The Ju/’hoansi
peoples
By: Mohammed.I, Tariq, Amiin, and Osman
How Ju/’hoansi communicate with a verbal
language of a limited set of sounds
• The Jul’hoan or southeastern Xuun, is the southern variety of the Kung dialect
continuum spoken by about 30,000 people in the northeast of Namibia, and by
another 5,000 in northwest district of Botswana, specifically the Kalahari Desert.
• The smallest unit of sound that can be altered to change the meaning of a word is
called a phoneme. In English for example, the words win, pin, kin, and sin all have
different meanings due to the fact of the phoneme or initial sound is different.
• The san languages of southwest Africa (which are spoken by the Ju/’hoansi and other
ethnicities) use some sounds that are not found not only in the English language, but
most other languages around the world.
• The sounds they use are like clicks which serve as consonants, and the Ju/’hoansi
language has distinct kinds of clicks that are produced pulling the tongue away from
different locations in the mouth. The ju/’hoansi have an unusually large number of
consonants, 48 click consonants to be precise, and they’re made up of 4 kinds of
clicks which are dental, lateral, alveolar, and platal.
• There are also five vowel qualities, however these may be nasalized, glottalized,
murmured, or combinations of these, and most of these possibilities occur both long
and short. There are about a good 30 vowel phonemes and in addition to many vowel
sequences
Ju’/hoansi grammatical rules for
constructing sentences
• Moving on from the phonology of language to morphology,
morphology has to with a languages grammar and the
grammatical rules for constructing sentences, and how the
sounds of the phonemes are combined into larger units called
morphemes
• In a single morpheme, the plural diminutive enclitic (which
basically means a word pronounced with so little emphasis
that it is shortened and forms part of the preceding word,
e.g., n't in can't.) only occur in loan words
• Only a small set of consonants occur between vowels within
roots, and they are Labial(sounds from lip), Alveolar(sounds
articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior
teeth), Velar(sounds pronounced with the back of the tongue
near the soft palate), Uvular(sounds articulated with the back
of the tongue), and Glottal (sounds articulated with the glottis
and vocal cords)
• Labials are very rare initially, though common between
vowels. Also, velar stops (oral and nasal) are rare initially as
well.
Video of Ju/’hoansi man counting to
ten in xuun dialect
• ://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgMqd
cCuLoU
How the Ju/’hoansi use age and
gender to classify people
• Though children do not have a responsibility to provide food, they do periodically
accompany their mothers in the gathering of food. While they are young, they are
allowed to play and entertain themselves. When they grow older they are expected
to provide a contribution to the village. In fact, a young man is only eligible to
marry after making his first big game kill. In doing this he has proven he can
support a wife and family.
• On the contrary, a young woman is not considered a woman until she gains her first
menstruation and finally has her first child, which is generally only after being
married.
• Usually by their early twenties men are able to start killing larger animals. These
young men go through an initiation called Choma . This initiation lasts six weeks
and allows for the ritual knowledge of male matters to be passed down from one
generation to the next. These are the primary ways young men learn their place in
society.
• Elders, while few in number and unable to contribute to the group economically,
are highly respected in the community. This is generally due to their knowledge of
the culture. The elders give the Ju’/hoansi connection to their history and the
ability to continue to preserve their culture as best as they could.
How the Ju’/hoansi classify people
based on descent relationships
• Nuclear family members (shaded in green) are assigned unique terms,
and extended family members are grouped into categories on a
bilateral basis without any distinction between father's and mother's
sides. Thus we could provide an exact English gloss for any of the terms
above: tsu = uncle, ga = aunt, kuna/tun =cousin, tsuma = nephew/ni
ece.
• The gender of the speaker becomes a significant factor in the term
given to nieces and nephews. Males use the term "tsuma" and females
use the term "gama", a reflection of the fact that they are reciprocals
of "tsu" and "ga". (the gama term is only used for sister's daughter but
such a usage seems to involve an inconsistency).
• The relative age of the speaker is also significant. The diagram above
gives the terms for older siblings and cousins. Younger relatives receive
a different designation as indicated in the following diagram. (Note
that the younger cousin terms -- kuma and tuma -- are reciprocals
of kuna and tun.
Continued….
• The main feature that can now be observed is that the
terms for older cousin (kuna/tun)are the same as the
terms for grandparents, representing a principle that Lee
identifies as an "equivalence of alternate generations".
The same pattern is evident in the use of equivalent terms
for:
• uncle and great-grandfather (tsu)
• aunt and great-grandmother(ga), and
• niece/nephew and great grandchild (tsuma/gama).
