Societies in Conflict

Humans, the Natural World and the Shifting Boundaries Between Them

Lecture 8: Hunters, Herders, Farmers and Nature

Key vocabulary terms underlined

Cultural and material approaches to history

Historical materialism (example from Berger, p. 309)

Khoisan cosmology

Origin stories

“Eland” and “Mantis” figures | The Great Thirst

Evidence of beliefs and practices among colonial-era Khoisan

Tripartite world

Human-animal reciprocity

Human-animal “transferability”

The Lion and the Jackals

Reading sources

Comparing story forms: Great Thirst & Lion/Jackals

Christian cosmology through the lens of the NGK (Nederlandse Gereformeerde

Kerk/Dutch Reformed Church)

Multiple visions of Christianity

Evidence of beliefs and practices of 18^th-C Dutch colonists

Tripartite world

Hierarchical

Great Chain of Being | Psalm 8

Khoisan Land Use

Nomadic: water | game routes | maritime resources

San: Evidence of repeated use of the same rock shelters

Khoikhoi: regular transhumance patterns

Seasonal congregations of mobile groups of people

Khoikhoi measures of wealth: livestock

Settler Land Use

Extensive grazing AND settled agriculture

Permanent, individual, alienable property rights

Freehold land grants and “loan farms”

Measures of wealth: land | livestock | slaves | material culture

Trekboer livelihood similar to Khoisan

Emphasis on historical interpretation

Factors that shaped South African history (and developing historical arguments)

Forced labor controlled by individual violence (Berger)

The “frontier” experience of hardy settlers (Apartheid-era nationalist history)

Struggles over the use and meaning of natural resources (Mitchell)