Book 2 post 2

As mentioned in my first post on The Wayfinders, Wade Davis shares the unsung wisdom of unsung heroes; “from warriors in the Sub Saharan plains, to matriarchal pillars to their communities and Polynesian wayfinders.” The first remote people we are introduced to is The San. Commonly called Bushmen, they are the members of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, with territories spanning some 84,000 square kilometres over Botswana, Namibia and southern Angola. Amazingly, Davis explains that they could be referred to as the oldest culture in the world; “ if the Irish and the Lakota, the Hawaiian and the Maya are the branches and limbs [of the human genealogic tree], the San are the trunk.” To me, this ancientness, the living antiquity of a people who, unlike many before, around, and after them, have disappeared, is mind boggling. Here, on our Earth, we have a community which has ridden the wave of time, unchanging and ever present, unbeknownst to the clueless Westerner chasing yesterday in hopes of a bigger tomorrow. I am grateful to Davis for shining a careful spotlight on this people, and in so doing, illuminating their brilliant wisdoms. 

The teachings of these ancient generations, so far removed from us in time and place, are somehow still accessible to us today, in the words of their descendants. It seems fitting that to encapsulate millennia of knowledge, a language of similar stature is to be used. Davis introduces us to a linguistic marvel: a native tongue totally unrelated to any other known family of languages. In everyday English we use 31 sounds. The language of the San has 141, “a cacophony of cadence and clicks” that many linguists believe echoes the very birth of language. These rich, marvellous features of an already exceptional culture only make my mind travel to the outskirts of our globe. I’ve had the privilege to travel all around it, but I do hope to explore places so far removed that they’re wholly unfamiliar to me, and those around me. I seek complete and utter discovery, in the sense that I’m thrust into an area, with a people, I know nothing of. The San are one of these people, and by knowing nothing of and about them, I think this blank slate paves the way for surprising lessons, curious discoveries, and startling realisations. 

Later, Davis tells us of yet another fascinating practice of the San. After a boy kills his first prey, he becomes a man. To mark the occasion, he is given a tattoo that marks the boy with the heart of a hunter, which is a source of magic, for the San do not simply hunt or kill. “They engage in a dance with the prey, a ritual exchange that ends with the creature literally making of itself an offering, a sacrifice. Every hunt ends in exhaustion, as the antelope realizes that whatever it does it cannot escape the pursuit of man. It then stops and turns, and the arrow flies.” To the Westerner, it must be surprising that not only is such time, effort, and dedication put into what is essentially “meat gathering”, but that the animal becomes meat out of its own choice, or rather lack of choice. We would never look down at a steak or burger and think that the cow ended up on our plate because, in its wilderness, it saw no escape from quick witted humans, and so “gave itself up”. However, the San only allow animals to become meat if the animal thinks it has been beaten. I find it quite noble that to kill an animal, a worthy battle must precede death, which may befall either hunter or hunted. There has to be a fight, but like gladiators, it has to end in death; with such an ending, honour, pride, and respect (for the other, too) come into play. After all, both have everything to lose.