• The same patterning is reflected in the identification of
younger cousins (kuma/tuma) with grandchildren as
indicated below.
Ju/’hoansi (San) Kinship chart
and terms
How the Ju’/hoansi raise children in
some sort of family setting
• The roles of men and women are taught to children through enculturation
both directly and indirectly. Growing up, children, both boys and girls,
accompany their mother when she gathers (some stay in the village and
play).
• When boys get a little older (around 12-14) they begin to go out on hunts
with their fathers to observe. Usually by their early twenties young men
are able to start killing larger animals.
• Women, in turn, learn their roles through observation and direction given
by their mothers. Young girls gather with their mothers and marry young
(around 16).
• The Ju/’hoansi rarely display aggression so their children have little
opportunity to emulate aggressive behavior.
• Whenever children do exhibit signs of aggression, adults quickly intervene
to diffuse their hostilities. The close physical proximity of their huts—
tightly clustered around central clearings—meant that children seldom got
to play away from the ear of an adult, and aggression rarely had a chance
to develop.
How the Ju/’hoansi display a sexual
division of labor
• The !Kung(Ju/’hoansi) are an egalitarian society, meaning everyone has access
to the valued resources.
• The pattern of subsistence the Ju/’hoansi follow is foraging (hunting and
gathering)
• Everyone prized the meat that the men hunted but they really lived on the
vegetable foods gathered by the women, which provided 60 to 80 percent of
their diet. The women thus derived a lot of self-esteem from their contributions
to their families. The women foraged many miles from the men without
weapons, despite the possibility of encountering large predators such as lions
and leopards. They did not need permission from men or assistance from them
in their food-production work. Men and women could be absent from the camps
for days at a time, so there was no inequality with men being gone while
women maintained the home. The Ju/’hoansi valued the sexes nearly equally.
• The roles of men and women are taught to children through enculturation both
directly and indirectly. Growing up, children, both boys and girls, accompany
their mother when she gathers (some stay in the village and play).
• When boys get a little older (around 12-14) they begin to go out on hunts with
their fathers to observe. Usually by their early twenties young men are able to
start killing larger animals.
• Women, in turn, learn their roles through observation and direction given by
their mothers. Young girls gather with their mothers and marry young (around
16).
How Ju/’hoansi display a concept of
privacy
• First and foremost Birth done in private. Ju/’hoansi women give unassisted
birth walking away from the village camp as far as a mile during labor, and
bearing the child alone, delivering it into a small leaf-lined hole dug into the
warm sand.
• When a young woman gets her first menstruation, she is brought to a hut
made especially for the occasion, and no men are allowed in. During this
time, it is considered very bad luck for the hunt if a man were to see the
young woman's face.
• The segregation of men and women during the celebration of a women's first
menstruation is comparable to the secret segregation occurring for a young
man's initiation. Other than these two instances, however, not much
segregation among the sexes occurs.
• The Ju/’hoansi are people of little privacy, due to their villages being
arranged around central fires and families sleeping together in simple huts.
When it comes to sex between the parents though, typically the parents try
to be discreet about it. However, children often become aware of this and
will lay awake at night to curiously observe it.
• Lovers for married adults are also kept discreet, because it could cause a lot
of conflicts with their spouse. There are many cases where a wife leaves her
husband or a husband beats, even sometimes kills his wife, because of their
lover
Ju/’hoansi rules to regulate sexual
behavior
• Children of the Ju/’hoansi learn about sexual behavior at a very early age.
• This is because of the limited amount of living space that has to be shared
between families, resulting in parental sex being carried out discretely beneath
the same blanket, while children are asleep.
• When children reach around the age of 7 they start to catch on thanks to their
curiosity, and go around and engage in sexual activities themselves. Adults know
that the kids engage in sexual acts, because they did so themselves while they
were younger, but if they see the kids doing it in front of them, they will scold
them, as it is deemed disrespectful to perform such acts in front of your elders.
• Up to the teenage age, children play in the village without having to cover their
genitals. This attitude towards sex also means that sexual play is considered as
a normal process of childhood, with children as up to the age of 15 mixing
playtime and sexual activity.
• An implication of this is that the meaning of ‘virginity’ as we know it is actually
not valid in the !Kung context, since most children would have some experience
with sexual activity very early, like around age 8 on average.
