I found this article quite interesting for two reasons. First, the data from the 1960s make an interesting point about how we perceive quality of life. Prior to that study, anthropologists had for decades assumed that hunter/gatherers around the world lived a hardscrabble life defined by a continual search for food. Lee's findings about the !Kung disproved the older theories by proving that the population worked relatively little yet still managed to gather an adequate and plentiful diet. The presence of leisure activities also clashed with the previous assumptions that hunter/gatherers had no time for leisure due to the "never-ending" hunt. The second point of interest concerns how fast the !Kung culture has evolved - some might say devolved - into a society that is much more oriented around agriculture than gathering. I also find it fascinating that the shift in subsistence methods has changed the way social and architectural patterns of the society.
Learning about the !Kung culture definitely changed my point of view on hunter-gatherer societies. Before this article I did only think of hunter-gatherer societies as those just struggling to survive and spending all of their time hunting with very little resources available. It was very surprising to learn that even the hardest working person in the tribe only spent 32 hours at the most hunting and gathering and working. I also thought that the time spent in leisure was interesting as well, overall more time was spent in leisure throughout life, visiting or craft making than it was in hunting or doing work. It is sad to read that the Dobe area is now being threatened to being taken over by commercial work since the people that lived there had such a great system of work before they started setting up shops and private ranches. It was surprising though just to see how fast their way of life and subsistence patterns change just over the course of thirty years and how they are shifted into not being a hunter-gatherer society.
This article was interesting. I found it interesting how some people such as the Kung, still make their living on hunting and gathering. It's like they live in a totally different world, which is quite fascinating. they are hunters, but they don't really have to hunt to meet the daily calories they need. since they have plenty of rich fruit to rely on, they don't even need to be agriculturalists to provide their everyday food. A cause of that is probably because they are not too many of them either, so the food is always abundant. i wonder why young man are not really involved in hunting, since they have probably more strength than the older people. I wish i could have some of them rich mongongo nuts.
This was an interesting article. I did not know anything about hunter-gatherer culture before reading this. I assumed like previous anthropologists did, that they were always searching for food. They actually only hunt food every three or four days. I also thought it was interesting that women often collect the same amount of food as men even though they are usually smaller. I also thought they moved alot to follow food because they ran out in a certain area. According to the article, the plant life is never completely used up because they are searching for the most attractive plants and leaving the others behind. I think it is strange that younger people do not have to collect food until they are married. I would think it would be similar to farming societies where the kids help support the family.
It was fascinating learning about this particular culture. Before reading this, I had no knowledge about this hunter-gatherer life style. I had no idea that they did not hunt 24/7. That is what I thought when I hear of a hunter-gatherer culture. With the thought of them hunting quite often, I also assumed they would be moving constantly. However, this is not the case. They have a lot of plant life, so that keeps them from having to hunt all the time. One part of the article that I thought was pretty cool was their main calories came from one nut, the mongongo nut. I defiantly do not think that I could live in this type of culture. I am so used to just going to the store to get my food, that hunting and living off the plants around me would be a whole new world to me.
I found the article interesting and it reminded me of Native Americans in how they divided up the hunting for the men and gathering for the women. One aspect that I liked !Kung is the respect for the young, letting them enjoy their childhood and taking care of the old, even after they are no longer productive in the field, but are valued for their knowledge and expertise in planning for the groups activities,--We have lost this in the USA sorry to say! it is amazing that the caloric intake was sustainable even during the dry season and that no one went hungry even when there was no meat that ate plant life- in particular the mongongo nut, which I have never heard of, It looks like their way of life is very balanced compared to ours, they have free time to engage in social activities and work when it is needed. Another interesting concept is they do not marry very young, so their life expectancy must be to a relatively old age, we is unusual with some native people.
I knew very little about the hunter-gatherer culture until now. I'm surprised that the majority of their time is spent doing leisurely activities. I would think they would have to spend a lot more time hunting to provide enough food for everyone but they have plenty of plant-life, fruits, and mongongo nuts to sustain them. I am also surprised that they do not have to do much traveling because when I think of hunter-gather, I think of people constantly being on the move. It is very interesting to learn about a culture who gets their food supply completely different than our culture. We take for granted that we are able to just run to the store and pick up whatever we want.
I found this to be very interesting. I was unaware hunter gathers only worked or hunted a couple of days out of the week, and they even have enough time for leisure. The agricultural aspect of the society surprised me; I previously thought the main means of consumption would be from hunting.
