Оңтүстік Африкадағы ǃКунг халықтарының мәдениеті мен өмірі

Ethnic group in Southern Africa

The ǃKung (/'//k//ʊ//ŋ/ KUUNG) are one of the San peoples who live mostly on the western edge of the Kalahari desert, Ovamboland (northern Namibia and southern Angola), and Botswana. The names ǃKung (ǃXun) and Ju are variant words for 'people', preferred by different ǃKung groups. This band level society used traditional methods of hunting and gathering for subsistence up until the 1970s. Today, the great majority of ǃKung people live in the villages of Bantu pastoralists and European ranchers. Like other African High Gods, he also punishes man by means of the weather, and the Otjimpolo ǃKung know him as Erob, who "knows everything". They also have animistic and animatistic beliefs, which means they believe in both personifications and impersonal forces. For example, they recall a culture hero named Prishiboro, whose wife was an elephant. Prishiboro's older brother tricked him into killing his wife and eating her flesh. Her herd tried to kill Prishiboro in revenge, but his brother defeated them. Amongst the ǃKung there is a strong belief in the existence of spirits of the dead (llgauwasi) who live immortally in the sky. The llgauwasi can come to the earth and interact with humans.

Healing rites are a primary part of the ǃKung culture. In the ǃKung state of mind, having health is equivalent to having social harmony, meaning that relationships within the group are stable and open between other people. Any ǃKung can become a healer because it "is a status accessible to all," but it is a grand aspiration of many members because of its importance. Even though there is no restriction of the power, "nearly half the men and one third of the women are acknowledged of having the power to heal," but with the responsibility comes great pain and hardship. Time between the births of children is traditionally about 3–5 years. Children are nursed for 3–5 years, ending when the mother is pregnant with another child. This long period of time between children makes traveling long distances on foot – like to a gathering site or new settlement – easier, since fewer children require carrying and population numbers remain controlled. During times of deprivation, infanticide was permitted to preserve resources. The ǃKung people do not use contraceptives and generally do not practice abstinence, yet experience low fertility rates.

Marriage is the major focus of alliance formation between groups of ǃKung. When a woman starts to develop, she is considered ready for marriage. Every first marriage is arranged. The culture of the ǃKung is "being directed at marriage itself, rather than at a specific man." Even though it does not matter who the man is, the woman's family is looking for a specific type of man. The man should not be too much older than the woman, should preferably be unmarried rather than divorced, should be able to hunt, and should be willing to take on the responsibilities of the wife's family. The latter is because a woman's family depends heavily on her husband's family, particularly through trade, when there are times of scarcity. Becoming chieftain is mostly nominal, though there are some responsibilities the chieftain assumes, such as becoming the group's "logical head". This duty entails such roles as dividing up the meat from hunters' kills; these leaders do not receive a larger portion than any other member of the village.

Kinship is one of the central organizing principles for societies like the ǃKung. Richard Borshay Lee breaks ǃKung kinship principles down into three different sets (Kinship I, Kinship II, and Kinship III or wi). Kinship I follows conventional kin terms (father, mother, brother, sister) and is based on genealogical position. The ǃKung people often communicate only by high pitched clicks when sneaking up on prey in order to stay undetected.

Since the 1950s, the Juǀʼhoan population has increased. Cattle ranches have brought cows to their traditional lands. Cows eat the sparse vegetation which the Juǀʼhoansi and their game animals need, as well as dirty the Juǀʼhoansi water holes. This water pollution, along with the disappearance of native vegetation, has made disease more prevalent. In addition to the problems involved in sharing water with cows, the Juǀʼhoansi are less mobile than in the past. The current governments of Namibia and Botswana, where the Juǀʼhoansi live, encourage permanent settlements with European style houses. With urban employment and industrialization, indigenous people are changing their nomadic lifestyle. European descended settlers have encouraged wage paid agricultural labour, especially for men. Due to increased dependence on them and their access to wealth, men are valued more. Women, who traditionally prepared food, have taken up the preparation of millet. Millet is more difficult to process than traditional Joǀʼhoan foods, and therefore women must spend more time preparing food for their household, leaving less time for employment outside the home. The changing gender roles, growing inequality between the sexes, and transformation from a wandering hunter gatherer life style to life in a village have contributed to more domestic violence, as women are more dependent on men and increasingly restricted from outside intervention through changing housing styles and arrangements. Houses that are less open and the collection of wealth also challenges traditional sharing ideology. Ivy Dickens talks about the ǃKung people in Season 4 of Gossip Girl. Carl Sagan draws on the ǃKung's way of life in relation to science in his 1995 book The Demon Haunted World. He also referred to them in his 1994 lecture "The Age of Exploration", based primarily on anthropologist Richard Borshay Lee's 1979 field study of the !Kung San in the Botswanan part of the Kalahari Desert. Sebastian Junger refers to "one study in the 1960s" that found that the ǃKung people only needed to work as little as 12 hours a week to survive which is nearly one quarter the amount of time people need to work in modern society in his book Tribe.