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ǃKung people


The ǃKung, also spelled ǃXun, are a San people living in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia, Botswana and in Angola. They speak the !Kung language, noted for its extensive use of click consonants. The "!K" in the name "ǃKung" is a click that sounds something like a cork pulled from a bottle. However, the click is generally ignored in English, where the name is pronounced "Kung".

Historically, the ǃKung lived in semi-permanent camps of about 10–30 people usually located around a water body. Once the water and resources around the village were depleted, the band would relocate to a more resource-rich area. They lived a hunting and gathering lifestyle with the men responsible for providing meat, making tools, and maintaining a supply of poison-tipped arrows and spears. The women provided most of the food by spending between two and three days per week foraging for roots, nuts and berries in the Kalahari Desert. As a hunter-gatherer society, they were highly dependent on each other for survival. Hoarding and stinginess were frowned upon, and the ǃKung's emphasis was on collective wealth for the tribe, rather than on individual wealth.

The ǃKung people of southern Africa are both animistic and animatistic, which means they believe in both personifications and impersonal forces. They believe in a god named Prishiboro who had a wife that was an elephant. Prishiboro's older brother tricked him into killing his wife and, later, into eating her flesh. Her herd tried to kill Prishiboro in revenge, but his brother defeated them.

ǃKung people also have many taboos concerning the dead, as they believe that the ghosts (ǁgangwasi) of the deceased would cause them injury or death. It is against the rules to even say the name of someone dead, once an annual ceremony to release the spirits of the dead has been performed.


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