This article was very interesting to me. I cannot imagine having to hunt, catch, or gather anything I needed to eat for each meal. I've gone fishing and hunting before, and have cooked what I killed, but doing this out of necessity would be very difficult. The fact that the people mentioned in this article didn't have to gather daily was shocking to me, because as a hunter-gather society, I think of people having to find their calories every day. While this is a very different lifestyle, I think it would be a very satisfying feeling to be able to live off of what you find and produce. Not only would it be satisfying, but I feel like this would be a much less stressful way of life.
Before reading this article I had not thought much about hunter gatherers. When I learned about them in history classes I assumed they had hard lives and no time for leisure. I was shocked to find out how little time they actually spent gathering and hunting. I also thought that hunter gatherers would be hungry most of the time, but this also was not true. They had good diets with plenty of protein.
I (like almost everyone else who posted) was very surprised by this article! Before reading this I had little knowledge of a hunter gathers society but I had assumed they would have a very unstable life that was constantly driven with hunting food. I found it really interesting to read that they actually have a more rounded life!
Adaptation goes a long way. I really enjoy reading this article because it explains how humans adapted within their environment. It is like survival of the fitness. The hunters use their skills to kill and the gathers use their skills to search for particularly foods. I wonder how in the world did the studied culture know that the mongolian nuts had so much protein. I think they are intelligent. I think if they were to enter our world and take the protein foods that we take, they would be for sure culture shock. Hunters and gathers, I bet work a lot to find there sources. I mean the hours that were recorded within the article cannot explain it. Think about maybe the anthropologist was doing his/ her fieldwork on a good day of theirs. What about the bad days? Maybe they would spend more then twenty hours a week hunting and gathering for their sources. Cool article and I enjoyed reading it! :)
Hunter-Gathering culture seems to be something that is long gone in our common day society. It seems like when cultures were less civilized, smaller tribes could survive just off the graces of the land. It is interesting that there are still civilizations like this today, and it would be the complete opposite of our culture. It seems also that this lifestyle would be very difficult to be skilled at, and continue to survive for long periods of time. That could explain why there are diminishing numbers of these tribes left.
Life as a hunter and gatherer seems to be intense. Having to gather enough food for a few days every few days would get tiresome. I could not imagine what it would be like to spend 1/3 of my time worrying about the next few meals. I do not think I could make it in a society as the people in the Kalahari do, because as the article said, they eat on the verge of starvation.
This article was great to look into a culture that we would think of as extinct, and how it works to sustain life. We start to view all of the technology and conveniences as necessary for survival. If we look at it though, people were able to survive for a couple centuries off of a life like this. I know as a guy I have had the day dreams of running off into the wilderness, or wishing that I was born in a different society. It would humble us in today's society.
I always assumed that hunter-gatherers relied mostly on meat for survival, so I was surprised to see that vegetables and marine items are more important. I had also assumed that they were nomadic and constantly moving to different locations, when they actually stay in the same location as long as the resources that they need are available. It was also interesting that they spend so much time participating in leisurely activities and socializing with other people in their area. The author also said that they only gather enough food for two three days. I previously thought that they stocked up on resources like I do, but now that I think a bout it, that wouldn’t make sense since their foods are fresh. The gender roles also interested me. We usually think of the male hunters when we think about hunter-gather cultures, but the women are actually doing most of the work. I also was surprised that they rely on one particular nut as the staple of their diet. I thought their diets consisted of a wide variety of whatever they could find at the time.
The idea of a life comprised of hunting and gathering obviously sounds a bit outlandish to an American, and that's pretty much how I felt. I imagined it being a very difficult life, struggling to survive and barely making it by. This article was definitely an eye opener, and surprised me quite a bit. The fact that they had a specific, staple crop that helped them survive seemed pretty innovative. It comprised most of their diet and supply of nutrients, which actually seems to simplify the gathering part of the culture. Although I still wouldn't necessarily choose to be in a hunter gatherer society, they definitely don't see quite a strenuous and struggling as I originally thought they were.
Before reading this article, I viewed the life of a hunter gatherer as something prehistoric and not really present in today's world. After hearing about how the individuals of this culture not only exist but thrive, and can sometimes have simpler lifestyles, I realized that there are plenty of cultures that operate this way by choice. I agree with Joshua, foraging for my food is not something I would be particularly interested in, but it is an adequate and healthy mode of survival even in modern times.
