Nisa and the San Response

            I thought Nisa’s story of her people, the San, was very interesting. I think her way of life is very simple compared to the way we live or the way the agricultural societies neighboring her live. Nisa states that when she was younger, she had no idea about an outside world, but clearly she had contact since then, given she immediately says: “We are not village people. I have no goats. I have no cattle” (Shostak). While, she knows about an outside world, she still chooses to live with her people. It sounds like she may have some negative opinions about those who live in a village, which is probably due to ethnocentrism, the belief that her group has a better culture than any other, something that nearly everyone who identifies with an ethnic group believes about their people, so that’s not surprising.

The San have liberal attitudes towards sex and marriage. Despite marrying multiple times, Nisa still had lovers beyond her husbands and they had lovers as well. She likens them to what they bring her: “One many gives you only one kind of food to eat. But when you have lovers…one comes with meat, another with money, another with beads” (Shostak). While people today argue that we have very liberal ideas about sex and very loose ones about marriage, but within our culture, people tend to disapprove of cheating on a spouse, while in the San culture, that’s perfectly acceptable and involves gift-giving as part of the exchange. Lovers seem to serve a purpose within the culture, where cheating may not in ours, part of the reason it is viewed negatively.

 

Shostak, Marjorie. Nisa: The Life and Words of an !Kung Woman. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1981. 41, 69, 87-89, 153-55, 166, 210-11, 226-27, 271, 299, 301-2, 316-17. Print.