshall und seine Filme. Munich: Trickster Verlag. pp 9–50.

Here John Marshall reverses his previous isolationist stance (as reflected in his famous film, ‘The Hunters’) and adopts a strongly revisionist position.

Morton, F. 1991. Slave-raiding and slavery in the western Transvaal after the Sand River Convention of 1852. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Association for African Studies, Toronto (May 1991).

Motzafi, Pnina. 1986. Whither the ‘true Bushmen’: The dynamics of perpetual marginality. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 7.1: 295–328.

Parkington, John E. 1984. Soaqua and Bushmen: hunters and robbers. In Carmel Schrire (ed.), Past and present in hunter-gatherer studies. Orlando: Academic Press. pp 151–74.

Sanders, A.J.G.M. 1989. The Bushmen of Botswana — from desert dwellers to world citizens. Law and anthropology 4: 107–22.

Schrire, Carmel. 1980. An inquiry into the evolutionary status and apparent identity of San hunter-gatherers. Human ecology 8: 9–32.

Silberbauer, George. 1991. Morbid reflexivity and overgeneralisation in Mosarwa studies. Current anthropology 32: 96–99.

A scathing review of Wilmsen’s Land filled with flies (ref. ***). Contrast Gordon’s (ref. ***).

Solway, Jacqueline S. and Richard B. Lee. 1981. The Kalahari fur trade. Paper presented at the 80^th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Los Angeles.

Solway, Jacqueline S. and Richard B. Lee. 1990. Foragers, genuine or spurious? Situating the Kalahari San in history. Current anthropology 31: 109–46.

The article that started the ball rolling. In it Solway and Lee bend quite far towards their opponents in recognizing the difficulties in the ‘pristine isolate’ model. However, they did not bend nearly far enough for the revisionists. ***

A physiological-linguistic comment by Michael J. Casimir was published under the title ‘On the milk-drinking San and the “myth of the primitive isolate”’, Current anthropology 31(5): 551–54 (1990).

Stiles, Daniel. 1992. The hunter-gatherer ‘revisionist’ debate. Anthropology today 8 (2): 13–16.

This is a good summary of the general hunter-gatherer debate. The line taken is that the ‘revisionists’ are broadly correct, but that what they overlook is the context of hunter-gatherer studies in the period they most frequently criticise, the 1960s. At that time, specialists were looking for models for early man, and that is why hunter-gatherer studies emphasised the isolation of foraging groups. Writers in the 1960s and before were not ignorant of the degree of contact such groups had with the outside world. Thus revisionist scholars today are not expressing views as new as they think they are.

Contains bibliographical details of other relevant popular accounts of the debate, including articles in Science, Science news, The sciences, and Time.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1978. Prehistoric and historic antecedents of an Ngamiland community. Botswana notes and records 10: 5–18.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1982. Exchange, interaction, and settlement in northwestern Botswana: past and present perspectives. In RenÇe Hitchcock and Mary R. Smith (eds.), Settlement in Botswana. Marshalltown, South Africa: Heinemann Educational Books. pp 98–109.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1983. The ecology of an illusion: anthropological foraging in the Kalahari. Reviews in anthropology 10: 9–20.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1986. Historical process in the political economy of San. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika 7.2: 413–32.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1988. The antecedents of contemporary pastoralism in western Ngamiland. Botswana notes and records 20: 29–39.

Wilmsen, Edwin N.. 1988. The past and future of !Kung ethnography? A review of Essays in honour of Lorna Marshall. In Rainer Vossen (ed.), New perspectives on Khoisan. Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag (Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 7). pp 135–47.

A brief but insightful criticism of several of the papers in ref. ***. Many of Wilmsen’s points are on target (mainly those on terminological precision). The volume also contains reviews of a number of other recent Khoisan books.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1989. Land filled with flies: a political economy of the Kalahari. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1989. Those who have each other: San relations to land. In Edwin N. Wilmsen (ed.), We are here: politics of aboriginal land tenure. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp 43–67.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1990. The political history of minorities and its bearing on current policy. In Botswana — education, culture and politics. Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh (Seminar Proceedings No. 29).

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1991. A battle for the centuries: ethnography at odds with its purpose. Paper preented at the annual conference of the Association for Anthropology in Southern Africa, Johannesburg (September 1991).

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1992. The social organization of Khoisan participation in the nineteenth-century Atlantic slave trade. Paper to be presented at the annual conference of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1992. Participation by Khoisan-speakers in the nineteenth-century Atlantic slave trade. Paper to be presented at the annual conference of the African Studies Association *** ***

Wilmsen, Edwin N. n.d. Who were the Bushmen: historical process in the creation of an ethnic construct. In Jane Schneider and Rayna Rapp (eds.), Articulating hidden histories: papers in honor of Eric R. Wolf. Berkeley: University of California Press (in press).

Wilmsen, Edwin N. and James R. Denbow. 1990. Paradigmatic history of San-speaking peoples and current attempts at revision. Current anthropology 31: 489–24.

*****

Late comments by Eibl-Eibesfeldt and Hitchcock are published under the title ‘On subsistence and social relations in the Kalahari’, Current anthropology 32(1): 55–57 (1991).

