The San Kinship - Research Paper Example

The San Kinship Beverly A. Powell ANT 101 Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Dr Dhiren Patel July 25,   The San Kinship The Khomani San of South Africa are part of the indigenous people of the southern Kalahari Desert, in South Africa. The kinship relationship is crucial to the existence for the San because by considering their community as a whole, kinship provides the basis for the social interaction, which the individual farmers are not allowed. The people of the same kinship do not distinguish between the patrilineal and matrilineal relatives. It is a tradition that the elders resolve the confusion among the relatives. Similarly, only the adults decide what to call the young. These kinships form strong ethos, to help each other confront the conditions such as scarce resources, unemployment, homelessness, and so on. The unique thing that makes the kinship of San different is that they resist class exploitation. However, they regard their women as a symbol of wealth and they are provided with high status in the society. There are fewer features, which explain their class situation (for example in the older times the San used to give their servants European names. However, they now assimilate the African names with San (Sylvain, 2003). Impact of San’s kinship on their lives The kinship culture also influence the way they behave. As the San society is struggling to survive, with the help of the kinship culture the people are able to survive in the extreme poverty. For example in their ceremonies and healing rituals, they incorporate money into the ceremonies to combat the psychological impact of extreme poverty. Generally they live together in small groups consisting of 10 to 15 members of the same family who travel together in search of food. Kinship provides them a feeling of unity and provides them with an identity. Due to the strong family ties, the people of the same kinship inherit the names from the family. Working together as family units and as a part of a larger group, there combined efforts at hunting and gathering food enable them to survive in an area where most of the animals have been caught by farmers and kept on settlements. Gender relations The San people observe two distinct phases of living throughout the year. One is private and dispersal where families separate from the larger group and work together themselves. During these times men not only hunt but also help the women gathering and preparing food. An intense period of intimacy occurs during this time and contributes to the closeness and equality that gender roles in San culture are characterized by. The other is a time when the group gathers as a whole, exchanging gifts and participating in marriage and other ceremonies and celebrating holidays. While they are able to survive the periods of personal time with very little sustenance, they cannot go on for very long without the aggregate periods during which they exchange food and gifts. They also empower their women in ceremonies, as the women refuse sex to males until they bring home meat (Knight, 1991). Hence, men are considered to have more responsibility, as they are traditionally hunters and the women gatherers. During ceremonial occasions, the men and women share in a formal seating pattern with men on the right facing the observers and women on the left. There is presently a growing concern about the increasing disparity between men and women as compared to their traditional customs and relationships. Women provide more of the food supply than men do (roughly 80%) and are able to hold positions of authority within their overall egalitarian society. However because of the influence of military structures and male-dominated communities, San women have lost their level of influence and power. (Felton, S. and Becker, H. (2001) Social Organization San are also more dependent on others than their own, in a way they risk their autonomy. As their society is tribal based, individuals within San do not have the voice in the other communities. For this reason, they have to have some affinity within their own community to gain recognition and the name of their kinship plays the most important role in this regard. The San people do not have a traditional tribal leader and thus are lacking a primary central figure. Instead they govern themselves and each member of the group has a voice in the decision making process. New issues and disputes are resolved with discussions being held until some agreement is reached. Although they do not have a central leading figure, elders and those who have gained a good measure of respect assume a higher level of leadership within the community. They are for the most part though, an egalitarian society and share freely with each other all that they find while hunting and gathering. Ownership of land is also held by groups rather than individuals and is passed on over time in the same way. Social Change The English government tried to “civilize” and improve the living standard of the San people by providing them with education and modern advancements such as running water. They also tried to transform them into more of an agricultural society. Unfortunately attempts at trying to force the hunter-gatherer culture to live on settlements and adopt farming techniques were unsuccessful. The establishing of settlements and farms by other settlers impacted the San people’s ability to move to other territories. Thus when food supplies became scarce they were limited in terms of areas they could migrate to for sustenance and survival. Until 1936 it was legal to hunt the San people just as one might hunt wild animals. This brought the tribe to near extinction. Due to the arrival of the aforementioned settlers, both blacks and whites established farms and the San were forced to work on them. While living and working amongst them, they also intermarried which diluted the heritage of their culture. Today only a small number of true San people exist and many of them in outlying territories, unable to return to their native region in Southern Africa. For those that have survived, men have taken to working on commercial farms and women are dependent on the roles of their spouses and family members. Some work themselves as domestic servants but they are usually paid a lower wage than males. Tourism has also impacted the San society and is now seen as a viable source of income for them. They are no longer completely dependent upon finding their own food but sell their gift items and handicrafts to help support themselves. Comparison of my own society with San Our society is not like the San, as the people do not have the same roles. Our societies are formed on the bases of division of the class structures, and people are more class conscious. Every person’s role is set according to his or her social status. On the other hand, our society is based on gender equality or inequality, and mostly do not assume higher status for women. In most cases, it could be argued that in our society the women are discriminated. On the other hand, the elders do not play the most vital role in our societies because once we are adults we are expected to make all the decision by ourselves. Hence, elders have very limited roles for us. In this case our culture of kinship is completely opposite from the San and we are relatively more autonomous than them. References Knight, C. (1991). Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture. Hong Kong: The Bath Press. Sylvain, R. (2003). Class, Culture and Recognition: San Farm Workers and Indigenous Identites. Anthropologica , 45, 111-119. Becker, H. (2003). The Least Sexist Society? Perspectives on Gender, Change and Violence Among southern African San. Journal of Southern African Studies, Volume 29, Number 1. Taylor & Francis Ltd. Felton, S. and Becker, H. (2001) A GENDER PERSPECTIVE ON THE STATUS OF THE SAN IN SOUTHERN AFRICA.Windhoek. John Meinert Printing Read More