essay
Pastoro-foragers to 'Bushmen': transformations in Kalahari relations of property, production and labor
Herders, warriors, and traders : pastoralism in Africa • Boulder • Published In 1991 • Pages: 248-263, 293-327
By: Wilmsen, Edwin N..
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this article, Wilmsen examines the social relations of the 'Bushmen' in Botswana and Namibia and argues against the popular image of the San as timeless foragers. Going to the archaeological and archival records he shows that the San were heavily involved in interregional trade in such items as copper, salt, ostrich feathers, and ivory. Evidence suggests that San transferred some of their wealth into cattle, small livestock and practiced a form of pastoro-foraging. However once the region was hunted out and the San had nothing valuable left to exchange, they entered into patron-client relationships with surrounding pastoral chiefs and soon became serf-like herders. Wilmsen says that the San squatters at the cattleposts and their foraging kin deep in the Kalahari are both the dispossessed remnants of a once mighty people.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Pastoral activities
- Production and supply
- External trade
- Labor supply and employment
- Ownership and control of capital
- Serfdom and peonage
- External relations
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- San
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2005
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Southern Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- essay
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Historian
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 2003
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- no date
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1896-1974
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Botswana and Namibia
- NotesAdditional notes
- Edwin Wilmsen
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 293-327)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 91025206
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- San (African people)