CHAPTER TWO 
THE ETHNOGRAPHY
  
 
The southern African ethnographic record provides insight into issues of hunter-
 gatherer / farmer proximity, construction of identity, autonomy, and assimilation of 
hunter-gatherers by farmers.   At a general level, these ethnographic studies can be 
used to outline various forms of interaction between hunter-gatherers and farmers, as 
well as how farmers perceive hunter-gatherers in terms of ambivalence and 
ambiguity. When testing these various forms of ethnographic interaction and identity 
against the archaeological record, three contexts should be studied before any 
interpretations of assimilation / subjugation and autonomy / independence are made 
(Kent 2002a).  These are historical context, temporal context, and cultural context 
and its variability.  The much-discussed ?Kalahari Revisionist Debate? illustrates the 
importance of these contexts: participants in the debate have often proposed extreme 
views regarding the levels of interaction that occur when hunter-gatherers and 
farmers come into contact.  Researchers such as Denbow (1984, 1990, 1999) and 
Wilmsen (1989) feel that early studies of Kalahari hunter-gatherers (Silberbauer 
1965; Lee & DeVore 1976; Marshall 1976; Lee 1979; Tanaka 1980) ignored the 
long history of hunter-gatherer / farmer interaction in the Kalahari.  According to 
Denbow, these ?traditionalists? saw the Kalahari hunter-gatherers as ?pristine? 
remnants of the Stone Age, when in fact, they had been assimilated and subjugated 
by farmers for almost 1500 years, becoming clients and serfs of their more 
?complex" neighbours (Denbow 1984, 1990, 1999; Denbow & Wilmsen 1986; 
Wilmsen & Denbow 1990).  This assimilation continued to the point that Kalahari 
hunter-gatherers are now almost indistinguishable from their Bantu-speaking 
neighbours, both genetically and culturally, especially in eastern Botswana (Denbow 
1984:178; 1990; 1999).  
 
Other researchers, such as Guenther (1996), Barnard (1992), Gordon (1984), Lee 
(1979; 2002), Lee & DeVore (1976); Kent (1992; 2002a), and Sadr (1997; 2002) 
argue for more autonomous hunter-gatherers, who were not passive victims of 
Bantu-speaking and European farmers.  Several of these researchers also argue that 
 9
hunter-gatherers were only subjugated and assimilated after the arrival of European 
farmers when decreasing space, resources and the presence of European farmers 
disrupted both hunter-gatherer and farmer ways of life (Kent 2002a; Lee 2002; Sadr 
2002). They believe that many Bushmen have retained their social autonomy and 
cultural integrity throughout much of the last 2000 years of contact in southern 
Africa, due to their adaptability, resilience and flexibility (Guenther 1996).  These 
characteristics have enabled them to own stock, switch between hunting and 
gathering and food production, and to work for, or trade with, farmers without losing 
their overall social structure and beliefs (Guenther 1986a, 1996; Vierich & 
Hitchcock 1996; van der Ryst 1998).  Some hunter-gatherer social systems may 
incorporate other non-hunting and gathering economic and social resources in ways 
that actually maintain their hunting and gathering way of life, rather than destroying 
it (Bird-David 1988).  Thus, not all Bushmen lost their autonomy to become an 
underclass of the more powerful farmers (Guenther 1996), as Denbow and Wilmsen 
have argued.   
 
As Kent (1992) suggests, it therefore seems that both viewpoints may be correct, 
depending on the hunter-gatherers and farmers being studied, and the period during 
which the research took place.  The testing of ethnography using archaeology (see 
for example Denbow 1984, 1990, 1999; Denbow & Wilmsen 1986; Wilmsen & 
Denbow 1990, Sadr 1997) has shown that there is more variability in Kalahari 
hunter-gatherer / farmer interaction (and southern African hunter-gatherer / farmer 
interaction in general) than was previously recognised.  Examples of these varying 
contact situations, ranging from hostile to mutually beneficial (see Lee & Guenther 
1993; van der Ryst 1998, 2003; Thorp 1998), are discussed below. 
 
