Kung Buschman Case

Experiencing The !Kung Bushmen

Abstract

Richard Borshay Lee is an anthropologist who went to Kalahari and spent three years there to experience their culture and beliefs. He was able to develop a relationship with the !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari within this amount of time. He wanted to show his appreciation to them for letting him study them and their culture by buying them an ox for Christmas; however, this plan ended up backfiring on him. The !Kung Bushmen were not enthused with the purchase of the ox. Richard Borshay Lee learned the hard way, through his experience with them, that their culture is a lot different from his and that it is harder than you think to separate your own beliefs and keep an open mind about people that may be "different" than us.

Experiencing The !Kung Bushman

Richard Borshay Lee tells us, in "Eating Christmas in the Kalahari," about his experience living with the !Kung Bushmen and helps shed some light about their culture and beliefs. While spending a long time in the Kalahari with the !Kung Bushmen, Lee was able to develop a relationship with them and thought that buying them an Ox for Christmas was a great way to show his appreciation of them and their culture. Within the time Lee spent studying the !Kung Bushmen, Lee was not only a social anthropologist. He was also given the status of a "whitey", a miser, and a poor, blind man.

Lee's experience is an example of how different cultures can be. People here in United States typically go to the store and buy their food and supplies. The !Kung Bushmen hunt and gather their food and supplies. They are a gemeinschaft, which is a close knit community, often found in rural areas, in which strong personal bonds unite the members. They were very generous to let an "outsider" into their gemeinschaft. The religion and culture of the !Kung Bushmen are the agents of socialization that helped influence them into the people they have become and the gemeinschaft they created. Lee was very happy that he was accepted into the Kalahari. He was also given a name by them. He was even given a name chosen by them, ontah (which meant "whitey"). Lee decided that he wanted to show the !Kung Bushmen how appreciative he was that they let him come to the village and study their culture. He decided he was going to buy the biggest, meatiest ox for them and have it slaughtered for them for Christmas, which is "trance dance feasting" for the !Kung Bushmen. He watched the cows for a long time before deciding which cow would be the perfect on to buy the !Kung Bushmen. Lee wanted it to be the best Christmas, trance-dance, and feast. Finally, he found it! He found the perfect ox for the festivities. He paid fifty-six dollars for the ox and was very pleased with the purchase. Word of his purchase quickly spread throughout Kalahari. He thought they would be just as happy and pleased as he was with purchase of the perfect ox. The !Kung Bushman were just the opposite! They were not happy at all with the ox that he had bought for them for Christmas. They wondered how Lee expected to feed all of them with that "bag of bones." There was no way that skinny, old ox would be enough for them all to eat. That ox would be lucky to feed one of them, how would it be enough to feed them all? They would end up having to go to bed hungry. They would never be full with that ox to eat. What was he thinking? How could he be so blind? Lee wondered what was wrong with the !Kung Bushmen. Why were they not happy with this large ox? He did not understand how they could say this about the large, healthy ox he spent so much time picking out. He even went back to try to find one that looked any better; no such luck! Lee was judging them based on his own culture and beliefs, just like the !Kung Bushmen were Lee. Lee felt like he never really understood anything about their culture at all, which was disappointing to him. He didn't take the time to sit back and realize that he had disappointed them. The