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Authors: Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
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called Nyae Nyae, there were seven permanent and eight semipermanent water sources, each of which was the
n!ore
of a group of people. /Gam was the most important.
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We stayed there for while, interviewing the Ju/wasi about various subjects, including places where we could find people living in the Old Way without interruption. Because any wilderness environment, particularly one as specialized as the Kalahari, is altered by domestic animals and plants, human life that is closely tied to the environment can be altered along with it. This could make a difference to hunter-gatherer activity. But how would we know? My dad decided that we must go deeper into the interior to look for people still living completely in the Old Way, a way that did not include domestic plants and animals, and we asked the Ju/wasi at /Gam to help us find them.
Perhaps two thousand such people lived in that vast interior, most of whom we came to know as our work there developed, but we might have met none of them had not a man named /Kwi and his wife, //Kushe, walked into our camp in single file one evening, /Kwi leading. They were barefoot and were dressed in purely Bushman clothingâ/Kwi with a leather loincloth, //Kushe with a leather front apron, a leather back apron, a long string of beads made of ostrich eggshell, and a leather cape with the corners tied across her chest and a sinew string tied around her waist. This formed a pouch at her back where her baby could ride, but that day he was riding on his fatherâs shoulders. He was a little boy named /Gao. As a necklace he wore a long sinew string, on which hung a single bead.
/Kwi and //Kushe sat on their heels by our fire. Through our interpreters, /Kwi told us that his wife no longer wanted to live at /Gam. She wanted to return to her
n!ore
, the place she came from, and if we wanted to go there, they would show us the way.
We accepted the offer. The next day we took down our camp, topped off the water in our fifty-gallon drums thanks to the generosity of the Tswanas, and made our grateful farewells. I was sad to leave Kavasitjue, and gave her two gifts, which, as I recall, were a scarf and a blanket. She started to thank me, then folded the gifts in her arms and said, âToo much thanks is like a curse. I sit here with my delights.â Then we got in the trucks and headed for that next place, //Kusheâs place, which, we were later to learn, was Gautscha.
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The trip wasnât easy, certainly not for /Kwi or //Kushe, who until we came had never seen a vehicle, let alone ridden in one. The trucks lurched and bounced as usual, and thornbushes crashed against their sides. //Kushe wanted to get out and walk, but our Bushman guides persuaded her not to. As I remember that journey, I think this was when the leading truck went over an aardvarkâs burrow of which there was no outward sign. The driver couldnât see it and the truck fell through. The crash broke a spring. I was concerned about the aardvark, but luckily for him, he wasnât in his burrow. We had to replace the broken spring, so we camped, and drove for most of the next day until /Kwi told us we were there.
5
The Ju/wasi
G AUTSCHA WAS AN ENORMOUS clay pan of perhaps three hundred acresâa white, seasonal lake from which the rainwater had evaporated. On its eastern side were three baobab trees in full leaf, the biggest of them a hundred feet tall, thirty feet in diameter, and easily two thousand years old. On the northern and western sides of the pan, bushes and long, pale grass stretched to the horizon. We arrived at the southern side of the pan, and right in front of us was green grass, conspicuous among the miles of yellow grass. The grass was green because it grew beside the water hole.
Â
/Kwi and //Kushe got out of the trucks and walked off into the bush. The two Bushman guides from Fritz Metzgerâs farm looked around uneasily. They were not Ju/wasi but belonged to another group
n!ore
of a group of people. /Gam was the most important.
Â
We stayed there for while, interviewing the Ju/wasi about various subjects, including places where we could find people living in the Old Way without interruption. Because any wilderness environment, particularly one as specialized as the Kalahari, is altered by domestic animals and plants, human life that is closely tied to the environment can be altered along with it. This could make a difference to hunter-gatherer activity. But how would we know? My dad decided that we must go deeper into the interior to look for people still living completely in the Old Way, a way that did not include domestic plants and animals, and we asked the Ju/wasi at /Gam to help us find them.
Perhaps two thousand such people lived in that vast interior, most of whom we came to know as our work there developed, but we might have met none of them had not a man named /Kwi and his wife, //Kushe, walked into our camp in single file one evening, /Kwi leading. They were barefoot and were dressed in purely Bushman clothingâ/Kwi with a leather loincloth, //Kushe with a leather front apron, a leather back apron, a long string of beads made of ostrich eggshell, and a leather cape with the corners tied across her chest and a sinew string tied around her waist. This formed a pouch at her back where her baby could ride, but that day he was riding on his fatherâs shoulders. He was a little boy named /Gao. As a necklace he wore a long sinew string, on which hung a single bead.
/Kwi and //Kushe sat on their heels by our fire. Through our interpreters, /Kwi told us that his wife no longer wanted to live at /Gam. She wanted to return to her
n!ore
, the place she came from, and if we wanted to go there, they would show us the way.
We accepted the offer. The next day we took down our camp, topped off the water in our fifty-gallon drums thanks to the generosity of the Tswanas, and made our grateful farewells. I was sad to leave Kavasitjue, and gave her two gifts, which, as I recall, were a scarf and a blanket. She started to thank me, then folded the gifts in her arms and said, âToo much thanks is like a curse. I sit here with my delights.â Then we got in the trucks and headed for that next place, //Kusheâs place, which, we were later to learn, was Gautscha.
Â
The trip wasnât easy, certainly not for /Kwi or //Kushe, who until we came had never seen a vehicle, let alone ridden in one. The trucks lurched and bounced as usual, and thornbushes crashed against their sides. //Kushe wanted to get out and walk, but our Bushman guides persuaded her not to. As I remember that journey, I think this was when the leading truck went over an aardvarkâs burrow of which there was no outward sign. The driver couldnât see it and the truck fell through. The crash broke a spring. I was concerned about the aardvark, but luckily for him, he wasnât in his burrow. We had to replace the broken spring, so we camped, and drove for most of the next day until /Kwi told us we were there.
5
The Ju/wasi
G AUTSCHA WAS AN ENORMOUS clay pan of perhaps three hundred acresâa white, seasonal lake from which the rainwater had evaporated. On its eastern side were three baobab trees in full leaf, the biggest of them a hundred feet tall, thirty feet in diameter, and easily two thousand years old. On the northern and western sides of the pan, bushes and long, pale grass stretched to the horizon. We arrived at the southern side of the pan, and right in front of us was green grass, conspicuous among the miles of yellow grass. The grass was green because it grew beside the water hole.
Â
/Kwi and //Kushe got out of the trucks and walked off into the bush. The two Bushman guides from Fritz Metzgerâs farm looked around uneasily. They were not Ju/wasi but belonged to another group
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