Variability in hunter-gatherer / farmer interaction 
When farmers first moved into areas previously only occupied by hunter-gatherers, 
exploiting resources in a similar manner, contact between the two groups may have 
initially been welcome (Alexander 1984), even though the impact on hunter-
 gatherers may have been significant (Moore 1985).  However, once even greater 
numbers of farmers settled in a region, hunting and gathering patterns would have 
been disrupted and hunter-gatherers more likely to resist and resent the incursion of 
 10
farmers into their areas (Alexander 1984).  Alternatively, long-term, seasonal (and 
mutually beneficial) relationships may have been established, due to decreases in 
available space, mobility and resource access (Moore 1985).  Common themes (such 
as identity construction and manipulation) underlie all interactions between hunter-
 gatherers and farmers, although these differ according to context (including such 
factors as place, time, cultural beliefs, environment and resources). 
 
The arrival of European farmers in southern Africa appears to have increasingly 
disrupted hunter-gatherer and black farmer ways of life, by impacting on available 
space, mobility and resources.  Hostile relationships between Bushmen and both 
black and white farmers were recorded in the Cape (Sampson 1995; Smith et al. 
2000; Kent 2002c; Lee 2002) and the KwaZulu Natal Drakensberg (Campbell 1986, 
1987; Mazel 1992), amongst other areas (Maggs 1976; Gordon 1984).  As more 
farmers spread through the region, some hunter-gatherers remained (by choice or by 
force), while others retreated into more mountainous regions unsuitable for herding 
and agriculture (Hall, S. 1986; Loubser & Laurens 1994; Sampson 1995; Deacon & 
Deacon 1999; see also Woodburn 1988).  These hunter-gatherers frequently raided 
black farming villages. There were also skirmishes in the late 1800s between white 
farmers and Bushmen, with Bushmen raiding livestock and white settlers taking 
Bushmen as servants (Loubser & Laurens 1994).  During this time, young adult 
Bushmen, as well as children in Ghanzi, Botswana, were often taken into captivity 
and servitude by raiding Tswana villagers (Guenther 1986b; Lee & Guenther 1993) 
(also see van der Ryst 2003).  
 
Not all interaction between hunter-gatherers and farmers was hostile.  Several 
different trading relationships have occurred between hunter-gatherers and Bantu-
 speaking farmers in southern Africa during the last century or so, involving the trade 
of meat, honey, skins, metal, beads, ceramics and manufactured goods (Silberbauer 
1965; Lee 1976; Marshall 1976; Gordon 1984; Solway & Lee 1990; Barnard 1992; 
Lee & Guenther 1993; Valiente-Noailles 1993) (also see Woodburn (1988) for a 
brief discussion on East African interaction and trade).  It seems that Bushmen often 
tended to move from other areas specifically in order to be close to immigrant 
farmers (Smith & Lee 1997; Lee 2002).  Rather than representing a threat to hunter-
 gatherers, many black farmers and their settlements acted as ?magnets? to Bushmen 
 11
groups (Maggs 1976), who were attracted by the resources that they had to offer (for 
archaeological examples see Mazel 1989, 2001; Hall 1990; Mitchell et al. 1994; 
Wadley 1996, 2001; van Doornum 2000). Lee?s Ju/?hoansi (!Kung) informants told 
him that they would travel to farming settlements to trade for pots, iron and glass 
beads as the Bantu-speaking farmers would not come south to trade at Cho/ana (in 
the Sandveld of northern Namibia) (Smith & Lee 1997; Lee 2002).  In the late 1800s 
and early 1900s, Tswana pastoralists travelled to /Xai /Xai for annual hunting and 
grazing expeditions.  Tswana hunting parties, together with several groups of 
Bushmen, would gather for hunting, dancing and trading (Lee 1976). In the 1920?s, 
hunter-gatherers became more sedentary, due to the Bantu-speakers settling with 
their cattle around the /Xai /Xai waterholes.  K?a hunter-gatherers in Botswana 
(Valiente-Noailles 1993; Bartram 1997) and the Nharo of Ghanzi (Guenther 1986a; 
1986b) range between settling near villages (1-2km away) and sedentary cattle post 
living to mobile hunting and gathering, depending on the time of year, availability of 
wild food and water, and social obligations.  Bushmen women and girls in Angola 
worked for farmers when wild foods were scarce (Bartram 1997), while G/wi men 
worked as trackers for Bakgalagadi hunters (Sugawara 2002).   
 