I've always wondered what it would be like to live thousands of years ago in a hunting and gathering society. Before government, before school and jobs, before internet and cell phones and tv and all the things we surround ourselves with today. I think it is so cool that these people live fairly lackadaisical lives while depending on the land for survival. If I wasn't born in this society and raised with such expectations I'd say dropping everything here and going to live with these guys would be a pretty nice alternative to our stressful, hectic way of living. There's so many people in America that work their asses off for 40 years so that they can have enough money to retire, move to a remote area and hangout and fish or hunt. It seems to me that these guys have it figured out!
Up until this article, I'd always thought of the hunter/gatherer lifesyle as something that primitive people did because they weren't socially/culturally/technologically advanced enough to do anything more. It dawned on me, after reading this article, that the hunter-gatherers have achieved to a greater degree and with lesser effort the things that we as Americans work ourselves to the bone for - leisure time, social interaction, enough to eat, a close-knit family unit, et al. I greatly underestimated the value of this particular lifestyle, and I have to question whether or not they are more socially and culturally advanced that we are.
I have always viewed hunter gatherer tribes in an almost romantic sense, the simple life of living off the land among wild creatures. I didn't realize just how intense their lives really are. Hunting and gathering food almost constantly sounds pretty exhausting. I did like to hear about their social lives, however. It makes sense that they must be friendly and cooperate in order to survive. Lastly, I found it interesting that meat is not their primary source of food but rather vegetables, nuts and fruit seem to be their main subsistence.
Previous to reading this article I had a general knowledge of the lives of hunters and gathers. However I did not realize they would have a lot of time for leisure. I figured they would not spend all day every day hunting and gathering because that would reduce the amount of resources around them quickly. It is very interesting how human beings can survive especially in today's society that relays so much on technology.
This article was quite interesting due to where the setting and time where the topic was taken place in the 1960s. this article gave me a different view point on hunting and what it takes to hunt and provide for your family back in the olden days. To me hunting never came to mind and what tasks to accomplish to provide food out in the forest and such. in our society we dont have to worry about how to hunt or gather food every thing is right there for us to buy or purchase. overall i thought this article was helpful on veiwpoints on hunting.
I found this article quite interesting for two reasons. First, the data from the 1960s make an interesting point about how we perceive quality of life. Prior to that study, anthropologists had for decades assumed that hunter/gatherers around the world lived a hardscrabble life defined by a continual search for food. Lee's findings about the !Kung disproved the older theories by proving that the population worked relatively little yet still managed to gather an adequate and plentiful diet. The presence of leisure activities also clashed with the previous assumptions that hunter/gatherers had no time for leisure due to the "never-ending" hunt. The second point of interest concerns how fast the !Kung culture has evolved - some might say devolved - into a society that is much more oriented around agriculture than gathering. I also find it fascinating that the shift in subsistence methods has changed the way social and architectural patterns of the society.
ReplyDeleteLearning about the !Kung culture definitely changed my point of view on hunter-gatherer societies. Before this article I did only think of hunter-gatherer societies as those just struggling to survive and spending all of their time hunting with very little resources available. It was very surprising to learn that even the hardest working person in the tribe only spent 32 hours at the most hunting and gathering and working. I also thought that the time spent in leisure was interesting as well, overall more time was spent in leisure throughout life, visiting or craft making than it was in hunting or doing work. It is sad to read that the Dobe area is now being threatened to being taken over by commercial work since the people that lived there had such a great system of work before they started setting up shops and private ranches. It was surprising though just to see how fast their way of life and subsistence patterns change just over the course of thirty years and how they are shifted into not being a hunter-gatherer society.
ReplyDeleteThis article was interesting. I found it interesting how some people such as the Kung, still make their living on hunting and gathering. It's like they live in a totally different world, which is quite fascinating. they are hunters, but they don't really have to hunt to meet the daily calories they need. since they have plenty of rich fruit to rely on, they don't even need to be agriculturalists to provide their everyday food. A cause of that is probably because they are not too many of them either, so the food is always abundant. i wonder why young man are not really involved in hunting, since they have probably more strength than the older people. I wish i could have some of them rich mongongo nuts.
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting article. I did not know anything about hunter-gatherer culture before reading this. I assumed like previous anthropologists did, that they were always searching for food. They actually only hunt food every three or four days. I also thought it was interesting that women often collect the same amount of food as men even though they are usually smaller. I also thought they moved alot to follow food because they ran out in a certain area. According to the article, the plant life is never completely used up because they are searching for the most attractive plants and leaving the others behind. I think it is strange that younger people do not have to collect food until they are married. I would think it would be similar to farming societies where the kids help support the family.
