Notes on N'ai Story of a !Kung Woman
Film spans period from 1958 to near-modern day. She was young when the whites first came into their area.
Graphic illustrations of:
- traditional sexual division of labor (women gather, men hunt); food preparation, semi-nomadic lifeway, house-building (also female occupation)
- effects of forced sedentarism; tension between conservation and starvation; replacement of traditional diverse diet with mealie-meal
- marriage arrangements among the Kung San; her betrothal, disobedience, flagrant adulterous relationships, final acceptance of husband; husband doing bride (son-in-law) service
- traditional trance healing (mainly men)
- encounters with Western-type school, church, wage labor, military recruitment for war in Angola
- filming of Gods Must be Crazy
Boran Women
This film depicts how the availability of education and other aspects of modernization are changing Boran women1s attitudes, though slowly. The attach great importance to the traditional role of women in a herding society and perform dawn to dusk tasks with little deviation from customary ways.
The films and essays in this series introduce each culture and provide general background for understanding the area. They explore concepts of development, modernization, environmental equilibrium, and especially change, identifying change agents, and analyzing barriers and stimulants to change.
This film is part of the 26 color films produced under the
series title FACES OF CHANGE with the support of the National
Science Foundation. Five identical themes- rural society, education/socialization,
rural economy, the role of women, and political/religious beliefs--
were explored in each of five ecological settings: Bolivia, Kenya,
Afghanistan, Taiwan, and the Soko Islands off the China Coast.