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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 6 page report discusses Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman by Marjorie Shostak (1981). The story of Nisa herself reveals a world that still exists but that most Westerners have only experienced through National Geographic documentaries. During nearly two years Shostak spent interviewing !Kung women in the Dobe area of northwestern Botswana, in the northern Kalahari Desert, she did make connections, especially with 50-year-old Nisa. Bibliography lists only the primary source.
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6 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_BWnisa.rtf
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(1981). The story of Nisa herself reveals a world that still exists but that most Westerners have only experienced through National Geographic documentaries. However, anthropologist Shostaks telling of the story
is equally fascinating. A modern woman (from Brooklyn, New York) living with, talking to, and trying to understand the Kung San (literally, "bush people") provides a story of colliding cultures
in which it would appear that there could be no commonalties or even the means through which the two women could truly communicate. Shostak hunted and foraged with the tribe,
learned to understand the local animals tracks, and discovered how to find water-storing vegetables beneath the desert surface. She ate the foods they ate and slept in the same sort
of grass huts and shelters. During nearly two years Shostak spent interviewing !Kung women in the Dobe area of northwestern Botswana, in the northern Kalahari Desert, she did make connections,
especially with 50-year-old Nisa. In fact, Shostak noted that she felt that Nisas stories seemed to somehow be "larger and more important than the details they comprised" (intro) and
seemed to especially stand out. A "Typical" and "Atypical" !Kung Woman In countless ways, Nisa is the quintessential !Kung woman. Her life experiences represent a world that echoes the
way most of humanity has lived for the vast amount of time that human beings have been in existence. The life of traditional hunter/gatherers is what Shostak explains that: "Gatherer-hunters
today exhibit the same range of emotional and intellectual potential as can be found in other human societies. What they represent is a way of life that succeeded; in terms
of duration, at least, it is the most successful adaptation people have yet made to their environment" (pp. 4). Shostak interviewed "eight women in addition to Nisa, ranging in age
...