San Bushmen
Unfortunately,
the San have often been regarded as second-class citizens in Namibia
as well as neighbouring Botswana and during the course of history,
Bantu-speaking people from north-east Africa and Europeans forced
the San into the Kalahari, where most of them still live nowadays.
The
45.000 San, one of the most intriguing people in this world, are
the region's earliest inhabitants (it is estimated that they have
been living here for the last 30,000 years)and are still settled
in many parts of southern Africa where game and veld food used to
be plentiful more than three centuries ago.
The San live in isolated groups in the widespread semi-desert regions
of the Kalahari and traditionally used to be hunters and gatherers
who migrated in small family bands. The San groups can be divided
into six sub-groups being the !Xu, the Naró, the Kxow or
Mbarakwengo, the Hei-||om the |Auni and |Nû||en. In the past
these groups had little to no contact with one another, this is
changing though as San interests are being promoted across the boarders
in Botswana and Namibia and slowly resulting in some kind of group
solidarity.
Recently a delegation of Namibia's
Hei||om petitioned to the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation
claiming their ancestral lands back. Without this land they argue,
they would soon loose their cultural identity, being scattered all
over Namibia and forced to look for jobs.
The San population have a relative
lack of a leadership institution, they therefore have no chiefs
or system of leadership and individual decision making is part of
their culture. As a completely mobile society, the San followed
the water , game and food and had no animals, crops or possessions.
Traditionally women tend to look after the children as well as collecting
edible plants whereas the men arer involved in hunting.
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