ReplyDeleteIt was fascinating learning about this particular culture. Before reading this, I had no knowledge about this hunter-gatherer life style. I had no idea that they did not hunt 24/7. That is what I thought when I hear of a hunter-gatherer culture. With the thought of them hunting quite often, I also assumed they would be moving constantly. However, this is not the case. They have a lot of plant life, so that keeps them from having to hunt all the time. One part of the article that I thought was pretty cool was their main calories came from one nut, the mongongo nut. I defiantly do not think that I could live in this type of culture. I am so used to just going to the store to get my food, that hunting and living off the plants around me would be a whole new world to me.
ReplyDeleteI found the article interesting and it reminded me of Native Americans in how they divided up the hunting for the men and gathering for the women. One aspect that I liked !Kung is the respect for the young, letting them enjoy their childhood and taking care of the old, even after they are no longer productive in the field, but are valued for their knowledge and expertise in planning for the groups activities,--We have lost this in the USA sorry to say! it is amazing that the caloric intake was sustainable even during the dry season and that no one went hungry even when there was no meat that ate plant life- in particular the mongongo nut, which I have never heard of, It looks like their way of life is very balanced compared to ours, they have free time to engage in social activities and work when it is needed. Another interesting concept is they do not
ReplyDeletemarry very young, so their life expectancy must be to a relatively old age, we is unusual with some native people.
I knew very little about the hunter-gatherer culture until now. I'm surprised that the majority of their time is spent doing leisurely activities. I would think they would have to spend a lot more time hunting to provide enough food for everyone but they have plenty of plant-life, fruits, and mongongo nuts to sustain them. I am also surprised that they do not have to do much traveling because when I think of hunter-gather, I think of people constantly being on the move. It is very interesting to learn about a culture who gets their food supply completely different than our culture. We take for granted that we are able to just run to the store and pick up whatever we want.
ReplyDeleteI found this to be very interesting. I was unaware hunter gathers only worked or hunted a couple of days out of the week, and they even have enough time for leisure. The agricultural aspect of the society surprised me; I previously thought the main means of consumption would be from hunting.
ReplyDeleteThis article was very interesting to me. I cannot imagine having to hunt, catch, or gather anything I needed to eat for each meal. I've gone fishing and hunting before, and have cooked what I killed, but doing this out of necessity would be very difficult. The fact that the people mentioned in this article didn't have to gather daily was shocking to me, because as a hunter-gather society, I think of people having to find their calories every day. While this is a very different lifestyle, I think it would be a very satisfying feeling to be able to live off of what you find and produce. Not only would it be satisfying, but I feel like this would be a much less stressful way of life.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading this article I had not thought much about hunter gatherers. When I learned about them in history classes I assumed they had hard lives and no time for leisure. I was shocked to find out how little time they actually spent gathering and hunting. I also thought that hunter gatherers would be hungry most of the time, but this also was not true. They had good diets with plenty of protein.
ReplyDeleteI (like almost everyone else who posted) was very surprised by this article! Before reading this I had little knowledge of a hunter gathers society but I had assumed they would have a very unstable life that was constantly driven with hunting food. I found it really interesting to read that they actually have a more rounded life!
ReplyDeleteAdaptation goes a long way. I really enjoy reading this article because it explains how humans adapted within their environment. It is like survival of the fitness. The hunters use their skills to kill and the gathers use their skills to search for particularly foods. I wonder how in the world did the studied culture know that the mongolian nuts had so much protein. I think they are intelligent. I think if they were to enter our world and take the protein foods that we take, they would be for sure culture shock. Hunters and gathers, I bet work a lot to find there sources. I mean the hours that were recorded within the article cannot explain it. Think about maybe the anthropologist was doing his/ her fieldwork on a good day of theirs. What about the bad days? Maybe they would spend more then twenty hours a week hunting and gathering for their sources. Cool article and I enjoyed reading it! :)
ReplyDeleteHunter-Gathering culture seems to be something that is long gone in our common day society. It seems like when cultures were less civilized, smaller tribes could survive just off the graces of the land. It is interesting that there are still civilizations like this today, and it would be the complete opposite of our culture. It seems also that this lifestyle would be very difficult to be skilled at, and continue to survive for long periods of time. That could explain why there are diminishing numbers of these tribes left.
