Kinship Organizations Amongst the Sans

Kinship Organizations Amongst The Sans

ANT101: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

June 6, 2011

The San people or Bushmen as they are called are a foraging group of people, which means they hunt and gather their food to survive. The San people travel in mobile groups called bands, which are different families that migrate together on the search for food and water. Their means for survival are a band effort, and there are three components that contribute to the existence of the San people: nourishment, economy, and marriage. Without these three main components the San people will not be able to survive, and ultimately become extinct.

The key to the San people's survival is through food and water consumption. The San people are like many forage groups, a near starving people, that move when the land becomes too stressed to provide them with anymore nourishment. San women are responsible for eighty percent of the San diet by gathering crops for consumption, and San men are responsible for twenty percent of the San diet by hunting for the meat. In the event the men are not successful in getting meat for their family, the women hunt small animals to compensate. No one in the band goes without because all of the food is distributed equally amongst all of the families, but they do have a reciprocity agreement that is an exchange of goods and services.

Foraging communities are called an immediate return system (Woodburn, 1988), because of reciprocity, which is composed of three different types of exchange: generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity (Sahlins 1965, 1972). Generalized reciprocity is a form of exchange between family members, in which there is no expectation for the immediate return of an item in exchange for something else. Food is distributed to all of the families throughout the band so that those that do not have any food do not starve. The San people do not keep record of how much they give to other families, they just expect you to do a service for them to compensate. Negative reciprocity is an exchange of goods and services amongst strangers in the band. It is called negative because the receiver is trying to obtain everything they can, and do very little to return the favor. Balanced reciprocity is when a family gives to another family, expecting a fair return, meaning they want back exactly what they lend out at a specified time. In today's society balanced reciprocity is mainly used amongst people, for example if I lend you five dollars, I expect five dollars back when you get it, not a year from now. This informal barter system of goods and service exchange assist the various families with making good social relationships with one another.

The San people develop relationships with one another through social organization. It starts with the parent-child