The SAN
The Ultimate Survivors
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The San people of southern Africa
are among Africa’s most intriguing
people.
Genetic evidence suggests that
they are some of the earth’s most
ancient people, having been
around for the past 22,000 years.
These itinerant hunter-gatherer
people have for ages resided in and
around the Kalahari Desert.
They have amazingly defied the
Kalahari's harshness, and can even
claim to have mastered it.
The San have always lived a
distinctly aboriginal lifestyle.
Through the generations, they
have told their story through song
and folklore, and the rock paintings
that are found across large areas of
southern Africa.
Commonly referred to as the
Bushman tribe, there are today
about 100,000 of them mostly in:
Botswana and
South Africa
Namibia
Few in Zambia
and very few in Zimbabwe
It is by their adaptation in
the Kalahari- which means
‘Great Thirst’ - that they
have earned a name for
themselves as ultimate
survivors.
The Kalahari Basin stretches over Botswana, Namibia and
the north of South Africa, and has a little spillover into
Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The parched basin covers 2,500,000 square km, with a
desert core that spreads over 900,000 square km.
The Kalahari is challenging, but it is really not a true desert of
the Sahara kind.
Most of the region is semi-arid, except for the southwest
which is truly arid.
It receives about 250 mm of rainfall annually. This allows it to
support a rich count of flora and fauna, and its landscape is
painted with vast grasslands, thorn shrubs, and strands of
acacia.
The lifeline of the Kalahari and
the only permanent river in the
region is the Okavango.
The river flows into Botswana’s
delta of the same name.
It hosts 3 game reserves:
• Central Kalahari Game Reserve
• Kutse Game Reserve in
Botswana
• Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
shared by Botswana and South
Africa.
The Kalahari wilderness supports a
variety of wildlife species including:
the meerkat, wild dog, jackal and
hyena, eland, and an array of
antelopes –including oryx and
gemsbok.
Occasionally, some big cats -lion,
leopard and cheetah are spotted.
The San are a light skinned folk, whose
distinct yellow-brown skin wrinkles
prematurely.
They have a body structure slightly
smaller than that of the average person.
The women tend to have large
posteriors- an excellent way for storing
fat for lean seasons.
A San Male today
They wear hide slings to
cover their essentials.
On the move they always
carry their animal skin
blankets, and a small hide
bag, and a cloak
called ‘kaross’.
The kaross is a
multipurpose carrier
pouch in which they carry
their very modest material
belongings.
They speak in Khoisan, a language characterized by numerous
clicks and many particular sounds.
They have influenced the languages of many southern African
tribes who have interacted with them.
The San have been under great
pressure to abandon their
itinerant lifestyle, and from the
1950's most have become
farmers.
For example, today in Botswana-
the country with the largest San
population, out of a population of
50,000, only about 3,000 follow
the ancient way of life.
The traditional San live in
small groups called bands.
Each band comprises of 15 to
25 related individuals who
form a close-knit clan unit.
As nomads, they have no
need for permanent shelters.
At times they live in rough
and ready accommodation -
such as caves or erect tent-
like structures.
These makeshift structures
are made with frames of
sticks and thatched with grass
and twigs.
In harsher weather, animal hide is used in place of grass. The band
clusters their shelters together to form a ring, with each family living in a
single tent.
Each tent has its own campfire, but there is a central fireplace where the
clan gathers to bond and unwind as nightly stories are told.
The fires are kept alive at all times. Here, stories of hunting experiences,
gathering jaunts, daily goings-on, ancient legends, past music and
dance, and religious beliefs are exchanged and passed on.
Though a new birth is important, death is even more
significant.
The spot where a San dies is avoided, and camp must be
shifted after the event.
The family immediately buries its dead, and never
intentionally goes back or crosses the place of burial.
The San have no centralized political system or social
hierarchy, and decisions touching on community affairs are
arrived at through consensus of both male and female adults,
and at times even children are consulted.
When consensus fails, the opinion of the older members of
the band is granted more weight.
But when a tie is apparent among the elders or among age-
mates, the name rule is invoked.
The controversy is resolved in favour of the individual named
after a more elderly member of the clan.
The San practice a division of labour based on gender: the
men hunt, while the women gather.
The children usually just trail along, helping where they can as
they assimilate the experience of adults.
The older members of the band mostly remain at camp, and
watch over the children when their parents are out hunting
and gathering.
This is an opportunity for the
elders to pass on their
extensive knowledge of their
world to the children in the
form of stories and song.
The San are excellent mimics,
and it is fun all round as they
mimic various animals, while
asking the children to name
the animal in play.
The elderly are the pillars of
San spiritual life.
This is an important role as
the San are quite a spiritual
people, believing in the
supernatural world and the
existence of a supreme God.
This belief permeates
everyday life, and nearly every
aspect of their simple lives
has a spiritual dimension.
Animals and their interaction with man -especially
in the hunt, have a significant role in San society.
The men hunt with simple but very effective
weapons –bows and arrows.
Their hunting and tracking skills are second to
none.
They tip their arrows with poison obtained from
beetles, snakes, scorpions, tree gum and many
others from their catalogue of poisonous animals
and plants.
• The Rock Art of the San (Bushmen) people of Southern Africa
has been described as one of humankind’s greatest treasures
from the past.
• It is found over a large area of Southern Africa and more than
15 000 sites occur in South Africa alone. The discovery of
fragments of rock art – dated at more than 26 000 years old –
suggest that southern African rock art is one of the longest
continuous art traditions in the world.