Wilmsen, E.N. and D. Durham. 1988. Food as a function of seasonal environment and social history. In I. de Garine and G.A. Harrison (eds.), Coping with uncertainty in food supply. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp 52–87.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. and Rainer Vossen. 1990. Labour, exchange, and power in the construction of ethnicity in Botswana. Critique of anthropology 10: 7–37.

Yellen, John E. 1990. The transformation of the Kalahari !Kung. Scientific American 262: 96–105.

Argues that herding and wage labour are considered forms of ‘foraging’ by modern !Kung.

Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1988. The antecedents of contemporary pastoralism in Ngamiland. Botswana notes and records 20: 29–39.

Includes a comment on Yellen and Brooks (ref. ***), pp 37–39. Wilmsen emphasizes, as proof of early Iron Age occupation, the presence of a bovine maxilla, whose stratigraphy and significance Yellen and Brooks dispute.

Yellen, John A. and Alison Brooks. 1988. The Late Stone Age archaeology of the !Kangwa and /Xai /Xai valleys, Ngamiland. Botswana notes and records 20: 5–27.

Yellen, John A. and Alison Brooks. 1990. The Late Stone Age archaeology in the /Xai /Xai region: a response to Wilmsen. Botswana notes and records 22: 17–19.

A reply to Wilmsen (ref. ***). Yellen and Brooks suggest that !Kung of /Xai /Xai (between Dobe and Ghanzi) lived a relatively isolated existence until the late 1960s.

The literary critique

Papers which some might see as slightly peripheral to the debate proper include works on the impact of doing ethnography. These represent, as it were, a subtext whose explicit concern is with the relation between writing and representation, as well as with reporting the ‘facts’ derived from field or archival research.

To my mind, none of the key protagonists in the Kalahari Debate are all that de rigueure with regard to the ‘critical anthropology’, ‘the postmodern critique’, or whatever it is now called. Radical interpretivism is an approach quite foreign to any side in this or any other Khoisanist issues. The closest one comes to it here is in the two papers by Pratt (refs. *** and ***), who is a literary critic who has not done fieldwork in southern Africa. Kuper (ref. ***) touches on this problem in his paper, which is sure to become a classic point of discussion on the issue.

Barnard, Alan. 1989. The lost world of Laurens van der Post? Current anthropology 30: 104–14.

Haarhoff, Dorian. 1991. The wild South-West: frontier myths and metaphors in literature set in Namibia, 1760–1988. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.

One of the very few literary commentaries on the portrayal of Bushmen and other Namibians through time. Deals with a great variety of English, German and Afrikaans works, including travelogue, fiction and poetry. Amply endowed with quotations. A riveting read.

Some of the themes here are also discussed by Gordon (ref. ***).

Howell, Nancy. 1986. Images of the Tasaday and the !Kung: reassessing isolated hunter-gatherers. Paper presented at the 53^rd meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Phoenix, AZ.

Among the first papers to draw parallels between the !Kung and Tasaday controversies. Contains a good number of interesting quotations from earlier works and discussion of ‘how the historical context was missed’ (see also ref. ***).

Kuper, Adam. 1992. Post-Modernism, Cambridge and the Great Kalahari Debate. Social anthropology I (1), in press.

Kuper recounts his own experience as a student at Cambridge and as a fieldworker, with Richard Lee, in the Kalahari in the 1960s, in light of Sir Edmund Leach’s claim that ethnographies are essentially works of fiction. He advances an opposing thesis, namely that ethnography emerges through theoretical dialogue. This paper thus throws light both on the Kalahari debate and on the other great social anthropological debate of the 1990s, that inspired by the postmodernist critique.

Presented as a keynote address to the annual conference of the Association for Anthropology in South Africa (September 1991), with the title ‘Ethnographic practice: a critique of Postmodernism with special reference to the “Kalahari Controversy”’.

Pratt, Mary Louise. 1985. Scratches on the face of the country, or, What Mr Barrow saw in the land of the Bushmen. Critical inquiry 12: 119–43.

Uses Barrow’s account (ref. ***) as a paradigm ethnographic travelogue. Pratt plays on the ‘us’/‘them’ opposition in this genre to present a literary critique widely known beyond the confines of the Kalahari Debate proper.

Reprinted in Henry Louis Gate, Jr. (ed.), ‘Race,’ writing, and difference (The University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp 138–62).

Pratt, Mary Louise. 1986. Fieldwork in common places. In James Clifford and George Marcus (eds.), Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp 27–50.

Goes beyond Mr. Barrow and deals extensively with Shostak’s Nisa (ref. ***) from a literary point of view. Pratt points out the symbolism which is embedded in ethnographic writing, including the ‘symbolism of guilt’ for being an anthropologist among the !Kung (which Pratt reads into Shostak’s nightime arrival at Gausha).

Voss, Anthony. 1988. ‘Die bushie is dood: long live die bushie’: black South African writers on the San. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association, Chicago.

8. Popular literature

Popular literature comes in many forms, but I shall divide it here into just two cateogories. The first is concerned with the portrayal of the Bushmen to the general public. The second is concerned with the representation of the Kalahari Debate to that public.