In the case of the East African Pygmies, mutually beneficial relationships 
characterise most hunter-gatherer / farmer interaction in the ethnography (see for 
example Turnbull 1965, 1986; Harako 1976; Tanno 1976; Peterson 1978; Pedersen 
& W?le 1988; Hewlett 1996, amongst others).  Various groups of Pygmies have 
very different subsistence strategies and levels of dependence on farmers (Turnbull 
1965, 1986; Bahuchet & Guillaume 1982; Bailey et al. 1989; Hewlett 1996).  For 
example, Efe and Baka spend less time in the forest than Mbuti and Aka Pygmies do.  
They also camp closer to villages, spend more time in villages, and eat more village 
food than Aka and Mbuti do. However, in the rainy months, most Mbuti groups also 
camp near farmer villages, on the outskirts of the secondary forest (Tanno 1976).  
Intermarriage does occur (Turnbull 1965), but only in one direction ? Pygmy wives 
are taken by villager men, and the children of such unions are usually brought up as 
villagers.  
  
Efe women work in Lese villager gardens in return for cultivated food (which forms 
two thirds of the calories Efe Pygmies consume), while Efe men hunt for farmers 
 12
(Turnbull 1965; Fisher & Strickland 1991; Musonda 1997).  Efe men also exchange 
meat, honey, and other forest products for food, tobacco, cannabis, metal goods and 
clothing from the Lese (Musonda 1997), and assist in felling trees during clearing of 
gardens.  Although the Efe may plant their own small (supplementary) gardens, their 
mobile lifestyle does not allow for the maintenance of such gardens.  Efe settlement 
patterns are also affected by their mutually beneficial relationships with the Lese as 
Efe tend to spend seven months of the year close to Lese villages in temporary 
camps situated between 1- 4 hours walk from the villages (Turnbull 1965; Pedersen 
& W?le 1988; Hewlett 1996).  When the Efe move deeper into the forest for hunting 
during the remaining five months of the year, they still remain within a day?s walk of 
their associated Lese village, enabling them to fetch food, when necessary (Turnbull 
1965; Bailey 1985).  Efe bands usually affiliate with a particular Lese village, and 
camp close to it repeatedly (Fisher & Strickland 1991).  Efe groups often consider 
themselves as belonging to a particular Lese villager, a relationship that is often 
(though not necessarily) inherited from father to son.  Efe and Lese always perform 
certain ceremonies together, such as boys? initiation (Hewlett 1996) - this inter-group 
interaction is essential to both groups.  However, Efe maintain some cultural and 
group autonomy, and continue to build houses that are culturally distinct (Hewlett 
1996); only acculturated Pygmies build rectangular grass huts, in imitation of the 
rectangular mud and wood huts of the villagers (Kent 2002b).   
 
Apart from being a resource of food and other trade objects, farmers also acted as a 
social resource for hunter-gatherers (Denbow 1984; Yellen 1984; Moore 1985; 
Wadley 1996).  Farmers were seen as a source of information and higher authority, 
often mediating hunter-gatherer disputes (Wadley 1996).  Moore (1985:103;107) 
believes that these changes in social relations came about partly because hunter-
 gatherer mobility (and consequently aggregation and dispersal mechanisms, and the 
practice of the trance dance (Wadley 1996)) was disrupted by the increasing numbers 
of farmer settlements and decreasing amounts of ?free space?.  This disruption may 
also be part of the reason behind trade with farmers (Hall, S. 1990; 1994).  
 