• When looking at the adults, the adults can have sex with their spouses, or their
lovers. However the lovers are kept discreet as to avoid any conflict and sexual
relations are done when the husband is out, or outside in the bushes
Distinguishing between good and
bad Ju/’hoansi behavior
• Good behavior - bringing meat into the village is highly
celebrated, and a positive sanction(reward) men receive for
this act is that they gain a larger range of influence and
power in the village.
• Bad behavior - Whenever children exhibit signs of aggression,
they receive a negative sanction(punishment) of adults
lecturing and scolding them.
• Also they regard stinginess with great hostility, and are even
more strongly opposed to arrogance. A hunter who
announced his success to his camp, or a woman who made a
point of displaying her gift to another is arrogant. They have
negative sanctions which include downplaying gifts, selfdeprecating comments, rough humor, put-downs, and backhanded compliments for these actions
Ju/’hoansi body ornamentation
Continued
• The Ju/’hoansi do not have much body
ornamentation as children aren’t required to wear
anything at all, and when they reach teenage years
the men and women simply have to cover their
genitals
• Alot of the Ju/’hoansi adults and elders wear
tattoo geometric designs on their foreheads and
cheekbones
• The women also wear beaded necklaces, and arm
bands, and ostrich shell ornaments.
• When the men go hunting they take pride in
carrying their bows and arrows with them, and
sometimes even decorate them
Ju/’hoansi jokes and games
• Since there are very few Ju/’hoansi children in each village, competitive games
would be hard to organize since it would be difficult to find an age-mate to
compete with, much less enough to form viable team sports. This accords with the
Ju/’hoansi cultural opposition to competitiveness. While the children exhibit
widely differing abilities in their games, they don't compete and all play for the
sheer pleasure of it.
• A lot of the games they play at a very young age are very sexual, such as pretend
marriage, and this again has to do with their curiosity
• With Ju/’hoansi jokes, a lot of jokes are made to have fun, but also to demean
others because of inappropriate acts they commit, and are usually very sexual.
• Eg. If a man makes an unwarranted sexual approach towards a woman, she’ll joke
that he has a smelly penis.
• There is actually a Joking kin, which means that there are only a certain
designated people you’re allowed to make jokes to. You are expected to maintain
affectionate relationships with them and mark you’re intimacy by extensive joking
involving insults, mock threats, and ribald remarks (which is referring to sexual
matters in an amusingly rude or irreverent way)
• There is also an avoidance kin, which are people you are supposed to be respectful
and reserved with, and in some extreme cases, such as mother-in-law/son-in-law
relationships, you should not talk to each other at all.
Ju/’hoansi art
Continued
• Trance Dances: At the all-night trance dances, the
men dance around a circle of chanting, clapping
women, who sometimes also join the dancing. As
the dancing increases in energy, the n/um (energy)
rises in the healers until they reach a state of !kia
(altered consciousness) in which they can begin to
cure physical and mental illnesses by laying their
hands on the sick people and pulling out the
sicknesses.
• Namibian music: Music is an extension of practical
language for the Ju/’hoansi bushmen. Examples of
music they take part in is a collective of singing
and healing songs (both as forms of entertainment)
as well as singing games
Continued
• http://www.allmusic.com/album/namibiasongs-of-the-juhoansi-bushmen-mw0000063528
Ju/’hoansi leadership roles for the
implementation of community decisions
• The Ju/hoansi leadership practices are a very good example of
egalitarianism. The Ju/hoansi do not have a headman or chief because
that would cause a rift in the equality of the people.
• Everyone is considered equal, men and women so a headman is
unnecessary and could cause social problems. Instead of appointing a
leader for the overall group, the Ju/hoansi practice ad-hoc leadership.
• Ad hoc leadership is described as leadership for the certain task at
hand and only for that time being. A leader may be appointed for a
specific fishing trip but only for that trip. This keeps the people at a
certain level so that no one thinks they are higher ranked of better
than anyone else.
• Discussions of issues that might lead to conflicts, such as laziness,
stinginess, or unfair distribution of meat are normally maintained at
the level of gossip, open criticism, or humor. Occasionally, when both
parties become angry, conversations escalate to the level of a “talk,”
which is characterized by sudden and spontaneous comments poured
out at a rapid rate. If tempers flare, however, everyone tries to resolve
the dispute before serious fighting erupts, but sometimes either a
physical fight occurs or the group splits apart.
Citations
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ju%C7%80'hoan_dialect
• https://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tuto
r/case_studies/san/san_joke.html
• https://umanitoba.ca/faculties/arts/anthropology/tuto
r/case_studies/san/san_terms.html
• http://social-shadow.tripod.com/family.html
• http://www.peacefulsocieties.org/Society/Juhoan.html
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