"The beautiful landscapes are devoid of people. Except for the little people of the Kalahari—pretty, dainty, small and graceful—the Bushmen. Where any other person would die of thirst in a few days… they live quite contentedly in this desert."
-Film, The Gods Must be Crazy
Jamie Uys' 1981 film The Gods Must be Crazy introduced the world to the San, a small group of people indigenous to Southern Africa. The film depicts the naiveté of the "pre-historic" community, as their social order descends into chaos when a Coke can ominously falls from the sky. The film was a huge Hollywood success, banking millions both domestically and internationally, and spawned several sequels. For the San community, however, the film was simply another example of Western exploitation and misrepresentation of their cultural and religious beliefs.
-Film, The Gods Must be Crazy
Jamie Uys' 1981 film The Gods Must be Crazy introduced the world to the San, a small group of people indigenous to Southern Africa. The film depicts the naiveté of the "pre-historic" community, as their social order descends into chaos when a Coke can ominously falls from the sky. The film was a huge Hollywood success, banking millions both domestically and internationally, and spawned several sequels. For the San community, however, the film was simply another example of Western exploitation and misrepresentation of their cultural and religious beliefs.
The San, also referred to as the Khoisan or Bushmen, are the indigenous people of the Kalahari Desert. They reside in portions of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Angola, and currently number 82,000. They have historically maintained a hunter-gatherer lifestyle; however in recent years a growing number of San have been forced to seek employment within the formal labor market. The San are credited as being one of the oldest ethnic groups in the world, hailed as the "genetic Adam." Despite their illustrious heritage, the San have faced a history of persecution and misrepresentation. The first European explorers to venture around the Cape of Good Hope reported that the San "live without law or religion, like animals." The Europeans used the San's lack of apparent religious practices to justify their massive appropriation of land, claiming that without religion the "indigenous inhabitants of the Cape appeared in all accounts less than human." Over the next 300 years, trepidatious explorers and budding anthropologists observed the San's practices, staking fantastical claims about the basis of their religion, from moon worship to the deification of the mantis. In reality, the San practice a series of fluid and complex religious rituals which honor a dual divinity, the creator God and a fiendish trickster God. The San believe that an early order of people and animals existed, which were transformed into the present order. The transformation was performed by the dual divinity and has imbued all interactions between humans and animals with a special significance. The San's fluid social organization and religious practices are simply an extension of their vision of the cosmic order.
The complexity of San belief was lost on the nineteenth century European scholars who ventured to Southern Africa. With the liberal application of Darwinian thought to the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and comparative religion, European theorists interpreted the San's religious practices as evidence of "pre-historic" ritual, treating them as a veritable fossil of human history. Within European scholarship, there was a transformation of the image of the San from "brutal savages" to a "beautiful" or "harmless" people, anachronistically practicing hunting and ritual dances. The image of the San was further transformed with the advent of film during the twentieth century, as "authentic" images of semi-naked San were reproduced through a series of documentary (and Hollywood) films. Many of the films are far from "authentic," as filmmakers have admitted to prompting their subjects to act in a way that was consistent with the Westernized image of the San. While filmmaker John Marshall's 1951 documentary of the Namibian San has been hailed as one of the greatest contributions to visual anthropology, even Marshall admitted that he "set up" certain sequences in order to get a "wild Bushmen" effect. Thus, the films of the twentieth century simply gave credence to a romantic idealization of the San, which had been perpetuated for centuries by European scholars. As anthropologist Paul Weinberg notes, "These days it is much less glamorous to actually be a Bushmen." The majority of San have been displaced from their historic hunting grounds and are living in informal settlements or squatting on government land. Some San have found refuge in game parks, such as the private Kagga Kamma Game Reserve in northern South Africa.