Portrayal of the Bushmen

Of all the works on Bushmen none have captured readers’ imaginations as much as Laurens van der Post’s travelogue and novels. Sometimes it is hard to tell the two apart, but my concern here is only with the ‘non-fiction’.

There is also a considerable ‘non-fiction’ literature in Afrikaans and a bit in German attatching a kind of savage innocence to the inhabitants of the Kalahari. This literature is well covered by Gordon (refs. *** and ***). I list below only a few of the most significant, or most interesting, attempts at popularizing the Bushmen. Like some of the best in the travelogue of old and the worst in reflexivist anthropology, popular literature often gives top billing to the traveller rather than the people whose lands are travelled through. With respect to the Kalahari Debate, the recent travelogue is far less significant than the early travelogue (dealt with in section 4). I shall confine my comments here to van der Post and a sample of the most interesting or better known works by others.

Barnard, Alan. 1978. Bushmen. London: British Museum Publications.

A relativistic account designed to meet the needs of the ‘Discovering Other Cultures’ series. In retrospect, it lends itself to being taken as strongly isolationist, and indeed long, idealistic quotations were plagarised from it (and greatly embellished) in a popular film on the G/wi.

Bjerre, Jens. 1960 [1958]. Kalahari (trans. Estrid Bannister). New York: Hilland Wang.

A ridiculously romanticised travel account, translated from the Danish Kalahari atomtidens stenalder (Carit Andersens Forlag, Copenhagen). The Danish Kalahari Expedition apparently travelled under the patronage of the Royal Geographical Society (London), the South African Museum, and the University of the Witwatersrand. Among the 30 chapters are included: ‘The lazy people of paradise’ (chap. 11) and ‘Stone-Age man shows me a sputnik’ (chap. 29).

Farini, G.A. 1886. Through the Kalahari desert: a narrative of a journey with gun, camera and note-book to Lake N’Gami and back. London: Sampson Low.

Gilarmi Farini’s famous tale recounts the discovery of a Phoenecian lost city in the southern Kalahari. The form of the narrative and the use of the ‘mixed-blood’ or ‘tame’ Bushman guide was anticipated by H. Rider Haggard and Jules Verne (see especially Verne’s The adventures of three Englishmen and three Russians in southern Africa, 1876). It was later copied by L. van der Post and Wilbur Smith, among others). What sets Farini apart is that he claims to be writing an explorer’s narrative. Fay Gouldie (his biographer) believed him, as did the South African Air Force (who also claimed to have seen his lost city). Yet it is extremely unlikely that he could have crossed the Kalahari by the route and in the time he claims.

Translated into German (1886) and French (1887). Farini also read a short version before the Royal Geographical Society in 1886, which was published in the Proceedings for that year. Farini’s real name was William Hunt.

Cowley, Clive. 1968. Fabled tribe: a journey to discover the River Bushmen of the Okavango swamps. London: Longman.

Often cited, presumably because there is so little else on the River Bushmen.

Ellenberger, Victor. 1953. La Fin tragique des Bushmen, les derniers hommes vivants de l’age de la pierre. Paris: Amiot Dumont.

Gordon, Robert. 1984. The San in transition, Vol. 2: What future the Ju/Wasi of Nyae-Nyae?. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival (Occasional Paper No. 13).

An excellent statement of issues with regard to the development of Bushmanland. Touches peripherally on the Kalahari Debate, and is important for its portrayal of the recent plight of the !Kung of Nyae Nyae. Vol. 1 is ref. ***.

Heinz, Hans-Joachim and Marshall Lee. 1978. Namkwa: life among the Bushmen. London: Jonathan Cape.

Owens, Mark and Delia. 1985. Cry of the Kalahari. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Schoeman, P.J. 1957. Hunters of the desert land. Cape Town: Howard Timmins.

Shostak, Marjorie. 1983 [1981]. Nisa: the life and works of a !Kung woman. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

Steyn, H.P. 1981. The Kalahari Bushmen. Cape Town: Hollandisch Afrikaans Uitgevers Maatschappij.

Steyn, H.P. 1985. The Bushmen of the Kalahari. Hove, England: Wayland (Original Peoples series).

Steyn, H.P. 1990. Vanished lifestyles: the early Cape Khoi and San. Pretoria: Unibook Publishers.

Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall. 1959. The harmless people. London: Secker & Warburg.

Van der Post, Laurens. 1958. The lost world of the Kalahari. London: The Hogarth Press.

Tells of van der Post’s journey of discovery to find the ‘pure’ Bushmen deep in the Kalahari. In fact, says little about Bushmen and a great deal about the human condition against the backdrop of Bushman mythology. Van der Post travels with a ‘tame’ (Nharo) Bushman, who unwittingly serves as an effective literary device in mediating with the ‘real’ Bushman of the imagination.

Van der Post, Laurens. 1961. The heart of the hunter. London: The Hogarth Press.

The sequel to The lost world of the Kalahari, tells of what happens once ‘wild’ (G/wi) Bushmen are encountered.

