Foragers, Genuine or Spurious?: Situating the Kalahari San in History

2 case studies of the Western Kweneng San and Dobi San in Botswana are examined historically to show that contact with the Bantu-speaking neighbors or dominant societies may take other autonomous forms rather than dependency and abandonment of foraging. Revisionists have argued that hunter-gatherers were absorbed into regional economic networks and ceased to be independent societies however it they continued to exhibit traits of hunter-gathers it was because of their poverty and resistance to domination by stronger societies. This is a spacious argument. The Kweneng San are described as having lived for 200 years among the Bantu-speaking people in the southern Kalahari. Loss of autonomy was neither automatic nor complete. The pre and protohistoric period and the fur trade period are described as having some subservient to effect but institutionalization came later. The San had a flexible social organization and there was fluidity between village and bush. Agropastoralism reduced the Sans foraging base and the fur trade was the link between the San and Kgalagadi. By the 1950s the San became the Kgalagadis labor force when foraging became more precarious. The Dobi San were isolated from 19th century colonial southern Africa as hunter-gatherers and traded with the Goba between A.D. 500-1500. The trade involved indirect contact through the Goba and later the Tswana and direct contact with European hunters and traders. The prehistoric and fur trade periods are described. There were barter systems and mafisa or contracted animal husbandry which afforded the ]Kung a complement of beef to be added to their foraging diet. After 1954 non-San (Hereros) dominated the areas with the ]Kung as herders. There were 2 groups: a foraging mafisa herding and horticulture group living in camps and client groups attached to cattle posts. The pattern of hunter-gatherers remained as one of collective ownership of resources and food sharing. This final dependency from fierce autonomy was a result of the inability of the land to support foraging due to environmental degradation. The relationships between the Kwena San and Dobi San with non San-were different. The internal organization of the San was unaffected. In the discussion of genuine and spurious foragers attention is paid to terminology and distinguishing between fact and discussion. In the transition to dependency it is cautioned that revisionism trivializes the history of these people and inaccurately characterizes the nature of their autonomy. Commentary which supports the general position and provides constructive criticism is provided by replies from by 19 anthropologists.