Intermarriage is another form of close interaction between hunter-gatherers and 
farmers.  However, while intermarriage between hunter-gatherers and farmers does 
occur (Silberbauer 1965; Turnbull 1965; Maggs 1976; Prins 1996; Smith 1998; 
 13
Thorp 1998; Smith et al. 2000; van der Ryst 2003), most farmers (such as the 
Kgalagadi and Tswana) look down on hunter-gatherers, whom they see as an inferior 
and servile people (Guenther 1986b).  For instance, though Tswana men may take a 
Basarwa bride, the opposite is not true - a Tswana woman would be seen to be 
?marrying down? if she married a Basarwa man, while a Basarwa woman would have 
been seen to be ?marrying up?.   Furthermore, it is doubtful whether a Basarwa man 
would be able to afford the bride-price of a Tswana woman.  This ethnographic 
example (Smith 1998) offers clues to hierarchical social separation and boundaries 
between hunter-gatherers and farmers.  It also shows the possible negative impacts to 
the largely egalitarian society that may have resulted from hunter-gatherer women 
gaining ?prestige? or power through intermarriage.  Loubser and Laurens (1994) also 
note that although intermarriage did occur, Southern Sotho farmers in the Free State 
believed that the Bushmen were the ?first people?, and were thus to be approached 
with caution ? for example, Sotho children were taught never to look a Bushman 
straight in the eye.  Nguni-speakers (such as the Xhosa) may have intermarried with 
the Bushmen more readily than Tswana-speakers (endogomous marriage patterns) 
because of their exogamous marriage patterns (see Hammond-Tooke 1998; 2002). 
 
Other kinds of interaction in southern Africa include wage labour (generally on 
European farms) and the Tswana mafisa system, which is an example of 
marginalisation of hunter-gatherers by farmers (Guenther 1986a; Smith 1996, 1998).  
The Tswana form the ruling class in modern Botswana, owning large herds of cattle 
and tracts of land with boreholes, whilst Bushmen (Basarwa), work for them under 
the mafisa system.  Most of these Basarwa have been hunter-gatherers within living 
memory, but have been forced to work as clients of the Tswana because of 
decreasing areas in which to hunt and forage.  The mafisa system allows the Basarwa 
herdsmen to use milk, and sometimes calves, in return for labour.  Basarwa work 
willingly as herdsmen in the hope that they can eventually build up their own herds, 
but the mafisa system often traps them into long bonded relationships that mostly 
benefit the farmers (Solway & Lee 1990; Smith 1998). 
 
The clientship form of labour was usually seasonal, dictated to by farmers? 
agricultural or herding needs.  Hunter-gatherers could work for farmers as 
rainmakers or herdsmen and then revert to hunting and gathering again (often in 
 14
areas marginal to agricultural activities) when their services were no longer 
necessary (Klatzow 1994; Loubser & Laurens 1994; Backwell et al. 1996; Wadley 
1996).  Hunter-gatherers provided religious specialists and supernatural expertise to 
farmers (Silberbauer 1965; Peterson 1978; Kenny 1981; Hall, S. 1994), and were 
often rewarded with livestock and crops for rainmaking (Jolly 1986, 1991; Lewis-
 Williams 1986; Campbell 1987; Lewis-Williams & Dowson 1989:92-99; Prins 1990, 
1996; Ouzman 1995; van der Ryst 1998, 2003).  There is even a possibility that 
hunter-gatherers may have gone to Khoe settlements at Kat River to heal sick Khoe 
(Hall, S. 1994).  Interaction between hunter-gatherers and farmers caused dramatic 
social changes in some parts of southern Africa, as can be seen in the Drakensberg, 
where it is thought that hunter-gatherers began to accumulate livestock, thereby 
opening the way for stratification by wealth.  This could have been coupled to 
increased prestige for medicine men who acted as rainmakers for farmers (Dowson 
1994).  Such specialisation would have lead to changes in hunter-gatherer societies, 
where previously groups had been mostly egalitarian.  The possibility that many 
interaction relationships were between hunter-gatherer and farmer men, coupled with 
some Bushmen women ?marrying up? into farmer society, has interesting 
implications for further gender divisions and loss of egalitarianism in hunter-gatherer 
society.  These changes to the core of hunter-gatherer social make-up may have 
made it easier for some individuals to manipulate their identity to become 
incorporated into farmer society while still retaining their hunter-gatherer identity. 
 
Jolly (1995; 1996; 1998; 2000) discusses how Nguni and southern Sotho ritual 
practice and cosmology was incorporated into Bushman art as a result of the contact 
between the hunter-gatherers and the farmers.  Jolly believes that although hunter-
 gatherers may have been believed to possess powers derived from their liminal status 
between nature and culture, they tended to adopt the culture of the farming 
communities by whom they are encapsulated and with whom they are intermarried.  
They are thus drawn into the ritual life of their agricultural neighbours (but see 
Lewis-William?s (1996) comment on Jolly (1996), as well as Prins (1994); 
Hammond-Tooke (1997, 1998, 2002)).  Lewis-Williams believes that it is highly 
unlikely that the Bushmen adopted the ancestor religion and cosmology of the 
farmers.  Instead, they exploited the farmer belief system without becoming part of 
 15
the farmer descent groups, although features of Nguni divination may have been 
derived from the Bushmen.     
 