Van der Post, Laurens. 1975. A mantis carol. Covelo, CA: Island Press.

This is among the strangest tales that have ever been told. I am not sure whether it is meant to be taken as fact or fiction (see Barnard, ref. ***), but it tells of spirit-travel between New York City and the heart of the Kalahari. Of relevance for its portrayal of Bushmen as pristine if not isolated, and, rarely for van der Post, as remaining relatively pure even in the Big Apple.

Originally difficult to find, this book has recently been reprinted by Penguin (as have the previous van der Post books mentioned above).

Van der Post, Laurens and Jane Taylor. 1984. Testament to the Bushmen. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

A more recent attempt by van der Post to describe the Bushman way of life as he sees it. Less fictional than van der Post’s famous travel narratives, this book is an attempt to update the ‘lost world’ idea and portray Bushman culture as doomed. A related film by Taylor, in which van der Post returns to the Kalahari, reaffirms the message.

Volkman, Toby Alice. 1982. The San in transition, Vol. 1: A guide to N!ai, the Story of a !Kung woman. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival and Documentary Educational Resources (C.S. Occasional Paper No. 9).

An excellent guide to John Marshall’s biographical film. Vol. 2 is ref. ***.

Volkman, Toby Alice. 1986. The hunter-gatherer myth in southern Africa. Cultural Survival quarterly 10(2): 25–32.

9. Theoretical and comparative literature

Conference literature and other collections

The most important conference on hunter-gatherers ever was ‘Man the Hunter’, held in Chicago in 1966. This was followed after some years by a numbered series known as the International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies (since 1988 abbreviated to CHAGS). CHAGS has met in Paris (1978), Quebec (1980), Bad Homberg (1983), London (1986), Darwin (1988), and Fairbanks (1991). CHAGS7 is planned for Moscow (1993).

Important conference volumes and other key collections on hunter-gatherers studies include the following (in roughly chronological order). Some specific papers from these have been mentioned in other sections, above.

Damas, David (ed.). 1969. Contributions to anthropology: band societies. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada (Bulletin No. 228).

Based on a conference held in Ottawa in 1965. Among significant papers is M.G. Bicchieri’ ‘A cultural ecological comparative study of three African foraging societies’ (pp 172–96 and chart). Most of the others concern North American Indians.

Damas, David (ed.). 1969. Contributions to anthropology: ecological essays. Ottawa: National Museums of Canada (Bulletin No. 230).

Based on a conference held in Ottawa in 1967. Includes a number of papers on hunter-gatherers, including the first publication of Lee’s famous ‘!Kung Bushman subsistence: an input-output analysis’ (also published in ref. ***). The Ottawa ‘Band Organization’ and ‘Cultural Ecology’ conferences, although small (14 participants each) represented high points in the development of a culture-specific (isolationist) ecological anthropology.

Lee, Richard B. and Irven DeVore (eds.). 1968. Man the hunter. Chicago: Aldine.

‘Man the Hunter’ is widely recognized as one of the most significant anthropological conferences of all time. It was held in Chicago in April 1966 and involved 75 participants. The book (like the Ottawa conference volumes mentioned above) contains both the 30 short papers and summaries of spoken discussion, the latter adding a flavour of the conference itself to the formal presentations of field data and theoretical statements.

The volume is divided into sections on ‘Ecology and economics’, ‘Social and territorial organization’, ‘Marraige and models in Australia’, Demography and population ecology’, ‘Prehistoric hunter-gatherers’, ‘Hunting and human evolution’, and ‘The concept of primitiveness’. It includes such key papers as:

Lee, Richard B. and Irven DeVore. 1968. ‘Problems in the study of hunters and gatherers’. pp 3–12.

Lee, Richard B. 1968. ‘What hunters do for a living, or, how to make out on scarce resources’. pp 30–48.

LÇvi-Strauss, Claude. ‘The concept of primitiveness’. pp 349–52.

Vayda, Andrew P. (ed.) 1969. Environment and cultural behavior. New York: Natural History Press.

Another important collection of readings, this one not based on a conference.

Bicchieri, M.G. (ed.). 1972. Hunters and gatherers today: a socioeconomic study of eleven such cultures in the twentieth century. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

The most readable set of ethnographic texts on hunter-gatherers. They do not, as a rule, deal explicity with theoretical issues, but the range (in terms of geographical coverage) and quality of the contributions is exceptional. Also, the papers are unusually long and detailed.

After being out of print for many years, the volume was reissued in paperback by Waveland Press (Prospect Heights, IL) in 1988.

Dahlberg, Frances (ed.). 1981. Woman the gatherer. New Haven: Yale University Press.

An attempt to feminize the image of hunter-gatherers and redress the balance tipped by ‘man the hunter’. Unfortunately, there are no papers on Bushmen, but Adrienne L Zihlman’s ‘Women as shapers of the human adaptation’ (pp 75–120), which makes much use of !Kung data, is of special interest for our concerns here.

Leacock, Eleanor and Richard Lee (eds.). 1982. Politics and history in band societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. / Paris: êditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.

