War and peace among Kalahari San
| Published date | 07 October 2014 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JACPR-02-2014-0005 |
| Pages | 229-239 |
| Date | 07 October 2014 |
| Author | Mathias Guenther |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Aggression, conflict & peace |
War and peace among Kalahari San
Mathias Guenther
Dr Mathias Guenther is a
Professor Emeritus, based at
Anthropology Program, Wilfrid
Laurier University, Waterloo,
Canada.
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explain the discrepancy between ethnohistorical accounts on
north-western Kalahari San of the nineteenth to early twentieth century and recent ethnographic accounts,
the former depicting the San as intensely warlike, the latter as basically peaceable.
Design/methodology/approach – Review of historical, ethnohistorical and ethnographic source material
(reports, journal articles, monographs).
Findings – The warlike ways of the nineteenth-century Kalahari San were reactions to settler intrusion,
domination and encapsulation. This was met with resistance, a process that led to the rapid politicization
and militarization, socially and ideationally, of San groups in the orbit of the intruders (especially the “tribal
zone”they created). It culminated in internecine warfare, specifically raiding and feuding, amongst San
bands and tribal groupings.
Research limitations/implications – While the nineteenth-century Kalahari San were indeed warlike and
aggressive, toward both intruders and one another, this fact does not warrant the conclusion that these
“simple”hunter-gathererpeople have an agonistic predisposition. Instead, of being integral to their sociality,
bellicosity is historically contingent. In the absence of the historical circumstances that fuel San aggression
and warfare, as was the case after and before the people’s exposure and resistance to hegemonic
intruders, San society and ethos, in conformity with the social structure and value orientation of simple,
egalitarian band societies, is basically peaceful.
Originality/value – A setting-the-record-straight corrective on current misunderstandings and
misinformation on hunter-gatherer warfare.
Keywords Tribal zone, Conflict and conflict-management in simple hunting-gathering societies, Feuding,
Herder-Forager conflict, Raiding, San (Bushmen), Colonial Namibia (South West Africa)
Paper type Research paper
“Like all Bushmen, the Auin is very warlike. Every man and youth capable of bearing arms is a
warrior”, reported the nineteenth-century German colonial soldier and administrator Hans
Kaufmann (1910/2005, p. 81) of the !Kung-speaking San of the Omaheke region of German
South West Africa. Writing of the same people, Kaufmann’s contemporary and compatriot
Siegfried Passarge noted that “mortal enmity and murder is a daily occurrence [y] between the
various tribes” and that, “in Ghanzi the Gcam Bushmen [ ¼Au//eisi] [y] kill every Ghanzi
Bushman. The Cauxai [ ¼Au//eisi] of Gcam border on the Zhucoasi [Ju/’hoansi], and between
them engage constantly in border fights” (Passarge, 1899/1997, p. 54). Elsewhere Passarge
talks of “family feuds”, over murders, territorial and hunting rights or adultery, which all led to
internecine fighting amongst bands, as dawn raids, “very early at morning dawn–leading to the
extermination of entire bands” (Passarge, 1907, p. 115). Survivors fled to neighbouring bands.
How do we square such a portrayal of the Kalahari San of the nineteenth and early twentieth
century, withwhat was reported about them a few decades later, in ethnographic accounts that
rendered the !Kung the paradigmatic egalitarian society, in which people – dubbed by one of
these writers (Thomas, 1959) “the harmless people” – shared and cooperated, in relative
harmony and peace? Was that harmlessness, harmony and peace of post-colonial Kalahari
San people externally imposed on a warlike tribal people, by colonial and pre-colonial,
The author would like to
acknowledge the valuable input to
this paper from Kirk Endicott,
Richard Lee, Andrew Lyons, Laird
Christie and Dean Knight on earlier
versions presented at three
conferences (10th International
Conference on Hunting and
Gathering Societies (CHAGS 10),
American Anthropological
Association (AAA) and the
Canadian Anthropology Society
CASCA, respectively, in June 2013
in Liverpool, November 2013 in
Chicago and May 2014 in Toronto).
DOI 10.1108/JACPR-02-2014-0005 VOL. 6 NO. 4 2014, pp. 229-239, CEmerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1759-6599
j
JOURNAL OF AGGRESSION, CONFLICT AND PEACE RESEARCH
j
PAGE 229
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