Introduction
Infinite curiosity studies about man have been known over the past centuries through anthropology. Anthropology is focused on human beings and their stages of development and brings a broader understanding of humans and their relationship with most questions that surround them. It significantly brings to understanding aspects of human beings via studies, wide discovery, interpretation, and interference of the past and modern-day cultural characteristics. Applying anthropology knowledge helps to gain comprehension of different groups of people in the society, irrespective of right or wrong conclusion. “Anthropology and the Bushmen,” by Alan Barnard (2007), is significant in studying the San people of Namibia.
The author, an anthropologist, has articulated an anthropological approach that sheds light on the daily life, lifestyle, religious statuses, struggles, and achievements of Bushmen in Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa. Supported by several examples, the author helps understand the diversity between different ethnic groups in the book. The San people of Namibia anthropologically demonstrate unique characteristics in their culture, religion, daily life and lifestyle, and struggles and achievements.
The culture of the San people is unique and has existed and maintained millennia over their dwelling land. The tribe is profoundly known for the well-known connectivity they portray with their land. They have high intimacy with the natural world and have maintained a delicate balance with the environment for millennia. The San people are culturally organized in groups for purposes of unity and helping each other in times of trouble and need.
They spent their cultural lives as hunters and gatherers in South Africa (Alan, 2007). They obtained their food from hubs and antelope meat for livelihood. They were also indigenous hunters of fish and gathered world plants for survival. The San people were culturally nomads who walked around from one place to another in water and pasture for their livestock. The study of the San people is a significant viewpoint that better explains the traditional indigenous symbolism of African communities. The San people had a strong belief in a powerful God and other minor gods. They appeased their ancestors through burnt sacrifices as one way of honoring the dead.
Implications of the rock art research
Research into South African rock art is extensive that it needs a book of its own. Professor John Parkington of the University of Cape Town’s “Living Landscape Project” has enormously contributed to this subject. According to Professor John, a rock art’s location in the context of the surrounding terrain is equally as essential as the painting itself (Alan, 2007). Using CD-ROM aids and books, he attempts to place the rock drawings in their physical context.
Despite their humble lifestyles, the Bushman had a highly vibrant spiritual life. Harsh conditions in which they lived, the Bushmen may have been more conscious of their reliance on the natural world. Animals make up the majority of their rock art, which depicts their spiritual beliefs. They would also give animals spiritual qualities. Bushmen, according to Sir James Frazer, saw the jackal as a timid animal; thus, they fed their children the heart of a lion but not the jackal’s paws since the jackal was supposed to be a predatory animal. For their bug deities, they would also undertake a variety of rites. As Chris Knight claims in his now-famous book Blood Relations, a revolution in symbolic culture, including taboos on incest and menstruation, as well as totemic and food taboos, was started by South African Middle Stone Age females.
During this historical period, Knight claims, women withheld sex to their lovers each month as the moon got bigger, which was also a time of menstruation and hunting violence, and they feasted and had sex after the full moon. Approximately 70,000 years ago, this revolution took place in African communities. Robert Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist, disagrees based on varied reasons and existing literature studies. His reading of Knights’ term suggests that language arose in order to facilitate rituals, according to Dunbar (Alan, 2007). Language, according to Dunbar, originated as a means of strengthening social ties before it was connected with such rites.
Traditional, processual, and post-processual archaeology all have three distinct viewpoints. In this case, the conventional approach focuses on history. In contrast, the processual and postprocessual approaches make use of ethnographic analogies and the work of British archaeologist Ian Hodder, who worked on this project in the 1980s (Alan, 2007). Archaeology can never re-create the genuine past, as challenged by this study. The term “new archaeology” was just a synonym for processualism. Post-processualism is also referred to as Marxist, Feminist, Symbolist, and other similar terms. When it came to the issue of bushmen, there were two groups of people arguing the issue.
David Lewis Williams, a social anthropologist, was the most prominent advocate of the symbolic method. He was the first to comprehend rock art in terms of structure and symbolism. Believing and Seeing (Alan, 2007), a semiotic study of Drakensberg paintings, is his most important work. It is also evident in his work in the Northern Kalahari that social anthropology and ethnographic analogies have impacted him. “A burial ceremony with mourners dancing around the dead body,” which William documented in Kalahari, and “eland bulls dance (symbolic of male desire)” are two well-known traditions (Alan, 2007, p. 90). Both Ju/’hoan and Naro eland bull dances were photographed by Lewis-William, and he also made a connection between female puberty rites and eland mating rituals.
With the Bushman culture and the larger political economy of commerce, the traditionalist community was a part of the community. Revisionist/traditional anthropology and historiography are not archaeological fields, yet they are closely related. One of the major differences between the two communities is that revisionists tend to concentrate on the past, while traditionalists tend to focus on their own period’s ethnography. The traditionalists are ethnographers, but the revisionists are, first and foremost, scientific.
The greatest importance of Khoisan has been shown by John Parkingtons, presumably due to its connection with the later Stone Age population of the Western Cape and an anthropologist in the Kalahari. Sustainability and seasonal mobility were emphasized in all situations. Khoisan’s studies were given a fresh perspective on his efforts. The emphasis on ethnographic analogies has kept South African Archaeology at a remove from contemporary new archaeology. As a revisionist, Parkington’s work is refreshing and thought-provoking. Writers are increasingly linking ethnographic, archival, and archaeological studies in new interdisciplinary historical formulations because of the discussion in the Kalahari over the classic labels of ‘hunter’ or ‘herder.’
For example, Anne Solomon (rock art) and Lyn Wadley (archaeology) have made a specific effort to include gender concerns in their fields of study. An archaeologist at the University of Texas, Denbow is a revisionist in his focus on the relationship between the Early Iron Age and the hunter-gatherers. They fell under the Iron Age’s dominance Denbow (Alan, 2007). The University of the Witwatersrand’s Karim Sadr, a fierce critic of Kalahari revisionism, has a new book. He argued against the idea that all Bushmen were a part of the Iron Age economy (Alan, 2007). The “second Kalahari debate” was coined by Wilmsen shortly after South Africa became a democratic state, coining the term “Kalahari debate” instead to compare and contrast two perspectives, both classic and revisionist (Alan, 2007).
Conclusion
In conclusion, when it comes to anthropology is not only about studying human beings and their growth; rather, it aims to shed light on how people interact with the world around them in general. Studies, extensive discovery, interpretation, and intervention of the past and present-day cultural traits greatly impact our knowledge of human beings. It does not matter whether you get to a correct or erroneous conclusion if you use anthropological information to understand distinct groups of individuals in society. Many anthropologists and artists have contributed to the creation of various anthropological ideas throughout the book review.
Here, we have seen Lorna Marshall’s “Sharing and Giving,” Mathias Guenther’s “Farm Busman,” David Lewis-“Symbolic William’s Approach” study and its implications for art rock research and Kalahari Revolutionism. These hypotheses have aided our understanding of ancient anthropological histories and the processes that led to those histories’ progression.
Reference
Barnard, A. (2007). Anthropology and the Bushman. Berg Publishers.