Based on the conference now known as CHAGS1 (Paris, 1978). This is the only one of the three proposed volumes to appear from that conference (the others were to be on broadly on the themes of social organization and religion, and on gender). Contains papers on Bushmen by Hitchcock, Hurlich, Lee, Silberbauer, Vierich, and Wiessner. Trade is discussed in some of the other papers, but was not yet of much concerns to Bushmanist scholars.

Deuxiäme congres international sur les sociÇtÇs de chasseurs-collecteurs / Second International Conference on Hunting and Gathering Societies. 1980. QuÇbec: Dept. d’anthropologie, UniversitÇ Laval. pp 766–91.

An 815-page bound collection of the CHAGS2 (Quebec, 1980) papers, distributed to the participants a few months after the conference but never made availabale to the public. Most of the significant papers have since been published elsewhere.

Winterhalder, Bruce and Eric Alden Smith (eds.). 1981. Hunter-gatherer foraging strategies: ethnographic and archaeological analyses. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

A seminal set of writings in the ‘optimal forager’ tradition, which argues that hunter-gatherers maximize their exploitation of resources according to cost-benefit strategies. The approach has come to dominate much archaeological thinking in the United States and has relevance for its use of !Kung data, such as Lee’s ‘input-output analysis’ (ref. ***).

Schrire, Carmel (ed.). 1984. Past and present in hunter-gatherer studies. Orlando: Academic Press.

Based on CHAGS3 (Bad Homberg, 1983), which was the smallest of the CHAGS series. Most of the papers are historical and represent particulalry the revisionist point of view. Indeed, the conference was partly organized by Wilmsen to air the new material then emerging which contradicted the traditional view of hunter-gatherers as living in relatively isolated societies.

Contains, among many others of relevance, the important papers by Denbow, Gordon, Parkington cited above (in section 8).

Ingold, Tim, David Riches, and James Woodburn (eds). 1988. Hunters and gatherers (2 vols.). Oxford: Berg Publishers.

These two volumes are based on the London conference (CHAGS4). They have recently been reprinted in paperback, with some minior corrections. Bushmanist papers are mainly on ideology, but papers on other parts of the world offer useful comparative material. There are also theoretical papers of interest (e.g., Lee, ref. ***) and an important paper by Martin Hall (ref. ***).

Vol. I: Hunters and gatherers I: History, evolution and social change.

Vol. II: Hunters and gatherers II: Property, power and ideology.

Rottland, Franz and Rainer Vossen (eds.). 1986. Sprache und Geschichte in Africa, vols. 7.1 and 7.2.

The full title of this double issue of SUGIA is Afrikanische Wildbeuter: internationales Symposion / African hunter-gatherers: international Symposium / Chasseur et cuilleurs en Afrique: symposium international. It is published in two volumes by Helmut Buske Verlag, Hamburg and contains 33 of the 34 papers presented at the conference by that name held in St. Augustin (near Cologne) in January 1985. Most of the papers are in English, and contributors include anthropologists, archaeologists, and linguists from Europe, North America, Africa, Australia, and Japan. A number are cited above under relevant sections.

Lamberg-Karlovsky, C.C. (ed.). 1990. Archaeological thought in America. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This volume contains a number of theoretical papers of relevance, including chapters on the ‘new arcaheology’ by Lewis Binford, on Marxism by Antonio Gilman, on the history of archeology by Bruce Trigger, and, most significantly, on ‘The present and future of hunter-gatherer studies’ by John Yellen.

Miracle, Preston T., Lynn E. Fisher, and Jody Brown (eds.). 1991. Foragers in context: long-term, regional and historical perspectives in hunter-gatherer studies. Ann Arbor: Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan (Michigan Discussions in Anthropology, Volume 10).

An important volume based on seminars held by Michigan students. Relevant papers include:

Bernbeck, Reinhard. ‘Crisis in the foraging mode of production: long-term cyclical processes in hunter-gatherer societies’. pp 47–62.

Goland, Carol. ‘The ecological context of hunter-gatherers storage: environmental predictability and environmental risk’. pp 107–25.

Hegmon, Michelle and Lynn E. Fisher. ‘Information strategies in hunter-gatherer societies’. pp 127–45.

Lee, Richard B. ‘The !Kung in question: evidence and context in the Kalahari debate’. pp 9–16. (See above, ref. ***.)

Shott, Michael J. ‘Archaeological implications of revisionism in ethnography’. pp 31–40.

Headland, Tom (ed.). 1992. The Tasaday controversy. Washington, DC: American Anthropological Association (Special Publication). (In press)

This volume will no doubt place the Tasaday higher on the agenda for comparative treatment. That controversy involves the disposition of a group ‘discovered’ in the Phillipines just over twenty years ago. They have now been heavily acculturated, it would seem, but at the point of their ‘discovery’ were they hailed as living Stone Age people. Are they really primitive isolates or a creation of the Marcos government? Both Howell and Lee have entered the Tasaday controversy as a sideline to the Kalahari Debate.

Theoretical works on hunter-gatherers, etc.

Major theoretical papers and books on hunter-gatherer studies include a great number of works. Good starting points are the various summary papers in the Annual review of anthropology. As noted above, there is also a review of southern African archaeology there (ref. ***), and a review of southern African social anthropology (by Robert Gordon) is in preparation.

