The Kin Terminology System of the !Kung Bushmen

Abstract

Opening ParagraphThe Peabody Harvard Kalahari Expedition, under the leadership of Laurence K. Marshall, has made four field trips between 1950 and 1955 into the Kalahari Desert in South West Africa and the Bechuanaland Protectorate to find and study Bushmen who were living in their own way, and not working for white farmers or for Negroes. The last of the four expeditions, that of 1955, was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution as well as by the Peabody Museum of Harvard.Our principal study was made with the !Kung Bushmen of the Nyae Nyae region of South West Africa. The Nyae Nyae region extends about 150 miles north and south, about 100 miles east and west, and is centred approximately at Gautscha Pan, which is located at c. 19° 48′ 30″ S. and 20° 34′ 36″ E. on the map of a survey of the area by the Administration of South West Africa dated 7.11.1935. The Nyae Nyae region is separated from the farmed areas of South West Africa by a stretch of waterless, uninhabited country over 100 miles wide.