Were Are We Came From? – Africa –

Struggle for Existence

Among the various groups of primitive people that Africa is home to the African Bushmen have inhabited the Dark Continent for at least 20.000 years. Basically hunter, the Kalahari deserts is their home ground.
They live simple life, where finding food forms their occupation. They build temporary homes in the desert as they go in search of wood and food. The Bushmen tribe is spread far beyond South Africa into Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Zambia, Lesotho and Mozambique. Once spread over the whole of the Kalahari deserts, the Bushmen are now forced to stay in the places unsuitable for hunting and gathering. This began with the colonization of Africa by the European in the last few hundreds years. The tribals have been facing eviction from their ancestral lands, and oppression amounting to a massive though unspoken genocide. This has reduced them in numbers, from several million to just about 100.000. The organization of the Bushmen tribe is very simple – without a chief or paramount leader. Their primary weapon is a bow made of a stout bough bent into a sharp curve mixed with the venom of snakes.

Bushmen ear practically anything. The meat they consume is half cooked. They also eat raw insect like lice and ants, the eggs of the latter being regarded as a great delicacy. In hard times, they eat lizards, snakes, frogs, worms and caterpillars. That they are different from other tribes is evident from their appearance. The tallest man in the community would be no more that 4 feet 9 inches and the tallest women are about four feet. Unlike other tribes, Bushmen rear no domestic animals. Their unique lives have become their nemesis. They all suffer from perception that their lifestyle is ‘primitive’ and that they need to be ‘civilised’.
In Botswana the Government forced most all the Bushmen off the central Kalahari Game Reserve. The harassment began in 1986, and the first forced removals were in 1997. Those that remained, faced torture, drastic restriction in their hunting rights, and routine harassment. In early 2002, this harassment intensified, accompanied by the destruction of the Bushmen’s water pump, the draining of their existing water supplies into the desert, and the banning of hunting and gathering. Almost all were forced out by these tactics. The Bushmen are now miserable resettlement camps, unable to hunt or gather and dependent on government handouts and support.
Like the Bushmen, many tribes that are ‘different’ face similar problems. Pygmies have their own settlement in the forests and retreat into them, avoiding roads entirely. But, governments want them to stay in the villages along the road, where they can be counted and made to pay taxes. Their way of life is seen as alien and one that needs to be ‘corrected’.
A natural way of living that these people know, is slowly vanishing in the tides of development.



Sunday, Vijay Times – Bangalore. 02 July 2006