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The Ju/'hoan San, or Ju/'hoansi, of Namibia and Botswana are perhaps the most fully described indigenous people in all of anthropology. This is the story of how this group of former hunter-gatherers, speaking an exotic click language, formed a grassroots movement that led them to become a dynamic part of the new nation that grew from the ashes of apartheid South West Africa. While coverage of this group in the writings of Richard Lee, Lorna Marshall, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, and films by John Marshall includes extensive information on their traditional ways of life, this book continues the story as it has unfolded since 1990. PeopledA" with accounts of and from contemporary Ju/'hoan people, the book gives newly-literate Ju/'hoansi the chance to address the world with their own voices. In doing so, the images and myths of the Ju/'hoan and other San (previously called BushmenA") as either noble savages or helpless victims are discredited. This important book demonstrates the responsiveness of current anthropological advocacy to the aspirations of one of the best-known indigenous societies. ... Read more

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Writing in the San/d details experiences and encounters with First People's (_Bushmen_) living in the Kalahari Desert (Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa) (1995-2004), and a Khoi (1984) community in the eastern Cape, South Africa. ... Read more

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The book deals with the relationship between the government of Botswana and its indigenous minority, known as Bushmen, San, Basarwa, or more recently N/oakwe, and tries to understand why the San people remain a marginalized minority in a country that since independence in 1966 has committed itself to a democratic and non-racial agenda.While there have been dozens of books published on the ethnography of the San, this is the first book that places them in the comparative context of indigenous peoples’ struggle for recognition. An in-depth documentation and analysis is given of a series of events in 1992 and 1993 that were crucial in establishing San indigenous organizations and identities. ... Read more

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Bushman Art is the title of a book that provides a comprehensive introduction to the variety and independent character of the arts of the San communities (also known as bushmen) living in southern Africa. This art is sold in galleries throughout Europe and the US.After only a few years, specific support for promising artists led to the creation of a lively art scene. By now the prints and oil paintings generated under the auspices of the cultural project 'Schmidtsdrift/South Africa', regularly find their way into international galleries and collections.To lessen the plight of the San, who had been driven from their traditional hunting and living areas in Southern Africa, the Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst (Protestant Development Service) set up all-embracing programs to provide the San with new economic, social and cultural opportunities.Text in English and German ... Read more

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There are remote parts of this country that seem untouched since the time Bushmen walked and hunted and danced there. There are archives in Cape Town with thousands of pages of Bushman lore, transcribed painstakingly by language specialists of the 1800s. There’s an ever-expanding audience of readers hungry for the wisdom represented by our First Peoples. My Heart Stands in the Hill represents the tragically intertwined journeys of some of these First Peoples and European settlers, the fascinating spiritual travels of /Xam (medicine men) and (rock artists), and the pilgrimage of a modern archaeologist and filmmaker who symbolically return the image of these early South Africans to the landscape that was their home.

Craig Foster and Janette Deacon locate significant places described by these people and find rock engravings that record ancient shamanistic experiences connected with rainmaking and other rituals. The viewer/reader is transported to the landscapes through powerful images of the engravings in their setting. Photographs of the /Xam people themselves are brought back to the landscape by projecting the portraits onto the land. ... Read more

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This text draws on records of San beliefs which were recorded verbatim during the 1870s, as well as on research done with the living Kalahari San, to reveal the true meaning of San rock art. Essentially the work of medicine people, or shamans, these pieces of art depict trance visions and symbols of supernatural potency. The records of San beliefs - coupled with neuropsychological research on trance states - have provided an understanding of such issues as the strange relationships between human beings and animals, and puzzling geometric patterns. The explanations are set alongside detailed copies of rock paintings and engravings. ... Read more

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This work introduces the long history and current condition of the hunting people of southern Africa. It attempts to place the modern San in historical context and show how they have continually adapted to outside pressures. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Southern African archaeology comes alive
All too often the Bushmen (otherwise known as the San) have been portrayed in school textbooks and in the minds of the general public as "living fossils" whose ways of life have remained the same throughout the ages. Associate-Professor Smith et al. demolish the myth and present a vivid picture of Bushmen social and economic dynamics down through the ages, as well as the interaction with incoming cultural groupings and the effects thereof. Anyone who is interested in the remarkable history, both past and contemporary, of the Bushmen will find this book an invaluable addition to their library. ... Read more

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In this book, eminent scholars explore the term 'Bushmen' and the relationships that gave rise to it, from the perspectives of anthropology, archaeology, comparative religion, literary studies, art history and musicology. Topics as diverse as trophy heads and museums, to the destruction of the Cape San, and appraisals of 19th-century photographic practices are examined. A parallel text runs thoroughout the book and provides a counter narrative to the central discourses. The book is richly illustrated with previously unpublished photographs and documents from many archives and museums. ... Read more

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Here is a portrait of one of the world's oldest and most remarkable cultures. The group's history, nomadic way of life, beliefs, and customs are explored through 15 traditional tales written in poetic verse and juxtaposed with commentary on the challenges this group faces today. ... Read more

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The Xam people were a South African tribe who lived in the scrubland and communicated in a distinct click language. During the nineteenth century they were labelled as sub-human and hunted as animals by the Boers and the British. In 1870's Cape Town, a German philologist, Wilhelm Bleek, and his sister-in-law Lucy Lloyd, befriended some Xam bushmen and gradually began to document their language, resulting in an extraordinary archive of material. This is the story of Wilhelm and Lucy and of the discovered Xam culture of beautiful rock art and powerful fables. The fables will run throughout the book. ... Read more