Several Bushmen groups (for example the K?a (Valiente-Noailles 1993; Vierich & 
Hitchcock 1996)) now include agropastoralism in their subsistence strategies, 
although they do still supplement this with hunting and gathering (Guenther 1996).  
Vierich and Hitchcock believe that such a fluctuation in subsistence strategies is due 
to hunter-gatherers remaining flexible, adaptable and opportunistic.  This flexibility 
was made possible in the past by patterns of reciprocal visiting and extensive kin 
networks.  The increasing numbers of farmers on the landscape, decreasing available 
space for seasonal mobility and aggregation may have meant that hunter-gatherer 
networks were no longer as extensive as in the past.  Hunter-gatherers may thus have 
been forced to approach farmers to settle disputes and to obtain food and other 
resources previously obtained through kin-networks. 
 
Yellen (1984) also found that hunter-gatherers were able to integrate pastoralism and 
agriculture into their subsistence strategies, at least in the short term, as his 
ethnoarchaeological work in northwestern Botswana with the Dobe !Kung illustrates.  
This was often accompanied by a change in settlement layout, a decrease in mobility, 
and an increase in personal possessions, as well as the Dobe turning increasingly to 
nearby farmers to settle their disputes.  
 
However, hunter-gatherer / farmer interaction was not a one-way process (Hall, S.  
1994; Hammond-Tooke 1997, 1998; Kent 2002b).  Contact with both Bushmen and 
Khoe peoples influenced Cape Nguni languages, as well as some aspects of Nguni 
culture (Prins 1996; Hammond-Tooke 1997, 1998, 2002).  For example, Hammond-
 Tooke believes it is possible that the Cape Nguni witch familiar, the thikoloshe (also 
known as the thokolose (Sotho) and the tokolosie (Afrikaans)) is a direct adaptation 
of /Kaggen, the /Xam Bushmen?s mythological trickster figure described by Bleek 
and Lloyd (Bleek & Lloyd 1911 in Hammond-Tooke 1997).  Furthermore, it is 
possible that Bushman shamanism influenced southern Bantu divination and healing 
practices, although the nature of the borrowing is limited (Hammond-Tooke 1998).   
At Kutse, Kent (2002b) studied a group of hunter-gatherers representing several 
central and eastern Kalahari dialects that had only recently become sedentary, 
 16
although they had interacted and traded with Bantu-speaking Bakgalagadi for some 
1000-2000 years.  Instead of the hunter-gatherers adopting the Bantu culture, the 
Bakgalagadi had adopted much of the hunter-gatherer culture.  Simon Hall (1994:47) 
also says that hunter-gatherer rituals have been incorporated into farmer belief 
systems because hunter-gatherers are recognised as having been ?first people? or 
original inhabitants of the land, close to nature and able to control it.  This liminal 
status between the human and natural world gives them healing powers as well.  
 
An example of the ?power of the first people? is discussed by Cashdan (1986a): she 
describes two groups of Kalahari Basarwa living near the Botletli River, Botswana.  
They differed in social organisation, subsistence and reaction to contact with herders 
and farmers.  The floodplain Basarwa are wealthy cattle-owners, while the savanna 
Basarwa are poor, with few or no cattle.  She investigates why the two groups 
responded so differently to the same group of Bantu-speakers.  Kalanga farmers 
lived near the river and claimed political control over the region, but the Basarwa 
were considered to be the ?traditional inhabitants and owners of the area? (Cashdan 
1986a: 304). The Bateti / riverine Basarwa differed from the savannah Bushmen in 
two important ways.  First, they had headmen with the power to allocate land.  
Second, they had valuable land to allocate.  They were able to use their control over 
the floodplain to acquire Kalanga cattle and become wealthy.  The dispersed political 
organisation of the savannah group, together with their lack of access to the scarce 
and valuable flood plain made them powerless in the face of Bantu-competition.  
Various new groups to the area would ask the Bateti for permission to settle on the 
floodplains, indicating the power that they had over the region by virtue of having 
been there ?first? (Cashdan 1986a; 1986b).  The Kalanga were granted insufficient 
land for their needs (i.e. the Basarwa had the power to refuse them all the land they 
wanted), and had to buy extra grain from the Bateti.  On the other hand, interaction 
in the savannah region was minimal, until farmland became scarce, but the savannah 
Basarwa were asked for permission to hunt (a request which was never denied).  
Although the savannah Basarwa did not have the political power to refuse the Bantu-
 speakers permission to hunt in their territory, they were felt to have a ?magical? kind 
of power over nature.  The Bantu-speaking farmers believed that if the Basarwa did 
not grant permission, and they hunted anyway, they would not be successful in the 
hunt.  
 17
 