However, such arrangements are rife with problems, as the San have been exploited and displayed for tourists, in exchange for re-gaining their hunting rights. While Uys' The Gods Must be Crazy portrayed a happy and naïve people "frozen in a technologically innocent Eden," the reality of the San community is anything but. At the time of the filming, the lead actor of the film, Kgau/'hana, was squatting in the government administrative post of Tsumke, a shanty town where alcoholism, domestic violence, poverty, starvation, and malnutrition are endemic. As I walked through a large craft market in Windhoek, Namibia a garish sign caught my attention: "Authentic Bushmen paintings! Artfully primitive lithographs!" The market was a collection of African artisans and art work, a palatial operation which catered largely to foreign tourists. I read the sign twice, marveling at the wording and its blatant commodification. As I leafed through the prints, simple drawings of humans and animal figures, I wondered about the origins of the artwork. Did the artist know that their work was being displayed in this manner? What would they think of tourists scrutinizing the drawings for signs of "primitivism"? The San people have been the victims of a systematic exoticization of their cultural identity, which has resulted in their misrepresentation within the work of European scholars and Hollywood filmmakers alike.
While the San have been historically marginalized, they have begun to assert control over both their representation and their rights. In April 2001, the Khoisan were recognized as a "First People" of Southern Africa, a recognition cemented by the United Nations Declarations on First People's Rights. In December 2006, the San won a historic ruling against the government of Botswana allowing them to return to their traditional land within the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The ability for the San to exist within a global political economy seems to rest on their ability to control their representation, to carve out an identity somewhere outside the confines of primitivism.
The complexity of San belief was lost on the nineteenth century European scholars who ventured to Southern Africa. With the liberal application of Darwinian thought to the fields of anthropology, archaeology, and comparative religion, European theorists interpreted the San's religious practices as evidence of "pre-historic" ritual, treating them as a veritable fossil of human history. Within European scholarship, there was a transformation of the image of the San from "brutal savages" to a "beautiful" or "harmless" people, anachronistically practicing hunting and ritual dances. The image of the San was further transformed with the advent of film during the twentieth century, as "authentic" images of semi-naked San were reproduced through a series of documentary (and Hollywood) films. Many of the films are far from "authentic," as filmmakers have admitted to prompting their subjects to act in a way that was consistent with the Westernized image of the San. While filmmaker John Marshall's 1951 documentary of the Namibian San has been hailed as one of the greatest contributions to visual anthropology, even Marshall admitted that he "set up" certain sequences in order to get a "wild Bushmen" effect. Thus, the films of the twentieth century simply gave credence to a romantic idealization of the San, which had been perpetuated for centuries by European scholars. As anthropologist Paul Weinberg notes, "These days it is much less glamorous to actually be a Bushmen." The majority of San have been displaced from their historic hunting grounds and are living in informal settlements or squatting on government land. Some San have found refuge in game parks, such as the private Kagga Kamma Game Reserve in northern South Africa.
However, such arrangements are rife with problems, as the San have been exploited and displayed for tourists, in exchange for re-gaining their hunting rights. While Uys' The Gods Must be Crazy portrayed a happy and naïve people "frozen in a technologically innocent Eden," the reality of the San community is anything but. At the time of the filming, the lead actor of the film, Kgau/'hana, was squatting in the government administrative post of Tsumke, a shanty town where alcoholism, domestic violence, poverty, starvation, and malnutrition are endemic. As I walked through a large craft market in Windhoek, Namibia a garish sign caught my attention: "Authentic Bushmen paintings! Artfully primitive lithographs!" The market was a collection of African artisans and art work, a palatial operation which catered largely to foreign tourists. I read the sign twice, marveling at the wording and its blatant commodification. As I leafed through the prints, simple drawings of humans and animal figures, I wondered about the origins of the artwork. Did the artist know that their work was being displayed in this manner? What would they think of tourists scrutinizing the drawings for signs of "primitivism"? The San people have been the victims of a systematic exoticization of their cultural identity, which has resulted in their misrepresentation within the work of European scholars and Hollywood filmmakers alike.
While the San have been historically marginalized, they have begun to assert control over both their representation and their rights. In April 2001, the Khoisan were recognized as a "First People" of Southern Africa, a recognition cemented by the United Nations Declarations on First People's Rights. In December 2006, the San won a historic ruling against the government of Botswana allowing them to return to their traditional land within the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The ability for the San to exist within a global political economy seems to rest on their ability to control their representation, to carve out an identity somewhere outside the confines of primitivism.
About the Author
Opens in a new window