Most of the items listed below tend broadly to favour the isolationist side, as it is this side which sees itself as a part of the field of ‘hunter-gatherer studies’. A list of recent histories of southern Africa might serve as a contextual background for the revisionist side. Yet I have avoided the temptation to present such a list here as little of theoretical (as opposed to merely comparative) understanding could be gained. Correspondingly, comparative but not particularly theoretical works on hunter-gatherers in other parts of the world are omitted here too.

There is little room either to consider the wider aspects of the ‘literary critique’ (as I have called it above). Instead, I will cite only one reference, which I think has special significance for the Kalahari Debate:

Thornton, Robert. 1983. Narrative ethnography in Africa, 1850–1920: the creation and capture of an appropriate domain for anthropology. Man (n.s.) 18: 502–20.

Thornton suggests that the ethnographic monograph (in general) is rooted in two traditions: that of natural science writing and that of travelogue. I would add that our isolationists often long to be identified with the former, whereas the revisionists see themselves as arbiters of the latter.

Theoretical writings relevant to the ‘political economy critique’ include:

Barnard, Alan. 1983. Contemporary hunter-gatherers: current theoretical issues in ecology and social organization. Annual review of anthropology 12: 193–214.

This reviews the history of hunter-gatherer studies from the days of the Steward-Service typology (the 1950s and 1960s) to the height of the Marxist era (the early 1980s).

Bird-David, Nurit. 1990. The giving environment: another perspective on the economic system of gatherer-hunters. Current Anthropology 31: 189–96.

Bird-David, Nurit. 1992. Beyond ‘The Original affluent society’: a culturalist reformulation. Current anthropology 33: 25–47.

Bird-David, Nurit. 1992. Beyond ‘the hunting and gathering mode of subsistence’: observations on the Nayaka and other modern hunter-gatherers’. Man (n.s.) 27: 19–44.

Bird-David’s position is that hunter-gatherers perceive their environments as ‘giving’, i.e., of containing what is needed form subsistence and offering it up for the taking. However, unlike Sahlins, she mediates this with a direct concern for the cultural construction of indigenous ‘economic’ ideologies. Thus she accepts part of Sahlins’ notion but transforms it.

Her ultimate concern is with the sharing strategies which foragers employ to make best use of their environment, and not the environmental exploitation themselves. This has left her vulnerable to criticism from the ‘ecological’, ‘scientific’, or ‘formalist’ (as opposed to ‘substantivist’) wing of hunter-gatherer studies. Likewise it places her in an ambiguous position with regard to the Kalahari Debate, though broadly she may be considered a ‘soft’ isolationist.

Gardener, Peter M. Foragers’ pursuit of individual autonomy. Current anthropoology 32: 543–72.

An examination of no less than twelve theories of the ‘causes’ of flexibility, simple social structure, individualism, and egalitarianism among hunter-gatherers. Conclusions suggest something called the ‘individual autonomy syndrome’ might be operating, and that many causes are involved. With comments by Bird-David, Cashdan, Guenther, and others.

Grinkler, Roy Richard. 1992. History and hierarchy in hunter-gatherer studies. American ethnologist 19: 160–65.

A review artcile of refs. *** and ***.

Flanagan, James G. 1989. Hierarchy in simple ‘egalitarian’ societies. Annual review of anthropology 18: 245–66.

Friedman, Jonathan. 1974. Marxism, structuralism and vulgar materialism. Man (n.s.) 9: 444–69.

Gulbrandsen, O. 1991 On the problem of egalitarianism: the Kalahari San in transition. In R. GrÌnhaug, G. Henriksen, and G. Haaland (eds), Ecology of choice and symbol: essays in honour of Fredrik Barth. Bergen: Alma Mater. pp 81–110.

Headland, Thomas and L. Reid. 1989. Hunter-gatherers and their neighbors from prehistory to the present. Current anthropology 30: 43–66.

An important article comparing a number of different groups, including the San (Kalahari Bushmen). It suggests that hunter-gatherers throughout the world have long been involved in trade and either pastoralism or cultivation.

The article itself includes comments by several scholars, but surprisingly, no Bushman specialists. However, late replies, including ones by Robert Gordon and George Silberbauer, are published under the title ‘On the myth of the “savage other”’ in Current anthropology 30: 205–08 (1989).

Helbling, JÅrg. 1987. Theorie der Wildbeutergesellschaft: eine ethnosoziologische Studie. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag.

A good overview of theories of hunter-gatherer society. Especially strong on the Marxists.

Ingold, Tim. 1986. The appropriation of nature: essays on human ecology and social relations. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Ingold, Tim. 1988. Notes on the foraging mode of production. In Tim Ingold, David Riches, and James Woodburn (eds.), Hunters and gatherers I: History, evolution and social change. Oxford: Berg. pp 269–85.

Keenan, Jeremy. 1977. The concept of the mode of production in hunter-gatherer societies. African studies 36: 57–69.

