Deep in the Kalahari desert we will learn directly from the descendants of the First People, the Ju/Hoansi San bushmen, the oldest sustained and continuous culture on earth, these nomadic hunter-gatherers have lived here for over 100,000 years.

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Though the modern world has inevitably weaved its influence to this remote corner of the world, and few, if any San peoples are still truly nomadic, some still maintain many of their cultural practices and skills. Bow hunting with arrows using poisoned tips from beetle larvae still forms an important part of their sustenance, along with foraging plant materials from the bush.

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Most Ju'Hoansi now live in settled villages but in the old times bands would move around following the food and water sources, setting up their camps in just a few days, staying for a while and then moving on.  Typical hunter-gatherer band sizes ranged from twenty to fifty people.  With both Westerners and Bushmen our camp will number about fifty including children and elders:  two bands brought  together independently through a shared interest in tracking.  This temporary hunter-gatherer camp is perhaps closer to an authentic nomadic hunting camp than anything else Westerners are likely ever to experience.

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The Ju/Hoansi people we will be meeting come together from all corners of the Nyae Nyae Conservancy, an area of Namibia designated to bushmen peoples. They travel to this wild spot because they are passionate about the arts of tracking and bowhunting and have been brought together by the vision of Louis Liebenberg, author of The Art of Tracking: the Origin of Science and the brains behind Cybertracker.   

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The San Tracker Project 

Louis has been surveying Southern Africa to find out just how many master trackers and bowhunters are still alive; he considers that human consciousness is where it is precisely because of our reliance on tracking for survival.  Now that survival is possible without tracking not many people bother to learn the old ways and they are dying out with the few elders who remember. It would be a sad state of affairs if human beings no longer knew about the very things that have made them human.

 

So Louis hopes to re-incentivise people to hone these arts and to pass them on to the younger generation.  Cybertracker incorporates an evaluation system that can gauge trackers’ skill level and identify people as master trackers.  It's an incredible privilege to be in the presence of people who can read the landscape with such ease.

 

This gathering has several purposes: to recognise the master trackers and let them utilise their skills to earn a living; to cross- pollinate different ideas from around the Nyae Nyae and build a support network; to inspire the children and mentor them in hunting and gathering; to show Westerners an alternative way of life that has worked for millennia.

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A Hunter-gatherer Day

Days in the Kalahari in October begin and end in twilit paradise: that’s when everything happens.  We will be spending our time soaking up and and participating in their culture, whilst trying to understand the life-ways and modern challenges they face.  You'll have the chance to make a hand drill friction fire using wood from the mangeti bush, gather roots and find water in desert plants, craft ostrich shell jewellery in the joyful company of the women and children, set snares and learn to track and trail the stories of leopard, kudu and lion in the sand. 

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We'll break into small groups and head off into the bush at dawn to shadow the bow-hunters on the trail of antelope, occasionally they will shoot an animal with their poisoned arrows and then begins the long wait for the poison to take effect before the trailing begins.  It is an extraordinary honour to witness these skills that humans have honed over millennia and that still survive in this remote corner of the planet.

 

We all eat together in the evening in a big circle made up of small huddles of enthusiastic conversation, as the days go by our two groups become more and more integrated thanks to the layout of the camp and the food sharing.  The food gives way to informal singing and storytelling from whoever wants to offer something; there’s a party every night.

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