The Okavango People of Botswana, Africa vs The Penan People of Sarawak, Malaysia - Essay Example

The Okavango People of Botswana, Africa vs The Penan People of Sarawak, Malaysia Known as one of the world’s largest inland deltas, the Okavango Delta is surrounded by the Kalahari Desert. Crocodiles and hippopotami dwell here, while buffalo and elephants visit seasonally. The African animal kingdom is plentiful, and fish abound in this tropical wetland. The populace of the Delta people of Botswana consists of five ethnic groups, and each has its own language and identity. The groups are Hambukushu, Dxeriku, Bugakwe, Wayeyi, and Xanekwe. There have been surprisingly few anthropological studies among these groups. The Dxeriku, Wayeyi, and Hambukushu are Bantus engaged in fishing, hunting, and raising livestock (pastoralism). The Xanekwe and Bugakwe are Bushmen, practicing hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plant foods. Some members of these groups also live outside of Botswana in the north of Namibia, the south of Angola, and the southwestern part of Zambia. Due to the civil war of Angola and the Namibian war, the ethnic groups in these geographic areas have grown apart. The Angolan civil war has resulted with Angolan members in relative isolation. The Bushmen (Bugakwe and Xanekwe) are also known as the San people and are the South African dwellers residing in small nomadic groups as gatherers and hunters. The other three ethnic groups are Bantus speaking the Bantu-related languages. The annual flood brings nourishment and water to the Delta, and the life cycle for plants, animals, and the people is determined by the flood. Subsistence strategies differ between the five ethnic groups. Xanekwe and Bugakwe are gatherers and hunters; the Bugakwe also scavenge in the swamps and the desert. The Wayeyi, Dxeriku, and Hambukushu engage in a mixture of hunting, fishing, farming, and gathering plant foods, and herding goats and cattle. The Bugakwe males hunted with bow and poison darts, requiring great skill, and taking many days to track and hunt their prey. The hunter had to have complete familiarity with the environment and the behavior of the hunted. Children are taught to track each other at an early age, and this skill is enhanced as adults. The male Xanakwe also hunted with poison darts, but would lie in wait for hippo, antelope, and crocodiles. This type of hunting exists today, even though firearms were introduced in the latter part of the 1800’s. The males from all the groups are expert at fishing with hook and line, spear, nets, or bow and arrow. The men also were adept at building fences to protect their farms from wild animals. They tended the cattle, plowed the fields, made weapons, and built canoes. The Xanekwe females collected swamp food, such as snare-caught small animals. The women were experienced in shallow-water-fishing with conical baskets (weirs). The Hambuktu, Wayeyi, and Dxeriku females were also adept at the same activities, they also worked in the fields and processed produce and grain. This encompassed weeding, planting, harvesting, separating, and processing the grain into flour using a pestle and mortar. The children also assist with the economy depending on the ecology of the subsistence. The Xanekwe and Bugakwe chidren could only contribute minutely, because the high levels of skills needed to hunt and gather take time to acquire. The Wayeyi, Hambukushu, and Dxeriku young people contribute more since tasks take lesser time to learn. The male children can herd and tend to the goats and cattle. The young female inhabitants can perform the same agricultural tasks as the adult women. The peoples from all the groups are involved in the economy of the market for nearly a century. The Xanekwe obtained leopard and zebra pelts with their extensive hunting skills to trade for necessities, such as clothing, axes, knives, and pots for cooking. All these groups hunted elephant for the ivory trade and also migrated to the South African mines as laborers. Internationally, the women of the Wayeyi and Hambukushu groups were known for skills at basket-weaving; selling their wares to tourists has been a major income source since the 1960’s. Since the same period of time, the men have worked as tour guides in safari lodges, and the females have labored in these lodges as cooks, maids, and housekeepers. Today, the major importance between these groups related to their subsistence ecology is more blurred. This is due to residence in diverse ethnic communities and as a result of government programs, education, and progress to modernization. Therefore, a mixed strategy of subsistence now exists related to hunting, herding, farming, and fishing. Yet, the Xatnekwe and the Bugakwe are oriented substantially to foraging, owning less cattle and smaller farming fields than the other groups. Historically, the Xanelwe and the Bugakwe lived in small groups with extended familial relationships. These small clans would often camp together for years before going off to lead their separate lives. With no authority representative, the Hambukushu , Wayeyi, and Dxeriku resided in settlements made of extended family. Historically, the Xanekwe and Bugakwe have had religious beliefs like those of other groups of Bushmen. Their beliefs are in nature and the supernatural. Traditionally, the Hambukushu and Dxeriku could not wed amongst their clan, and only wedded from specific clans. Today, the Wayeyi, Xanekwe , and Bungakwe observe this belief. The Hambukushu believed in the powers of rainmakers, and these rainmakers were held in high regard religiously and politically. One of the few nomadic groups of the rain forest are the Penan. Their domain hosts extensive passages underground and many caves. Their world is now being threatened because their home in the Malaysian state of Sarawak has one of the highest rates of logging on the planet. This destruction of the forest is constantly changing the lives of the Penan and all poor peoples of Borneo. The lives of some Penan are also being destroyed by the Bakun Dam project, which will flood most of their land, displacing the population and wildlife, and more