This example brings us to further discussions of issues of identity, and how farmers 
perceived hunter-gatherers in terms of ambivalence and ambiguity (and vice versa). 
 
Ethnographic images of the ?Other? 
The way in which hunter-gatherers and farmers interact (the ?mechanics? or 
?functional? aspects of interaction) is based on underlying social structures, including 
the construction of identities in order to define and validate interaction choices.  
Furthermore, ?(i)dentity always involves the construction of boundaries? 
(Hammond-Tooke 2000:421).  The creation of cultural boundaries not only defines, 
but also maintains, interaction relationships, especially those occurring on a close or 
?face-to-face? level.  The identities of a group are created both by its members and 
also by the people with whom they interact.  Ethnic group members need to have an 
?other? with whom they can contrast themselves.  Thus, ethnicity and identity are 
based on how people feel about themselves and how other groups perceive them 
(Jones 2000; Kent 2002a).  These perceptions are not necessarily the same (Kent 
2002a).   Negative and stereotypical perspectives of ?others?, focussing on the real 
and perceived differences between ?us? and ?them?, are a common means of 
maintaining cultural boundaries (Kent 2002a). 
 
Farmer constructions of hunter-gatherer identities 
An example of how farmers construct an identity for hunter-gatherers can be found 
in East Africa, where the Dorobo participate in mutually beneficial economic 
activities with neighbouring farmers and herders (Kenny 1981; Woodburn 1988; 
Smith 1998; also see Bahuchet & Guillaume (1982) for a similar example between 
Aka hunter-gatherers and farmers). Dorobo is a term (not used by the people 
themselves) denoting various groups of hunter-gatherer groups, from northern 
Uganda to northern Tanzania, who retain their ?social marginality? as people of the 
bush.  Farmers and herders view the Dorobo as having low status, and see them as 
being amoral, wild creatures whose ancestors are thought to have been present at the 
birth of the present world order and who played important parts in the act of creation 
itself. 
 
 18
An understanding of what it means to be human, according to the farmers and 
herders in general, is negatively expressed through the Dorobo.  Farming and 
herding are indicators of being human, and since Dorobo neither farm nor herd, their 
humanity is questionable in the eyes of the farmers and herders.  Furthermore, the 
social rules and relationships necessary in a farming or herding society are 
unnecessary among the more mobile and fluid hunter-gatherers; they are thus seen to 
be outside social constraint - they live in the forest, and unlike the rest of humanity 
who must submit to convention, the Dorobo give the illusion of being able to escape 
into a marginal area, where they are believed to be in contact with supernatural 
beings, and consequently have power.  In other words, farmers and herders believe 
the Dorobo are:  
 
...like animals, yet they have power over nature; they live in the realm of witches 
and wild spirits, but also live in the presence of God; they are buffoonish, 
profligate, amoral fools, but also the possessors of secret knowledge and mediators 
with powers beyond our world (Kenny 1981:478). 
 
