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Africa Travel Newsletters > The San People

The San people of southern Africa are among Africa’s most intriguing people. Genetic evidence suggests that they are some of the earth’s most ancient people, having been around for the past 22,000 years. These itinerant hunter-gatherer people have for ages resided in and around the Kalahari Desert. They have amazingly defied the Kalahari's harshness, and can even claim to have mastered it.

The San have always lived a distinctly aboriginal lifestyle. Through the generations, they have told their story through song and folklore, and the rock paintings that are found across large areas of southern Africa.  Commonly referred to as the Bushman tribe, there are today about 100,000 of them in: South Africa (4,500), Namibia (38,000), Zambia (1,600), and Zimbabwe (1,200) by the count of the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA).

The San are believed to have inhabited the entire south of the African continent, way before the migration of the Bantu. They were displaced by the southward movement of the Zulu, Nguni, Sotho, Khoi Khoi, Nama, and other African groups. As they did not keep livestock, they did not appear to have any use for pasture. They retreated northwards and permanently occupied the drier regions. It is by their adaptation in the Kalahari- which means ‘Great Thirst’ - that they have earned a name for themselves as ultimate survivors.

The Kalahari Basin stretches over Botswana, Namibia and the north of South Africa, and has a little spillover into Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The parched basin covers 2,500,000 square km, with a desert core that spreads over 900,000 square km. The Kalahari is challenging, but it is really not a true desert of the Sahara kind. Most of the region is semi-arid, except for the southwest which is truly arid. It receives about 250 mm of rainfall annually. This allows it to support a rich count of flora and fauna, and its landscape is painted with vast grasslands, thorn shrubs, and strands of acacia.

The lifeline of the Kalahari and the only permanent river in the region is the Okavango. The river flows into Botswana’s delta of the same name. It hosts 3 game reserves: Central Kalahari Game Reserve and Kutse Game Reserve in Botswana, and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park shared by Botswana and South Africa.

The Kalahari wilderness supports a variety of wildlife species including: the meerkat, wild dog, jackal and hyena, eland, and an array of antelopes –including oryx and gemsbok - all of which you can see on your Namibia safari or South Africa safari. Occasionally, some big cats -lion, leopard and cheetah are spotted.

The San are a light skinned folk, whose distinct yellow-brown skin wrinkles prematurely. They have a body structure slightly smaller than that of the average person. They appear to have bulging foreheads, ears without lobes, and have taut tufts of flimsy hair. The women tend to have ponderous posteriors- an excellent way for storing fat for lean seasons.

They wear hide slings to cover their essentials. On the move they always carry their animal skin blankets, and a small hide bag, and a cloak called  ‘kaross’. The kaross is a multipurpose carrier pouch in which they carry their very modest material belongings, veld goodies, babies and tools.

They speak in Khoisan, a language characterized by numerous clicks and many idiosyncratic sounds. Their phonetics are complex, such that in writing, symbols rather than letters are frequently employed. Various click sounds are expressed differently, for example, the slash (/) for the dental click, the Alveolar (!) for the palatal click, and double slash (//) for the lateral click. They have influenced the languages of many southern African tribes who have interacted with them.

The San have been under great pressure to abandon their itinerant lifestyle, and from the 1950's most have become farmers. For example, today in Botswana- the country with the largest San population, out of a population of 50,000, only about 3,000 follow the ancient way of life.

The traditional San live in small groups called bands. Each band comprises of 15 to 25 related individuals who form a close-knit clan unit. As nomads, they have no need for permanent shelters. At times they live in rough and ready accommodation - such as caves or erect tent-like structures. These makeshift structures are made with frames of sticks and thatched with grass and twigs.

In unfavourable weather, animal hide is used in place of grass. The band clusters their shelters together to form a ring, with each family living in a single tent. Each tent has its own campfire, but there is a central fireplace where the clan gathers to bond and unwind as nightly stories are told. The fires are kept alive at all times. Here, stories of hunting experiences, gathering jaunts, daily goings-on, ancient legends, past music and dance, and religious beliefs are exchanged and passed on.

Though a new birth is important, death is even more significant. The spot where a San dies is avoided, and camp must be shifted after the event. The family immediately buries its dead, and never intentionally goes back or crosses the place of burial. If accident or necessity forces them back, they throw small stones at the grave, and mumble under their breath as they seek peace with the spirit of the departed.

The San have no centralised political system or social hierarchy, and decisions touching on community affairs are arrived at through consensus of both male and female adults, and at times even children are consulted. When consensus fails, the opinion of the older members of the band is granted more weight. But when a tie is apparent among the elders or among age-mates, the name rule is invoked. The controversy is resolved in favour of the individual named after a more elderly member of the clan.

The San practice a division of labour based on gender: the men hunt, while the women gather. The children usually just trail along, helping where they can as they assimilate the experience of adults. The older members of the band mostly remain at camp, and watch over the children when their parents are out hunting and gathering.

This is an opportunity for the elders to pass on their extensive knowledge of their world to the children in the form of stories and song. The San are excellent mimics, and it is fun all round as they mimic various animals, while asking the children to name the animal in play.

The elderly are the pillars of San spiritual life. This is an important role as the San are quite a spiritual people, believing in the supernatural world and the existence of a supreme God. This belief permeates everyday life, and nearly every aspect of their simple lives has a spiritual dimension. For example, they believe that to hunt is to dance in the spirit.

The principle manifestation of their spiritual life is a ritual known as the trance dance. In the setting for a trance dance, the women and children sit around the fire, while singing and clapping in rhythm. The men encircle the fire in front of the singers and chant frantically, while thumping the ground with their feet. The resident shaman- a spiritual healer- runs around the fire in circles, as he communicates with the spirit world.

When the dance mood strikes right, the shaman enters into a trance. In this state he is said to have entered the spirit world, where he is able to consult with the spirits of long departed ancestors and those causing illness and pain. If the consultation goes well the sick are cured, and if not they depart unto death. The dance is usually performed at the time of the full moon.

The shaman is always an elderly man, who in addition to the usual leather sling, is adorned in a beaded headband to which an ostrich feather is attached. The shaman's gift is deployed in healing, hunting, rain making, and negating ill-winds in society.

Animals and their interaction with man -especially in the hunt, have a significant role in San society. The men hunt with simple but very effective weapons –bows and arrows. Their hunting and tracking skills are second to none. They tip their arrows with poison obtained from beetles, snakes, scorpions, tree gum and many others from their catalogue of poisonous animals and plants.

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