This ethnography written by Richard Borshay Lee was very intersting. It tells us of what happens when an anthropologist living among the !Kung of Africa decides to be generous and share a large animal with everyone at Christmas time (11). Lee who had spent close to three years in Kalahari, who named /ontah (meaning "whitey") by the !Kung Bushmen(12).
During Lee's stay, he had developed a relationship with the Bushmen, and at Christmas time they usually celebrated by slaughtering a large cow. So Lee bought the largest cow that money could buy, which happen to be a black ox(12). News about the cow spread quickly among the !Kung bushmen and though Lee thought the cow was enough to feed an enormous number of people, he was surprisingly shocked when the villages claimed his ox to be a lean, bag of bones. One of the Mothers Ben!a said to him " The Cattle is big yes,but old. And thin. Everybody knows there's no meat on that old ox. What did you expect us to eat off it, the horns?"(13).
Lee could not understand why the villagers kept referring to what he thought was a perfectly good cow as and " old, bag of bones". He confided in his wife , who too was confused. Lee was still an outsider looking into the lifestyle of the !Kung bushmen and was about to find out the shock of his life.
The day they slaughtered the cow, Lee saw layers of fat and yelled "That ox is loaded with fat. What's this about the ox being too thin to bother eating? Are you out of your mind?" The Bushmen all laughed at him and he thought that they played a joke on him. This was more than just a mere joke. It was the cultural habitats of the Bushmen. Lee was probably expecting to be praise for such a large cattle, however this was exactly what the !Kung Bushmen abhorred.
He went to /gaugo who told him " We insult men after they make a kill because of Arogance. Yes, when a young man kills much meat he comes to think of himself as a chief or big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as inferior or servants. We can't accept this. We refuse one who boats, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. This way we cool his heart and make him gentle." (17)
What a clash of culture. These Bushmen wanted to maintain humility in there culture and that is there purpose of insulting one's kill, Lee would have never understood this practice if he did not get involved and been a "victim" himself.
Biblography:
Mc curdy David W., Spardley James: Conformity and Conflict
Refer to pages 11-18
During Lee's stay, he had developed a relationship with the Bushmen, and at Christmas time they usually celebrated by slaughtering a large cow. So Lee bought the largest cow that money could buy, which happen to be a black ox(12). News about the cow spread quickly among the !Kung bushmen and though Lee thought the cow was enough to feed an enormous number of people, he was surprisingly shocked when the villages claimed his ox to be a lean, bag of bones. One of the Mothers Ben!a said to him " The Cattle is big yes,but old. And thin. Everybody knows there's no meat on that old ox. What did you expect us to eat off it, the horns?"(13).
Lee could not understand why the villagers kept referring to what he thought was a perfectly good cow as and " old, bag of bones". He confided in his wife , who too was confused. Lee was still an outsider looking into the lifestyle of the !Kung bushmen and was about to find out the shock of his life.
The day they slaughtered the cow, Lee saw layers of fat and yelled "That ox is loaded with fat. What's this about the ox being too thin to bother eating? Are you out of your mind?" The Bushmen all laughed at him and he thought that they played a joke on him. This was more than just a mere joke. It was the cultural habitats of the Bushmen. Lee was probably expecting to be praise for such a large cattle, however this was exactly what the !Kung Bushmen abhorred.
He went to /gaugo who told him " We insult men after they make a kill because of Arogance. Yes, when a young man kills much meat he comes to think of himself as a chief or big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as inferior or servants. We can't accept this. We refuse one who boats, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. This way we cool his heart and make him gentle." (17)
What a clash of culture. These Bushmen wanted to maintain humility in there culture and that is there purpose of insulting one's kill, Lee would have never understood this practice if he did not get involved and been a "victim" himself.
Biblography:
Mc curdy David W., Spardley James: Conformity and Conflict
Refer to pages 11-18
So this is a good report on the reading but now you must go beyond reporting what we all read. So what else could you write about? You could summarize the main point of the interaction in a paragraph and begin to analyze how it happened.
ReplyDeletethis is the first blog post that pointed out, unconsciously, that Lee's definition of generosity and the Kung Bushmen's definition or meaning were in conflict.
You could also write about what you thought about it. Otherwise ANYONE could write this. Where are YOU in the matter of the reading?