Farmer stories and myths reveal further mostly negative attitudes towards hunter-
 gatherers such as the Dorobo (see Kenny 1981: 484-486). According to farmers, 
although God may mean for the Dorobo to have good things in life (for example, 
cattle), they are unable to retain them because of innate flaws in their nature.  In 
contrast, the farmers believe that they themselves are able to retain cattle because of 
their greater self-restraint and respect.  Farmers also believe that the Dorobo are 
responsible for the separation of people from God, and for the introduction of work, 
death and poverty (which Kenny states is a role traditionally reserved for women).  
The Dorobo are transformers in social contexts: they act as circumcisors for the 
Maasai, Baraguyu and Nandi.  They turn boys into men, taking onto themselves the 
blood-pollution of their act.  According to Kenny (1981), the farmers believe the 
Dorobo are ideally suited for such roles because they are intermediate between 
humans and animals; they have power to transform and powers similar to those of 
sorcery, and they are vulgar, uncivilised, amoral and emotionally unstable.  Finally, 
there is a similarity between supposed attributes of the Dorobo as ?outsiders? and 
certain categories of ?insider?.  In general, farmer and herder societies have a sexual 
division of labour based on a combination of biology and subsistence practice.  In 
 19
the minds of farmer men, the Dorobo are allied with the images associated with 
women ? ?lack of proper control, a proclivity for suspect mystical practices, and so 
forth? (Kenny 1981:489).  Dorobo men do not own cattle, and farmer men may thus 
see them as being similar to women in that respect as well.  Little has been said 
about the role of farmer women and Dorobo women in interaction.   
 
In southern African farmer creation myths and religious practices, the power of 
hunter-gatherers and their ?places? is also of great importance. According to Ouzman 
(1995), both engravings and a link to the Bushmen / hunter-gatherers were important 
factors in determining where Tswana rainmaking sites would be located.  The 
Tswana consider hunter-gatherer engraving sites such as Thaba Sione in the central 
interior (Ouzman 1995), and Matsieng in Botswana (Walker 1997), as places of 
power, and use these places for rainmaking rituals.  Matsieng is believed to be a 
creation site from which animals, the first people (Bushmen) and the Tswana 
forebear, Matsieng, emerged. In the central interior, Bushmen and Tswana-speaking 
farmers also have similar rainmaking beliefs and practices. 
 
Bushman identity and self-image 
Guenther (1986a; 1986b) discusses Bushman identity and self-image, looking at 
issues such as the effects of contact on Bushman belief, language, and social 
institutions and organisation, as well as Bushman economy and demography. Most 
Bushmen, especially the Nharo, have adopted some form of sedentism, food 
production, wage labour and village existence. Contact with the Europeans and 
Bantu-speakers led to ecological, economical, social and ideological changes to 
Nharo culture, and accompanying these changes an increasing situation of 
deprivation and distress ? a state referred to as sheta by the Nharo (Guenther 1986b). 
The Nharo and other Bushmen groups often refer to themselves as the ?mouthless 
people? or the ?dumb? people (meaning ?stupid? people), and also the ?superfluous? 
or ?inconsequential? people (Guenther 1986a; 1986b).  This self-depreciation is also 
evident in certain creation myths where Bushmen divinities prefer other ethnic 
groups to the Bushmen (Biesle 1976; Guenther 1986b: 232-233). In their creation 
myths, Bushmen were created in an inferior state as compared to black and white 
people.   It is not only the Nharo that feel this way - some of the Nyae-Nyae 
 20
Bushmen saw themselves as inferior to the Ovamba miners, feeling ?shy, naked and 
inferior in the presence of these big black men with their goods? (Marshall 1976:7).  
Guenther (1986a) believes that this sense of inferiority is probably a psychological 
reaction to their position of marginality, poverty and powerlessness.   However, the 
trance dance remains an important part of Nharo Bushmen social life, reminding the 
Bushmen of their old values and beliefs, and reinforcing these (Guenther 1986a).  
The trance dance also distinguishes Bushmen from non-Bushmen, negating their 
poor self-image, and allowing them a measure of ethnic identity and positive self-
 image.  During the dance all ?foreign? objects, such as European pipes and metal are 
hidden away, as they ?cause? nausea in the dancers.  
  
