The Bushment of Namibia: Ancient Culture in a New Nation - Research Paper Example

Erstwhile South-West Africa, and former German Southwest Africa, Namibia gained independence on March 21, 1990, at which time it adopted the name Namibia. The Namib Desert, one of Earth’s oldest deserts occupies a large portion of the country. The Skeleton Coast that expanses along the northern parts of the Namibian coastline, is one of the planet’s most inhabitable areas. Due to the impenetrability of the area, the country has been mostly free of Atlantic slave trade along the West African coast.

Namibia surrounded by Angola in the north, South Africa in the south and Botswana in the east, is a nation of geographic inequalities such as desert regions to wildlife-rich areas of the Etosha Pan game reserve. The tropical extremes in topography, temperatures, and climate offer the contextual backdrop to the country's history and to the national, cultural and anthropological characteristics of its people (Flinders University, 2011). About Bushmen The 'Bushmen' are the ancient-most and indegenious occupants of southern Africa, where they have lived over 20,000 years.

Over the years, they have lived in the wide expanse of the Kalahari Desert. The Bushmen are the remnants of Africa's oldest ethnic group, genetically the nearest remaining people to the aboriginal Homo sapiens from which the Negroid race of Africa emerged. Bushmen are small in physique usually with light yellowish skin color (Kalahari Meerkat Project, 2011). Bushmen conventionally lived in Southern Africa in the countries of Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Angola and Tanzania and have survived over hunting and gathering.

Within the collective Bushmen community, there are a number of sub-ethnic groups that form the part of the tribe. Bushmen are called by various names such as ‘San’, ‘Barsawa’ etc. They converse in a range of languages, most notable for the use of ‘click’ sounds represented by ! or /. As mentioned above, Bushmen have traditionally been hunters and gatherers. Customarily about 70/80% of their food regime comprises of plant food such as berries, nuts, roots and melons gathered by females and the remaining 20/30% is meat, hunted by the men using poisoned arrows and spears on hunts.

They live in temporary houses constructed by themselves with the wood resources they gather from the forests. Over the past centuries, they have not undergone much change in their social habits and social structures until recently when development changes in Namibia and other countries have led to the adoption of agriculture by the Bushmen. However, historically, the tribal community has not kept any livestock, farms and has not lived on the concept of ownership of land. Ancient Bushmen cultures and society Unlike the rest of the world, Bushmen live in a very different social structure, not oblivious to the rest of the world.

Their social set-up is not heirarchal as in other tribal communities as they do not have any paramount leader and strict rules of kinship. Their community behaves like a loosely knit family where decisions are made through group consensus, with very rare occurrences of disagreements. A person's thoughts and opinion is judged and weighted concurring to his or her