Reprinted in 1981 in J.S. Kahn and J.R. Llobera (eds.), The anthropology of pre-capitalist societies (Macmillan, London).

Lee, R.B. 1981 [1980]. Is there a foraging mode of production?, Canadian journal of anthropology 2(1): 13–19.

Originally published in French as ‘Existe-t-il un mode de production “forageur”?’, in Anthropologie et sociÇtÇs 4(3): 59–74.

Lee, Richard B. 1988. Reflections on primitive communism. In Tim Ingold, David Riches, and James Woodburn (eds.), Hunters and gatherers I: History, evolution and social change. Oxford: Berg. pp 252–68.

Lee, Richard B. 1990. Primitive communism and the origins of social inequality. In Steadman Upham (ed.), The evolution of political systems: sociopolitics in small-scale sedentary societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp 225–246.

Lee suggests that the notion of a ‘communal’ or ‘foraging’ mode of production is a useful one, specifically to explain !Kung society. From this egalitarian type of society, more stratified social formations have emerged. This simplistic Marxist model has been attacked by Wilmsen and others, but Lee’s position is not that different from Bird-David’s (e.g., ref. ***) or my own (ref. ***).

Mauss, Marcel. 1925. Essai sur le don. AnnÇe sociologique I: 30–186.

Mauss’s classic, The gift, has been translated and reprinted several times, though both of the English versions (1954 and 1990) are, in their different ways, over-translations which deviate from Mauss’s precise phraseology and use of technical terms. Mauss’s central argument is that reciprocity is fundamental to human social life, an notion which has influenced Sahlins, Bird-David, and many, many others. In the Bushman context, Maussian ideas have implications for the interpretation of ‘sharing’, hxaro networks, and trade between foragers and non-foragers.

Myers, Fred R. 1988. Critical trends in the study of hunter-gatherers. Annual review of anthropology 17: 261–82.

Price, John A. 1975. Sharing: the integration of intimate economies. Anthropologica (n.s.) 17: 3–27.

Sahlins, Marshall. 1974 [1972]. Stone age economics. London: Tavistock Publications.

Schott, RÅdiger. 1953. Der GÅterverkehr zwischen Wildbeuter- und Planzervîlkern. Zeitschrift fÅr Ethnologie 78: 173–95.

An early comparative statement on forager/farmer trade relations in different world regions.

Service, Elman R. 1962. Primitive social organization: an evolutionary perspective. New York: Random House.

Steward, Julian. 1955. Theory of culture change. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Testart, Alain. 1981. Pour une typologie des chasseurs-cueilleurs. Anthropologie et sociÇtÇs 5(2): 177–221.

Testart, Alain. 1982. Les chasseurs-cueilleurs ou l’origine des inÇgalitÇs. Paris: SociÇtÇ d’ethnographie.

Testart, Alain. 1988. Some major problems in the social anthropology of hunter-gatherers. Current anthropology 29: 1–31.

Testart, Alain. 1985. Le communisme primitif, I: êconomie et idÇologie, Paris: êditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.

Wilmsen, E.N. 1973. Interaction, spacing behavior, and the organization of hunting bands. Journal of anthropological research 29: 1–31.

A pre-revisionist paper by Wilmsen. He suggests mathematical models, including one derived from the study of territoriality among blackbirds, for the study of territoriality and settlement patterns. (Cf. Yellen and Harpending, ref. ***).

Woodburn, James. 1980. Hunters and gatherers today and reconstruction of the past. In Ernest Gellner (ed.), Soviet and Western anthropology. London: Duckworth. pp 95–117.

Woodburn, James. 1982. Egalitarian societies. Man (n.s.) 17: 431–51.

10. Notes for future research

Being an anthropologist

While the debate show little sign of ending, there is to my mind a tendency for writers to go over ground they have covered more than once. This does not mean that individual protagonists are not changing their minds. On the contrary, several have gradually shifted position as they have stepped warily around the old issues again and again.

So where do we go from here? The debate seems to have reached a point at which it is time for protagonists to address some questions about the meaning of constructs like ‘Bushman’, ‘hunter-gatherer’, ‘underclass’, ‘ethnic group’, ‘region’, ‘economy’, ‘history’, and ‘ethnography’. These concepts do not, of course, exist in isolation. They are interdependent. It should not be a matter of each of us picking one or two such concepts to play with and, at times, pouring scorn on those who choose differently. Yet nor is it ever possible to have a ‘complete analysis’, as Traill facetiously noted in the title of his small monograph on !Xì dialects:

A. Traill. 1974. The compleat guide to the Koon. Johannesburg: African Studies Institute (Comunication No. 1).

The choice is really between, on the one hand, acknowledging that there are more correct theoretical perspectives than one and acting accordingly, and, on the other hand, trying to combine perspectives to produce a larger, if never complete, picture.

