In the 1950s, at a time when most families vacationed in the country, at resorts, or even in Disneyland, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas spent her wide-eyed youth with her family in the African Bush. Through this experience and her vast sensitivity, Thomas, now in her 70s, tells the story of the Ju/wasi (the slash and other such symbols represent clicking sounds of their language, !Kung) of Nyae Nyae, Namibia, known by others as Bushmen.
Much of The Old Way reads like an anthropological text. While fascinating as such, a large quantity of the work, if taken out of context, is too academic to be moving. The author presents much factual information (at times it seems like a list), most, if not all, of which is methodically reasoned through - however, often in a less-than-objective manner. For instance, to explain the practices of the Ju/wasi with regard to menstruation, during which time a woman is to wear a cape and avoid others, Thomas claims that, "The power of women was strong and exuded from them naturally, from the day they reached the menarche." She cites the prohibition of women having anything to do with the hunt, including even touching weapons, as an example of this. But it is not made clear whether Thomas' statements in such cases are fact or interpretation.
Yet there is no want for compelling elements in The Old Way. Thomas' description of the environment, animals, people and ways of the Kalahari is wonderfully poignant and elegant: "The land falls away and away and away, down and down, much farther than anything I have ever seen before, until all the trees are obscured, on and on, until the horizon looks like the ocean seen from miles away, just a blue line a little darker and hazier than the sky." In reference to the Ju/wasi and their culture, she says, "I will never forget that first one [dance] - the dancers between the fire and the moon, the voice of the healer in my ear, the heat of his face against mine with strange, loud singing all around us. To have been part of that, that's something to remember now that I am among the last of those people to be left alive, after everything has changed."
As Thomas so touchingly relates, the Bushmen's traditional way of life, becomes impossible as the peoples are displaced by white settlers and Bantu pastoralists. In the past 50 years or so, the people of Nyae Nyae have been subjected to slavery, forced migration, confinement and restrictions on hunting. With such inhibitions to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, the Ju/wasi have no options other than those offered by the South African administration at the time: to become farmers, soldiers or to settle in communities that are not much better than internment camps (and in some cases, worse), riddled with violence and prostitution.
In an effort to escape an existence of poverty, starvation, alcoholism, crime and AIDS, the Bushmen are currently entreating the Namibian government and donor organizations to assist them in their farming, which has been severely crippled by the overrunning of elephants, which have also been displaced by congestion in other areas of South Africa. But Namibian officials insist that the Ju/wasi should return to their former hunter-gatherer ways - this, Thomas makes clear, is only after the land has been raped by overuse and sanctioned trophy hunting (for those who can afford it) and designated as a world wildlife preserve (mostly to the benefit of tourism and not wildlife), and only with very limited numbers of animals permitted to be hunted by the Bushmen. Not that this really makes a difference anyway, as most of the hunter-gatherer expertise has been lost to at least a generation of Bushman adaptation to Western civilization.
Thomas loses some of the strength of her argument on the Ju/wasi's petition for help to make a living in horticulture as opposed to the "Old Way"; she has done such a good job (273 out of just over 300 pages worth) of convincing her audience of the perfection of the hunter-gatherer way of life. Still, she is very persuasive in relaying the details that make it the responsibility of the Namibian régime, South Africa and the Westerners who have benefited from the exploitation of this area, to help the Bushmen lead productive, healthy and happy lives - the lives that were taken away from them. Thomas lays the foundation in anthropological facts, scientific theories and conjectures, personal tales of triumph, tragedy and simple everyday life. The result is a deep tie to these people, the Ju/wasi, and to their "Old Way" of life, in which all human civilization has its roots.
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