Not all Bushmen had / have such negative self-images, however.  Kent?s (2002b) 
work in the Kalahari shows that autonomous hunter-gatherers looked down on 
herders and farmers, just as they looked down on the hunter-gatherers. Thus farmer 
views of hunter-gatherers as marginal, childlike, unreliable, ignorant, poor, 
uncivilised and incapable (Marshall 1976; Barnard 1992), are not shared by many of 
the hunter-gatherers themselves (Kent 2002a).  According to Kent, at Kutse, when 
you ask a Basarwa what they think of a Kgalagadi, they are as unflattering about the 
Bantu-speakers as the farmers are about them (Kent 2002a).  Ironically, while 
considering the Basarwa ?backwards?, inferior, and generally ignorant, Bantu-
 speakers still come to Kutse to consult Basarwa healers, as their healing techniques 
are considered to be very powerful, and sometimes better, than those of Bantu-
 speaking healers (Kent 2002a).    
 
Sugawara (2002), in turn, describes how G/wi and G//ana Bushmen in the Central 
Kalahari Game Reserve (also see Silberbauer 1996) emphasise the differences 
between themselves and the Bakgalagadi.  They believe that the Bakgalagadi possess 
mysterious powers, and that they behave strangely.  For example, the Bushmen say 
that the Bakgalagadi are cold towards their children, and that they are happy to sell a 
child to earn money, or that they are happy to kill a brother using magical medicine.  
 
The Ju/?hoansi (!Kung) saw themselves as autonomous actors in the past (and 
present) rather than as victims, even though they were under the control of the 
Tawana chiefdom and British colonial authority (Lee 2002). For instance, Lee?s 
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Ju/?hoansi informant, Kumsa, had a rather dismissive view of the Tswana overlords, 
because, unlike Europeans, the Tswanas claimed a chiefly status but gave nothing to 
the Bushmen: wealth and giving away were seen as the marks of a chief, not the 
exercising of power.  
 
Although Bushmen in the Eastern Cape and Natal may have intermarried and been 
assimilated into Bantu-speaking society, Prins (1994) states that their roles were not 
always passive.  In fact, some individuals were able to adapt to the new culture and 
manipulate various aspects of it, integrating and re-interpreting Nguni beliefs and 
practices to suit their own new social identities.  The assimilation of new ideas in 
Bushman society is not problematic as their religious beliefs generally have a fluid 
character, and they can assimilate new ideas without changing their beliefs as a 
whole.   One such example is Lindiso, the last known Bushman rock artist in 
Transkei (who was also a rainmaker).  Lindiso became accepted into Nguni society 
by partially transforming his identity and ideology.  After settling in a Mpondomise 
homestead, he continued to paint and to visit other Bushmen, and was even allowed 
to marry into the Mpondomise, becoming an active and acceptable member of the 
society (Prins 1994:182).  This is probably because the Mpondomise perceived 
Lindiso as more acceptable than other mountain Bushmen, as he had assumed a new 
identity and ethnicity, midway between traditional hunter-gatherer and Nguni culture 
(Prins 1994:182).  He was in a place of power because of his difference and because 
he was a rainmaker.  
 
Sugawara (2002) discusses another example of Bushman social adaptability: an old 
G/wi man living at Xade.  The old man was seen as a liminal person on the boundary 
between G/wi and Bantu cultures due to his storytelling ability and his symbolic 
power (he was a diviner as well as a healer and purifier of pollution).  He profited 
from this liminality, often being paid in goats for his services.  The old man 
considered himself to be a member of both cultures, either a Bakgalagadi farmer or a 
G/wi hunter-gatherer, depending on the occasion, and was accepted as such by both 
groups.   
 
Such manipulation of identity in interaction relationships by individual hunter-
 gatherers rather than groups of hunter-gatherers, may be an indication of how much 
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some egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies may have changed through time.   This 
manipulation of identity may have made it easier for individuals or small groups to 
become incorporated / assimilated into farmer groups while retaining their own 
beliefs.  Others, lacking power, prestige or skills required by farmers, or unable or 
unwilling to manipulate their identity, may have become incorporated and 
subjugated by farmer societies.   
 
It is apparent that, just as there are many forms of interaction between hunter-
 gatherers and farmers, there are also many varied viewpoints and reactions to this 
interaction.  Having discussed these various examples of ethnographic contact 
situations and constructions of identities, the question then arises: how does one 
recognise interaction, and autonomy versus assimilation, in the archaeological 
record? What are the implications of changing material densities in hunter-gatherer 
sites and the proximity between hunter-gatherers and farmers with regard to where, 
when and how interaction took place? 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
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