I think there are good grounds for choosing the former. There are both philosophical and practical grounds for encouraging competing research programmes. Wilmsen and Lee, for example, are not necessarily even trying to answer the same questions. Other anthropologists who use their data to answer their own question, in turn, move yet farther from any ‘true Bushman’ in the process. I do not have any difficulty accepting the possibility that Wilmsen, Lee, and van der Post alike build an imagery around the object of their study. Wilmsen’s image (e.g., ref. ***) is appropriate to his interest in unifying archaeology, history, and ethnography. Lee’s (ref. ***) is appropriate to his emphasis, especially in his early work, on long-term evolutionary and ecological questions. Van der Post’s (ref. ***) is appropriate to his mystical concerns too.

There are also good grounds for choosing the latter — for comparative purposes. Wilmsen’s approach is to some extent geared towards this, whereas Lee’s is not. Wilmsen’s approach comes closer to breaking the mould of each academic discipline and often provides insights for anthropologists into processes of history, or, for historians, into the regularities and continuities of social life. Yet Wilmsen, in rejecting the importance of culture, and in emphasizing boundaries of class over boundaries of kinship (e.g., joking/avoidance classification) or of ethnicity (e.g., !Kung, Nharo, G/wi), at times almost abrogates his position as an anthropologist per se to take on the mantle of the historian. Gordon does much the same, sometimes (e.g., ref. ***), to an even greater degree.

History, however, is not a substitute for anthropology. Becoming a historian does not solve the theoretical issues brought to light in the works of Woodburn, Sahlins, or Steward (e.g., refs. ***, ***, ***). It sweeps them under the carpet.

Becoming a historian?

Suppose, however, the historian in us all wins out. The archival work that can be done on the question of the Kalahari Debate has only just begun, though Gordon (ref. ***) has done a magnificent job of pointing the way. Historians per se have their own problems, but if they join in the Kalahari Debate they would be wise to come to grips with the theoretical issues which lie at its centre. Anthropologists who take to tackling historical questions raised under the mantle of the debate would be equally wise to learn the historian’s craft. This means a combination of the theoretical sophistication of the anthropologist and the technical acuteness of the historian. Occasionally, though, protagonists get this the wrong way around, doing their archival work with a historian’s theoretical naivety and with a swash-buckling methodology which is a caracature of anthropological fieldwork.

Archival materials abound. The National Archives of Namibia, in Windhoek, and the Botswana National Archives and Record Services, in Gaborone, are prime locations. Werner Hillebrecht, now working in Maibia, has been compiling a database of bibliographic references relating to Namibia (NAMLIT). The Public Records Office in London houses the Colonial Office records, with reference to the Bechuanaland Protectorate (copies of these being found in Gaborone too). The Namibia Scientific Society Library in Windhoek, the South African Library in Cape Town, the Sir Ernest Oppenheimer Library in Johannesburg ***, the School of Oriental and African Studies Library in London (which houses the archives of the London Missionary Society), and many other institutions contain rare published and unpublished materials as yet hardly touched by members of the Kalahari debators’ club!

Digging around the roses

Archaeological research directed towards in interaction between Iron Age and Late Stone Age Kalahari peoples is in its infancy. Denbow and Wilmsen have been digging in the eastern Kalahari for several years, but have only in the last five years found what now appears to be the most significant sites of relevance to the debate. Funding awarded this year (1992) by the U.S. National Science Foundation should allow this research to flower in the very near future. Yet further work is needed to find Iron Age sites in the Nyae Nyae and Dobe areas — whose existence is a bone of much contention (see, e.g., ref. *** and comment there by Denbow).

Archaeologists in southern Africa (and archaeologists of southern Africa) tend to be far more aware of theoretical problems in social and cultural anthropology than their counterparts anywhere else in the world. Many have contributed valuable publications to the body material under debate. Yet, in fact, few have come out with a theoretical line. Those who have, have tended to be either plain traditionalists (e.g., Yellen, ref. ***) or downright revisionists (e.g., Denbow, ref. ***). What is needed, to my mind, is a step towards solving questions of ancient migration routes and of long-term interaction before the colonial era. Some are doing this (including Denbow, and Wilmsen with his archaeologist’s hat), but what is still missing is an ability to identify specific tool industries with population groups living today, or, failing that, at least a more serious consideration of regional, cultural diversity. Until such questions are at least openly talked over, the archaeological contribution to broader anthropological aspects of this debate may well remain on the fringe.

Ethnography and anthropology today and tomorrow

There is, of course, much ethnographic fieldwork to do too. The prime areas of new research will almost certainly be among non-Bushman peoples. Our knowledge of Ovambo and Kavango culture, for example, is very meagre in comparison with our knowledge of that of the !Kung.

Ethnographic study also needs new focal points and new theoretical developments — ones which test the limits of the current paradigms, not ones which entrench debating factions deeper into the Kalahari sands. The questions we academics ask may also be ones of interest to the Bushmen and other peoples of the Kalahari — such as who owns the land, how to use it most productively, and how to get along with neighbours and interlopers. All these are highly relevant theoretical as well as practical questions, and the Kalahari Debate skilfully manoevred should be able to address them.

As Marco Bicchieri once said (at CHAGS5), there is no such thing as a specifically ‘applied anthropology’, because all anthropology is, by nature, applied (or appliable) to real problems. It follows that there can be no such thing as a purely theoretical anthropology. The Kalahari Debate is ultimately a debate about both anthropology itself and its object.