Kung Bushmen Call Christmas Analysis

1. What do the !Kung Bushmen call Christmas? Why do they call it this?

The !Kung Bushmen idea of Christmas is " praise the birth of the white man's god-chief". They are calling it this way, because it was and still seem to be a holiday that is foreign to their belief system and their culture. It was brought to them in the early nineteen century by The London Missionary Society. The name "the birth of the white man's god-chief", they gave the holiday, clearly sets it apart from themselves. They accept it and celebrat it because it is the one day a year when everybody gets enough food, as an ox is slaughtered to fulfill the traditional requirement of a "proper Christmas celebration."

2. What does the anthropologist bring to the Christmas

feast? Why?
To celebrate the holiday, the Anthropologist Richard Borshay Lee, decides to buy the fattest, biggest ox that he can find, to prepare a feast for all the 150 Bushmen. The ox, was also meant to be his departing gift to the people he lived with for three years. He came to Kalahari to study the Bushmen, specifically the hunting and gathering subsistence economy of the !Kung people. While studying them, he lived with them, and so he learned that often they did not have enough food to feed themselves. As a scientist coming from wealthier country, he brought with him and maintained a two month supply of canned goods. He shared with the Bushment his supplies of tobacco, as well as medical supplies. However, because of the character of his studies, it was crucial that he did not share his food supply. He felt guilty as he was not able to help them when he knew they were hungry. For it at the end of his stay in Kalahari he decided to give them the gift of an ox as his departure gift and to celebrate the holiday.

3. Describe the joke the !Kung play on the anthropologist:
The !Kung, insisted that the ox bought by the anthropologist was skinny, without fat, with not enough meat on it, only bones, that could only be used for soup, as they added with a delayed optimism.

They complained that there will not be enough meat to go around, men will fight over the food, and the celebration will be a disaster. Together, they planted enough fear in the mind of the anthropologist, that even though once he was convinced and proud of his pick, he started to worry that the ox was not good enough, and the celebration will be ruined. In the end, after the ox was slaughtered, it proved to be indeed a very meaty animal, with plenty of white layers of fat. The anthropologist discovered that Bushmen collectively played a joke on him. They all knew what a beautiful animal they were receiving, yet they all complained about it, calling it a "bag of bones". Only later did the anthropologist learned that it was the Bushmen's tradition to criticize, and they routinely did it to themselves. They did it to keep their arrogance in check, and their humility

intact.
4. What lesson does the anthropologist learn?
After Richard learned that the Bushmen played a joke on him, he asked Tomazo, one of the Bushmen, to explain what was the reason for it.

Tomazo told Richard, that it is their tradition to put down anyone and his accomplishment, no matter how great it is, as not to fuel his ego. Richard learned that it was his status in the community as the only tobacco provider in the area and the " medicine men", and now the fattest ox donor, that had the Bushmen worry about his "expanding" ego. He learned that humility was what the Bushmen valued the most. Buying the biggest ox made Richard believe it was an act of generosity, and it was viewed as such by the community he gifted it to. However, Richard came from a culture where gifts are received with gratefulness, not put downs, and so he was perplexed by the reception of his gift. The criticism he received for his gift was a return gift to Richard, although he did not know it yet. It meant to prevent Richard from becoming arrogant. The Bushmen worried that Richard's generosity, would make him proud, something they did not appreciate in their culture. Richard has learned that it is easy to misinterpret, or misunderstand the intentions of other people when you " filter" them through your own system of values and beliefs. The joke played by the Bushmen made Richard realize that there are " no totally generous

acts".

5. What do you think the anthropologist meant when he said: “There are no totally generous acts. All ‘acts’ have an element of calculation.”
The Bushmen viewed the generous act of Richard as one that might compromise his humility and his modesty. Richard, aware of the traditional feast to celebrate " praise the birth of the white's man god-chief", as well as shortages in the supply of food, made the decision to contribute the ox. The feast and the celebration was not the only reason Richard decided to do it. He did it to celebrate the holiday, but also feel better about not sharing his food supply with the people he lived with for three years. When his cupboards were full of canned goods, the people he lived amongst often went to bed hungry. Even though Richard knew, that to conduct an accurate study he should not share his food as this would render it inaccurate, he felt guilty. So, his very generous gift, was not only a gift to the people he was giving it to, but to himself as well. He needed it just as much as the people he was giving it to, if not more. He needed an " absolution" from his own callousness, as he must have felt, when seeing the disparity in the wealth between himself and the people he lived with, and got close to.
Richard's dubious motivation for charity was not an unusual. When we help others, we fulfill the need that lies deep in our human nature to feel useful, to feel needed, to feel wanted, to feel appreciated, and to feel human. We do it to help others and ourselves, proving the statement; "all ‘acts’ have an element of calculation", to be true.