The Ju/’hoansi who live in the Northwestern Kalahari Desert make a by hunting and gathering, killing antelope, rabbits, squirrels and gathering mongango nuts and fruits. When originally studied by Richard Lee in the 1960’s, the Ju/’hoansi also traded, exchanging food and goods with the nearby villages. They had developed a sharing system where the food brought back to the village was distributed to all so no one would go hungry. But not until recently have their lifestyle started to change in the early 1980’s due to the intervention of missionaries and other organizations.
Like other foragers, their lifestyle has been exposed to poverty and exploitation; issues they have never had in their past. According to Richard Lee in his book The Dobe Ju/’hoansi, farmlands with cattle are a recent addition to their standard of living, along with schools, police stations, and large storehouses where goods can be purchased. These alterations have had both positive and devastating effects on the Ju’s daily life (Lee, 167). Americans on the other hand have a capitalist economic system where the means of production and distribution are privately owned.
When compared to the Ju/’hoansi original means of hunting and gathering, this system is drastically different. Americans do not hunt or gather their food but instead go to supermarkets to purchase their food. And while the Ju/’hoansi are only starting to use the concept of money, American’s have always had a monetary system. Furthermore, the Ju/’hoansi have a sharing system in terms of their food where Americans don’t. However, our economic system and their economic system do have similarities as well. We both have division of labor, individual jobs and a trading system.
But because of missionaries and the governments views on how the Ju/’hoansi should be living, their foraging economic system is starting to shift to be more capitalistic. Like Americans the Ju/’hoansi must “face illness, misfortune, and the ultimate loss – death” (Lee, 125). However when compared to American’s way of dealing with such instances, the Ju/’hoansi counteract these setbacks in ways that differ from our usual norm. For instance, in an effort to alleviate my stomach pains, I had scheduled an appointment with a doctor. The doctor had diagnosed my pains due to food poisoning.
If a member of the Ju/’hoansi had such stomach pains they might have sought help from a healer. Healers like doctors, possess special knowledge and are thought to be able to cure the sick. In the pit of the stomach is a substance called N/um, which becomes active during a healing dance (Lee, 133). It is the movements of the healers that heat up the n/um, and the n/um is what pulls the sicknesses out of bodies. American doctors on the other hand, look at the symptoms of a patient and diagnose the illness by their symptoms. Often medicine is prescribed to alleviate the pains of the patient and to eventually bring their health back to normal.
The healers to cure the sick lay their “trembling hands on the chest and back of a person and begins a series of moaning lamentations punctuated by load shrieks” (Lee, 131). These rituals drive the sprits of the dead away and as a result the sick are usually healed. The Ju/’hoansi are an egalitarian society where men and women are viewed as equals. During these dances, women sing and tend the fire and it is the men who dance and enter into trances. Only upon occasion will the women enter into a trance, but it is the men who insist that the women are crucial to the dance.
Without the women’s strong singing, the men would not be able to heal since the n/um would not become hot and boil. Therefore it is the work of the entire group to help heal the ill. When compared to American culture, the ill are cared for by the healthy but not to the same extent. Friends and family will check on the sick but they will not participate in the healing process. For example, my friend who came with me was concerned with my stomach problems so he accompanied me to the doctor’s office. He did not, however, come with me into the actual room with the doctor, since it was deemed unnecessary.
It is the doctor alone who can heal the sick and no more. This thought is due to the fact that because doctors went through years of extra schooling, they must be the only ones to possess the essential knowledge to help those who are ill. Everyone else has no say in the matter and the doctor has the final decision. The entire healing process for the Ju/’hoansi can last from a few hours to a few days. During the dance, the n/um k”ausi, or medicine owners, spend up to one hour working on a sick person rubbing magical sweat all over their body (Lee, 131).
In terms of the very ill, sometimes teams up to six healers work together to cure the ill. From my description, waiting to see a doctor and the visit as a whole takes a couple of hours. Most of the time is spent waiting, which is not unusual, where the actual time with the doctor is not more than ten minutes. It is these ten minutes that are the most expensive, sometimes costing hundreds of dollars. Similarly, in the recent changing times, the Ju/’hoansi sometimes charge others for their healing although it “removes it from the communal sphere” (Lee, 139). They believe the more valuable the healer, the higher the price.
The same is true for American doctors; the more valuable or famous doctors can charge much more money. This is because the more famous doctors are viewed as more intelligent and therefore have more power and could charge a higher price. And although this may not necessarily true, this is the case for many other American professions. After diagnoses, medicine is then prescribed and if it does not cure you of your ailments, another visit to the doctor needs to be made. Similar to the Ju/’hoansi, in terms of the very ill where a diagnoses cannot be made, several doctors might work together to find a cure.
This is one of the rare circumstances that I have seen, where doctors work together. I believe this is because the Ju/ healers are not concerned with fame and fortune that is associated with American doctors. The Ju/ on the other hand are willing to do anything to cure those in need, which includes working with other healers. Otherwise unlike the Ju/’hoansi, American doctors are very independent in terms of their patients. When compared to the actual waiting process for the healer or the doctor, these experiences vary greatly.
The Ju/’hoansi are very patient and support the healers. It is “equally important that family and campmates stick by” the sick (Lee, 128). However, when compared to the waiting room in Manhattan, I cannot say Americans feel the same way. The people waiting seemed agitated and annoyed that they were waiting for a doctor; the one person thought to help them. Furthermore, it did not seem as if the people waiting were very supportive of those who were sick. It was as if they were irritated that they were forced to change their plans or waste their time in a waiting room.
This is because Americans think that the doctor is the all mighty, therefore, they deem themselves as useless. It is irrelevant whether they are waiting or not, since the doctor is the only one who could help anyway. Furthermore, the waiting room was very quiet and contained high levels of tension. The only ones who were talking were the nurses. Comparable, the Ju/’hoansi, the healing process is not quiet at all. Women and men arrange themselves in a circle and beat their drums and sing. It is believed that the “stronger the singing, the better the n/um” (Lee, 132).