Eating Christmas in the Kalahari Essay Example

the right animal and paid the Herero $56 and asked him to keep the beast with his herd until Christmas day. Word spread around the camp that the big black ox was chosen by /ontah (Lee’s Bushman name meaning “whitey”) for the Christmas feast. Ben! a was the first to nquire about Lee’s choice of the old bag of bones that he had chosen. After that, it was the turn of the young men. They came to sit by the fire, and /gaugo spoke to Lee man-to-man. He said that sack of guts and bones will barely feed one camp, let alone all the Bushmen around ai/ai. Lee retorts “that is a beautiful animal and, I’m sure you will eat it with pleasure at Christmas”. The /gaugo comes back and says of course, we will eat it, but it sure won’t fill us up. He goes on to ask Lee if he is too blind to tell the difference between a proper cow and an old wreck. Lee can’t figure out why everyone thinks the ox is so bad.

He asks his wife that night before they go to bed what she thinks about the ox. She thinks maybe they want to sell him another ox. All the bushmen seem to think the ox is nothing but a bag of bones. When they find out he’s bought it, they say he might as well kill it and serve it, but there won’t be a dance to follow. After Tomazo, a fine hunter, also gave his opinion of Lee’s scrawny black ox as nothing but a bag of bones, Lee was worried about the prospect

of a gloomy Christmas. Tomazo took him to a young fat cow and Lee had suspicions of Tomazo working on commission, but dispelled this unworthy thought when the cow was not for sale.

Lee was finally convinced there was real trouble when u! au, an old conservative with a reputation for fierceness, approached him and asked “/ontah, do you really think you can serve meat like that to people and avoid a fight? ” He did not mean to fight Lee, but a fight between the Bushmen because there wasn’t enough food to go around. U! au told him he will find out what happens when some go hungry while others eat, and had Lee very worried. He was convinced the Christmas feast was going to be a total disaster. Lee decided the only thing to do was to serve the beast anyway, and if it fell short then to hell with it.

Lee announced to all who would listen, “I am a poor man and blind. If I have chosen one that is too old and too thin, we will eat it anyway and see if there is enough meat there to quiet the rumbling of our stomachs. ” Ben! a offered words of comfort that it would make a good soup. It’s Christmas morning and Lee’s instinct tells him to turn the butchering and cooking over to a friend and take off with his wife to spend Christmas in the Bush, but curiosity got the better of him. He wanted to see what such a scrawny ox looked like on butchering. The huge ox was driven to the dancing ground and

shot in the forehead and dropped in its tracks.

Lee asked /gaugo to make the breast bone cut. This cut allows the hunter to spot check the amount of fat on an animal. This animal was pure fat, at least two inches thick. Still all the Bushmen rolled on the ground with laughter that this animal was nothing but skin and bones, and not worth eating. Lee realized they were joking, but couldn’t figure out why. They danced and ate ox for two days straight. No fights broke out and no one went home hungry. The joke had Lee worried and he realized there was some kind of meaning behind it. He asked Hakekgose, a Tswana man who had grown up among the !

Kung, married a ! Kung girl, and who probably knew their culture better than any other non-Bushman, who explained to Lee that no matter if he gets a huge animal that can feed everybody for two days or if he misses, the Bushmen still tease him and act like it’s awful, or a worthless animal. Hakekgose explained to Lee that he was being treated the same as they treat each other as it is their custom. Lee sought out /gaugo first and asked him why he told Lee that the ox was worthless when obviously it was loaded with meat and fat? /gaugo explained, “it is our way. We always like to fool people like that”.

Hakekgose goes on to explain how a Bushman must not be a braggard. He must sit there and wait until someone asks what he seen in the bush. When replying, he must

say he saw nothing, just a tiny one. It is their way to harass the others when they have made a kill and say “how could you drag us out here to cart home your pile of bones? ” Lee still doesn’t understand and asks, why insult a man after he has gone to all that trouble and is then going to share the meat with everyone. Tomazo goes on to explain that they do this in order to maintain equality among themselves, so no one man can think of himself s chief or better than anyone else.

They refuse one who boasts in order to cool his heart and make him gentle. Lee had been the perfect target for the Bushmen tactic of forcing humility. He had much power as he was the only source of tobacco for a thousand square miles. Because of this, they resented his presence, but hated for him to leave. The Kalari Bushmen taught Lee a valuable lesson. There are no totally generous acts. All “acts” have an element of calculation. One black ox slaughtered at Christmas does not wipe out a year of careful manipulation of gifts given to serve your own ends. After all, to kill an animal nd share the meat with people is really no more than Bushmen do for each other every day and with far less fanfare. This is the way they keep their society equal.

No one can gloat that they brought home the best kill. This is the Bushmen’s way of keeping peace in their society. Everyone that lives there is equal and even though they can kill or

buy an ox for a feast, they aren’t superior to anyone else that lives there with them. These Bushmen wanted to maintain humility in their culture and that is their purpose of insulting one’s kill, Lee would have never understood this practice if he did not get involved and been a “victim” himself.