importantly, destroying the rain forest. To understand the environment and ecosystem, we must remember that Borneo is located on the equator and is the third largest island in the world. Shared by other Southeast Asian countries, Sarawak dominates the northwest. Borneo population consists of many settled ethnic groups who make their living by farming rice. Only few Penan kive as nomads; this group dwells in Sarawak. The most outstanding characteristic of the Penan is behavioral. Taught by example is the importance of sharing, which is instilled in youngsters at the earliest age. The greatest sin in Penan society is sihun, the failure to share. Because they rely on the forest to live, and each other to survive, the Penan have insulated their group. Observers comment on the lack of conflict, violent arguments, and physical abuse. The Penan pride themselves on this trait and disapproval when violence occurs in the neighboring communities. One of the oldest and richest ecosystems in the world, eighty percent of Borneo is covered in tropical rain forest. Scientific studies have acknowledged that one square mile of tropical rain forest can contain 23,000 unique forms of life. Approximately one-third of its plant life exists nowhere else in the world. An entomologist in Borneo once identified about 600 butterfly species in a day. Traditionally, the Penan nomadic society survives by gathering and hunting, and very few of this society exist today. Today, most Penan are settled in permanent riverside homes, but still travel into the forest to gather food and medicine. Spiritual and physical well-being is dependent on the forest for all Penan. The Penan have pets, but they don’t practice animal husbandry, or agriculture either. Eating domestic animals is taboo among the nomadic Penan. Fishing and hunting provides their necessary protein intake. However, they do consume game animals, the most popular being the bearded pig. According to tradition, the Penan hunting weapon is the blowpipe, or keleput. The blowpipe is made from materials found in the forest and is more accurate than a gun. Killing silently, the dart permits the hunter to slay several animals. Dipped in poison, called tajem, the dart causes a lethal effect which kills instantly. The tropical forest has an abundance of animals, but contains minimum carbohydrates. Therefore, the Amazon people have gardens to produce the foods necessary to balance their diets. The sago palm is a tree whose trunk multiple trunks has an abundance of starch. The trunk is pounded to a pulp and then kneaded with people’s feet as water is being poured. The wet starch is fire-dried and produces sago flour. Only the male members go hunting, but all adults and children assist in producing sago, which is an efficient method of producing food. The Borneo population speaks languages of the family of Austronesia. For several hundreds of years, Sarawak has been the domain of the Sultan of Brunei. After an English adventurer, James Brooke, became king (Rajah) of Sarawak in the 19th century, his dynasty ended in 1941. Sarawak then became a possession of the British colony lasting after the Second World War. In 1963, Sarawak became part of the new nation of Malaysia, with Sarawak’s population settling at one and a half million people. There Sarawak people have twenty-six distinct nations, each speaking their own language. Most of the populace is known as Dayaks. Today, the largest portion of the Sarawak population is rice farmers living in communal of longhouses. The decay-and-growth cycle of a tropical forest is rapid, causing nutrients to recycle quickly and soil to be of poor quality. The torrential rainfalls wash away nutrients and cause the soil chemicals to change rapidly. The growth of logging in Malaysia is causing the high-volume destruction of the forest. Malaysia leads in the export of tropical logs. Politics in the Malaysian timber industry has benefited only the elite, leaving the dwellers who are subsistence farmers to become an indigenous statistic. Sarawak’s raw logs are exported to mainly markets in Asia, mostly Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Japan depends at least 85% of Malaysia’s wood imports. After the raw wood is milled, the product is used to manufacture furniture, crates for storage, and in construction as plywood. 1987 brought the wrath of the logging impact on the Dayaks. They had appealed to the government for years to stop the destruction to their homeland, claiming the forest as their livelihood. The movements of resistance started in 1987 by causing a blockade across a logging entrance in one of the Basins, their strength mounting as over twenty-six settlements comprised of hundreds of adults and children joined the protest. Supporting the protection of the Sarawak forests grew in 1990 as the media drew attention to their blight. Lobbying continued into 1991 when Penan representatives traveled a world tour and appeared on television and at conferences making the world aware of their position. In 1992, the long blockade was dismantled and corrupt politicians were arrested. Instead of development and progress for the people of Malaysia, the government brought camps, dusty roads to transport the logs, starvation for the people, destruction of their culture, and the disappearance of work along with the forest. Traditionally, the people had made a living and survived from the forest and the land. They had a good leisure life, never suffered starvation, and had all the necessities of life. The government tore apart the links that had held their families and their communities together for many generations. The logging industry brought their populace into an economy of consumption for which they had no prior preparation or desire to join. The tradition of sihun had disappeared because of greed and the corruption in the political arena. A mockery was made of this prideful characteristic. The story of Lamin Pagem was made to seem petty. The tale goes that forty years ago, two adult women had argued over an adultery accusation. The house this argument occurred in was located in western Penan, and is today known as Lamin Pagem, ‘the house of hair pulling,’ Read More