ReplyDeleteLife as a hunter and gatherer seems to be intense. Having to gather enough food for a few days every few days would get tiresome. I could not imagine what it would be like to spend 1/3 of my time worrying about the next few meals. I do not think I could make it in a society as the people in the Kalahari do, because as the article said, they eat on the verge of starvation.
ReplyDeleteThis article was great to look into a culture that we would think of as extinct, and how it works to sustain life. We start to view all of the technology and conveniences as necessary for survival. If we look at it though, people were able to survive for a couple centuries off of a life like this. I know as a guy I have had the day dreams of running off into the wilderness, or wishing that I was born in a different society. It would humble us in today's society.
ReplyDeleteI always assumed that hunter-gatherers relied mostly on meat for survival, so I was surprised to see that vegetables and marine items are more important. I had also assumed that they were nomadic and constantly moving to different locations, when they actually stay in the same location as long as the resources that they need are available. It was also interesting that they spend so much time participating in leisurely activities and socializing with other people in their area. The author also said that they only gather enough food for two three days. I previously thought that they stocked up on resources like I do, but now that I think a bout it, that wouldn’t make sense since their foods are fresh. The gender roles also interested me. We usually think of the male hunters when we think about hunter-gather cultures, but the women are actually doing most of the work. I also was surprised that they rely on one particular nut as the staple of their diet. I thought their diets consisted of a wide variety of whatever they could find at the time.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of a life comprised of hunting and gathering obviously sounds a bit outlandish to an American, and that's pretty much how I felt. I imagined it being a very difficult life, struggling to survive and barely making it by. This article was definitely an eye opener, and surprised me quite a bit. The fact that they had a specific, staple crop that helped them survive seemed pretty innovative. It comprised most of their diet and supply of nutrients, which actually seems to simplify the gathering part of the culture. Although I still wouldn't necessarily choose to be in a hunter gatherer society, they definitely don't see quite a strenuous and struggling as I originally thought they were.
ReplyDeleteBefore reading this article, I viewed the life of a hunter gatherer as something prehistoric and not really present in today's world. After hearing about how the individuals of this culture not only exist but thrive, and can sometimes have simpler lifestyles, I realized that there are plenty of cultures that operate this way by choice. I agree with Joshua, foraging for my food is not something I would be particularly interested in, but it is an adequate and healthy mode of survival even in modern times.
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered what it would be like to live thousands of years ago in a hunting and gathering society. Before government, before school and jobs, before internet and cell phones and tv and all the things we surround ourselves with today. I think it is so cool that these people live fairly lackadaisical lives while depending on the land for survival. If I wasn't born in this society and raised with such expectations I'd say dropping everything here and going to live with these guys would be a pretty nice alternative to our stressful, hectic way of living. There's so many people in America that work their asses off for 40 years so that they can have enough money to retire, move to a remote area and hangout and fish or hunt. It seems to me that these guys have it figured out!
ReplyDeleteUp until this article, I'd always thought of the hunter/gatherer lifesyle as something that primitive people did because they weren't socially/culturally/technologically advanced enough to do anything more. It dawned on me, after reading this article, that the hunter-gatherers have achieved to a greater degree and with lesser effort the things that we as Americans work ourselves to the bone for - leisure time, social interaction, enough to eat, a close-knit family unit, et al. I greatly underestimated the value of this particular lifestyle, and I have to question whether or not they are more socially and culturally advanced that we are.
ReplyDeleteI have always viewed hunter gatherer tribes in an almost romantic sense, the simple life of living off the land among wild creatures. I didn't realize just how intense their lives really are. Hunting and gathering food almost constantly sounds pretty exhausting. I did like to hear about their social lives, however. It makes sense that they must be friendly and cooperate in order to survive. Lastly, I found it interesting that meat is not their primary source of food but rather vegetables, nuts and fruit seem to be their main subsistence.
ReplyDeletePrevious to reading this article I had a general knowledge of the lives of hunters and gathers. However I did not realize they would have a lot of time for leisure. I figured they would not spend all day every day hunting and gathering because that would reduce the amount of resources around them quickly. It is very interesting how human beings can survive especially in today's society that relays so much on technology.
ReplyDeleteThis article was quite interesting due to where the setting and time where the topic was taken place in the 1960s. this article gave me a different view point on hunting and what it takes to hunt and provide for your family back in the olden days. To me hunting never came to mind and what tasks to accomplish to provide food out in the forest and such. in our society we dont have to worry about how to hunt or gather food every thing is right there for us to buy or purchase. overall i thought this article was helpful on veiwpoints on hunting.
ReplyDelete