The San Bushmen’s way of life is very difficult to identify with for almost anyone but the Bushmen themselves. The Bushmen are a peaceful people who are believed, by some, to have been the ancestors of the world. They now live in the Kalahari Desert, which is a rough terrain with almost no water and very little animal game. The water is so scarce because there is very little rainfall. The water and animals have become gods to the Bushmen because they are so rare. Their environment affects how they eat and how their bodies deal with temperature variations. Their religion is the key detail that demonstrates how their appreciation of animals and their surroundings affect their culture. The San Bushmen are mainly a hunter gatherer people. (Smith, Malherbe, Guenther, and Berens) They are expert hunters and always appreciate the animals they kill. They speak a Khoisa language which is characterized by certain clicking sounds. (Smith, Malherbe, Guenther, and Berens) The San Bushmen have an intricate religion where they believe everything started underground. They only hunt the animals they need and gather available foods to survive in the harsh terrain of the Kalahari. The Bushmen have survived as hunter gatherers in the Kalahari Desert because they have adapted to their surroundings by alterations in their genetics that have been passed on to surviving generations, their survival in this harsh climate affected their culture because animals and water are a key part of their cultural religion, and since their resources are so scarce this changed the relationship they have with the animals of the desert and their use of food and water.
Some researchers believe the Bushmen are the ancestors of the world. Their phenotypes, their p...
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...rew, and Tony Allan. Firefly Guide to Deserts. Firefly Books Ltd, 2006. Print.
Isaacson, Rupert. The healing land: the bushmen and the Kalahari desert. Grove Pr, 2001. Print.
"Genetics overview." n. pag. Web. 3 Feb 2011. https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/lan/en/overview.html
"Destination Information: Kalahari Desert Bushmen, the Basarwa." n. pag. Web. 3 Feb 2011. .
"Climate in the Kalahari." n. pag. Web. 3 Feb 2011. .
(Brett , Nigel. "Culture, the Artistic Process and Nature." 2000: n. pag. Web. 3 Feb 2011. <. (Wells, Spencer, and Mark Read. The journey of man: a genetic odyssey. Princeton Univ Pr, 2002. Print.)>.)
Smith, Andy, Candy Malherbe, Mat Guenther, and Penny Berens. The Bushmen of Souther Africa. David Philip, 2000. Print
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Taking a deeper look at the meaning behind food through the eyes of traditional societies reveals nothing more than absolute complexity. Sam Gill, in Native American Religions, indisputably shows the complexity through detailed performances and explanations of sacred ceremonies held among numerous traditional societies. Ultimately, Gill explains that these societies handle their food (that gives them life), the source in which the good is obtained, and the way they go about getting their food are done in extreme symbolic manners that reflect their cosmology, religious beliefs, actions, and respect for ancestors/spirits that live among them. All of which are complexly intertwined. These aspects are demonstrated through the hunting traditions of the Alaskan Eskimo and the agricultural traditions of the Creek.
My friends, after traveling through the Asian continent and Japan, I continued on to the Americas. The art in the Americas has three regions, North America, Central America, and South America. Each region has a very distinct aspect to their forms of art. All cultures have some kind of art. Being curious about art, I have collected samples from five different areas. The following works of art are very different from European art, but there are still some similarities. The similarities of the human spirit are evident in the following images.
Ethnographically, people like the !Kung bushmen are very specialized. In actuality, any and all of the remaining societies that have survived outside of mainstream culture must be very specialized. There are few places in the world untouched by civilized man (perhaps none at all), and the only places that have managed to elude him thus far are the regions that are generally unwanted. These places, like the Kalahari, Arctic Circle, and South American Jungle, are the only locations containing native people living in their traditional ways. All of the people living in these places have to live in a very specific way, or they simply cannot survive on what the land gives them. Of, course all of the ethnographic records we have show highly specialized people, we killed all the ones that lived where they could be more generalized and still survive.
Reeves, Eric. “Genocide Without End? The Destruction of Darfur”. EBSCOHOST.com. H.W.Wilson, 1 Jan. 2003. Web.
It appears to me that pictures have been over-valued; held up by a blind admiration as ideal things, and almost as standards by which nature is to be judged rather than the reverse; and this false estimate has been sanctioned by the extravagant epithets that have been applied to painters, and "the divine," "the inspired," and so forth. Yet in reality, what are the most sublime productions of the pencil but selections of some of the forms of nature, and copies of a few of her evanescent effects, and this is the result, not of inspiration, but of long and patient study, under the instruction of much good sense…
Trupin, James E. West Africa - A Background Book from Ancient Kingdoms to Modern Times, Parent's Magazine Press. New York, 1991.
?Any work of art owes its existence to the people and culture from which it has emerged. It has a functional and historical relationship with that culture.? Michael W. Conner, PhD#
Gardner, Helen, and Fred S. Kleiner. Gardner's Art Through the Ages: The Western Perspective. N.p., 2014. Print.
These museums displayed “primitive” art from faraway lands such as Polynesia and Africa, often from colonial territories. Dresden, where Kirchner lived, had a particularly popular museum. In it, he “discovered” primitive art.3 Kirchner and his contemporaries were drawn to this primitive art because it “displayed exactly the same formal language as [their] own.” “Kirchner was attracted to the assumed spontaneous and uninhibited efforts of the natives.”4 He is so attracted to this primitive style because it reflects his thematic goal of analyzing the destructive elements of society.
There is a deep relationship between the environment and Western Apache people. The bonds between the two are so strong that it is embedded in their culture and history. Keith Basso, author of Wisdom Sits in Places expanded on this theory and did so by divulging himself into Western Apaches life. He spent fifteen years with the Apache people studying their relationship with the environment, specifically concentrating on ‘Place-names.’ When Basso first began to work with the Apache people, one of his Apache friends told him to ‘learn the names,’ because they held a special meaning with the community. (Cruikshank 1990: 54) Place-names are special names given to a specific locality where an event took place that was significant in history and crucial in shaping morals and beliefs. Through the use of place-names, the environment became a teaching tool for Apache people.
Lee, Richard Borshay. “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari.” Natural History. December 1969. pp 11-15. Natural History Magazine, Inc. 1969.
Khapoya, Vincent B. The African Experience: An Introduction. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. Print.
The bushmen of the Kalahari Desert certainly exceed the limit of living off the land. They are travelers, meaning they never stay in one place. They have to migrate to different areas due to lack of food, water, and other necessities. Rarely do they ever live past 45 because of harsh weather and natural causes. The bushmen are very small and do not grow very much.
“Art is a recurring form of human practice. Some have argued that all human societies have shown evidence of artistic activities.” (Carroll 5)