An Argument About a Marriage
In 1958, with assistance from the Marshalls, a group of Ju/'hoansi returned home to Nyae Nyae after several years as unpaid, captive laborers on a farm. One woman, whose husband had escaped the farm and left her behind, had a child with another man....
A Curing Ceremony
Sha//ge, a very young woman about to have her first child, falls ill, probably with malaria. /Ti!kay, a relative and healer, enters a mild trance, without the stimulus of dancing, in an attempt to cure her. Sha//ge lives but the baby is stillborn.
A Group of Women
Ju/'hoan women often share an intimate sociability and spend many hours together discussing their lives, enjoying each other's company and children. In this short film, Ju/'hoan women rest, talk and nurse their babies while lying in the shade of a b...
A Man Called "Bee": Studying The Yanomamo
This is one of the few ethnographic films in which the anthropologist appears as one of the subjects, and as such it is a lively introduction to the nature of fieldwork. Napoleon Chagnon, who lived among the Yanomamo for 36 months over a period of e...
Debe's Tantrum
In this film a five-year-old named Debe refuses to let his mother Di!ai go gathering without him. Di!ai appeals to her daughter N!ai to entertain the child but Debe resists. In the end Di!ai leaves with Debe on her back. This is a companion film to ...
The Wasp Nest
In this film, a group of women and children gather sweet, fresh /ole berries and sha roots. The younger women, led by N!ai, bait a nest of wasps. As the day wears on, Debe, N!ai's youngest son, grows restless. Di!ai asks N!ai to take Debe home, but ...
Bitter Melons
This film, shot in 1955, focuses on a small band of /Gwi San living in the arid landscape of the central Kalahari Desert in present-day Botswana. The hardships of their everyday survival are woven into the songs of a blind musician, Ukxone, who comp...
Tug-of-War, Bushmen
In the Ju/'hoan version of this universally popular game, boys in two teams wrestle over a length of rubber hose.
Baobab Play
Children and teenagers throw sticks, berries, and leaves at each other from perches in a large baobab tree.
Children Throw Toy Assegais
Young boys throw toy spears into a tree, trying to make them stick in the bark. A girl watches.