The Old Way - Book

I have been reading The Old Way A Story of the First People, by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas. This is a delightful book, a sort of combination memoir and ethnographic account of the Bushmen of the Kalahari desert. It is not entirely clear exactly why Laurence Marshall decided in 1950 to take his wife and two teen age children on an expedition into the Kalahari in search of the Bushmen. No white person had ever gone there and, indeed, very few, if any, black people, other than the Bushment themselves were known to have visited there. The trip appears to have been motivated by nothing more than the spirit of adventure. It was by no means certain they would even locate any of the elusive Bushmen who inhabited this sparse and difficult environment. But with trucks loaded with gasoline, water, spare parts, medical supplies and food the Marshalls set out on their great adventure.

After much difficulty and searching they did find small bands of these natives and were able to establish rapport and live among them for some time. This resulted in a number of books and motion pictures of this primitive way of life, including Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s well know The Harmless People, along with her mother’s more detailed ethnographies.

In the 1950’s it was pretty much agreed that the Bushmen lived in the sparse reaches of the Kalahari because they had been driven there by stronger Bantu and other tribes. As it turns out this was not so, the Bushmen had lived in their desert environment for thousands of years. With little more than digging sticks, stone knives, ostrich shell canteens, the skins of animals, and tiny bows and arrows tipped with deadly poisons, the Bushmen made their living from the desert during droughts as well as well as more comfortable times. In this book Elizabeth Thomas goes into much detail as to just how these wonderful people managed to eke out a living much more comfortable than we would have imagined. Although there were occasional instances of infanticide, for obvious and necessary reasons, old people and the handicapped were well taken care of and lived long and productive lives. Living under such harsh conditions, and in such small groups, the Bushmen developed strong cooperative ties between families and methods for avoiding disputes or settling them if they arose. The Bushmen were skilled hunters and trackers as well as super botanists who knew well the variety of plants and animals they depended upon. This is an absolutely fascinating account of how the first people must have lived and you cannot help but marvel at the human genius at work.
Watching my wife at the kitchen table with her scissors and coupons, hunting and gathering in her own way, I was struck by the observation that it was the same human story, even though it was not at all the same. Reading this book made me feel humble indeed. What happened to the Bushmen in recent years made me feel ashamed.

What makes me even more ashamed, however, is the outbreak of racist activity resulting from the election of Barack Obama. According to the AP (on Buzzflash) various kinds of hate crimes and grafitti and what have you are occurring all over the country, some of them very serious. And Obama has been the subject of more assassination threats than any previous President. I suppose this is to be expected, but that doesn’t make it in any way acceptable. We have a wonderful black (and white) President, but racism and ignorance still pervades many sectors of our society. What is just as bad, if not worse, are the other hatreds that seem to infest some of us. What do you make of the priest in South Carolina who says his parishioners cannot take communion if they voted for Obama because they were “collaborating with evil” (or something like that). These are no doubt the same people who think nothing of killing Middle Easterners by the hundreds of thousands. Or how about those marvelous Mormons who just spent 25 million to ruin the lives of some 18,000 happily married couples in California? As I have said before, there is a fatal flaw in the human species. If there really were a God of some kind, and if he/she/it was truly omnipotent, we should get a mutation of some kind, making us much better people. Don’t bet on it.

LKBIQ:
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.
James F. Byrnes

TILT:
On July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway killed himself with a shotgun at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. He was not quite 62 years of age.