Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman

Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman

By: Marjorie Shostak  

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Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5

This classic paperback is available once again--and exclusively--from Harvard University Press.

This book is the story of the life of Nisa, a member of the !Kung tribe of hunter-gatherers from southern Africa's Kalahari desert. Told in her own words--earthy, emotional, vivid--to Marjorie Shostak, a Harvard anthropologist who succeeded, with Nisa's collaboration, in breaking through the immense barriers of language and culture, the story is a fascinating view of a remarkable woman.

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. - After reading this text, it is very clear to me why Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman is considered to be a classic in anthropological literature. Shostak does a fascinating job telling the story of Nisa, a fifty something female member of the !Kung tribe in the Kalahari desert of Africa. The !Kung are classic hunter and gatherers.

The majority of the text is essentially an interview between Nisa and Shostak about Nisa's daily life (the remainder of the text is narrated by Shostak), and the experiences that she has had regarding many aspects of life, including marriage, childbirth, and sex, and family life.

The text is exploding with interesting details of !Kung life. For Example, according to the !Kung, the gods gave them a wonderful thing when they gave them sex. The !Kung people spend much time talking about sex and about sexual endeavors. Also, !Kung women predict the coming of their menses by the phases of the moon. If the moon comes and goes without the commencement of menstruation, pregnancy can be suspected. This suspicion greatly increased when other symptoms of pregnancy are present, such as nausea or unusual emotion. This ethnography is jam packed with great conversation starters such as these.

In Nisa, Shostak manages to include an abundance of dialogue of Nisa and additional narration, while simultaneously producing a very easy read. Nisa is a must read for anthropology students, those wanting to know more about the !Kung people, or anyone who enjoys biographies.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
"Women are strong; women are important..." - Marjorie Shostak offers readers an interesting and insightful account of her relationship with a member of the !Kung San people of the Kalahari Desert during the early 1970s, a woman known by the pseudonym "Nisa," in her seminal work Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. The book is a coupling of both Shostak's ethnographic insight and Nisa's life history told in her own words, along with some very interesting photos taken by the author. Shostak admittedly runs into barriers that she must cross, particularly as to whether or not she can trust Nisa, who the rest of the tribe regards as a liar, but really, much can be seen in the lies that people choose to tell as well as the truths. Either way, Nisa's stories are compelling and give the reader a great window into their hunter-gatherer society and the dynamics that make it work. It reveals techniques of tribal socialization and ethic reasoning, the importance of intimacy, as well as offering a model (however debatable it may be) for the ways in which the status of women is compromised by changing demographics.

Nisa's life history account reveals many instances in which can be seen a socialization process that is meant to turn her into a more productive and adaptive person in society. These instances can especially be seen in Nisa's childhood. The !Kung place a high value on sharing in their culture, and Nisa's early tendencies to selfishly covet and hoard food for herself was counterproductive to this ideal. Nisa's mother dealt with her daughter's stealing firmly, often hitting her and screaming such things like, "Nisa, stop stealing! Are you the only one who wants to eat klaru? Now, let me take what's left and cook them for all of us to eat. Did you really think you were the only one who was going to eat them all?" (Shostak 53). By this form of punishment, her mother not only chastised Nisa for her counterproductive actions, but she also reinforced the social norm of the culture - namely, sharing.

Nisa's life history account is also filled with stories of intimacy. The frequency of these stories, as well as her descriptions, reveal much about !Kung principles and social organization. Marjorie Shostak at first assumes that Nisa's focus on sexual matters is her attempt at finding a common ground with a fellow woman, but she soon realizes that it is in fact quite characteristic of !Kung society. The !Kung say that "when the gods gave people sex... they gave us a wonderful thing" and its importance is seen as significant as that of food in sustaining life (Shostak 237). They find talk of sex to be important and it is often used as the subject of jokes "in a deliberate way to dispel tension" such as making pornographic gestures to cheer a man up who had been spat in the eye by a cobra (Shostak 237).

But the act brings out other qualities of !Kung life as well. Many men and women of the society frequently take secret lovers. They see it as an exciting and passionate alternative when those fires have burned out between their spouses. For many women, especially, self-esteemed is gained through their secret games and rendezvous. It also symbolizes another belief among the !Kung, namely, the vitality of women and sex in the social organization: "women are strong; women are important... because women possess something very important, something that enables men to live: their genitals. A woman can bring a man back to life, even if he is almost dead. She can give him sex and make him alive again. If she were to refuse, he would die!" (Shostak 257).

However, despite the powerful feelings a woman may have for her lover(s), it is very important to them that responsibility to their husbands are their main priority, signifying another element in the social organization. Even their lovers understand, as one of Nisa's did when she did not show as promised. He said, "if it was because of your husband, that's all right. But if you do it again, I'll beat you!" (Shostak 245). As Nisa explained:

"When a woman has a lover, her heart goes out to him and also to her husband. Her heart feels strong towards both men. But if her heart is small for the important man and big for the other one, if her heart feels passion only for her lover and is cold toward her husband, that is very bad. Her husband will know and will want to kill her and the lover. A woman has to want her husband and her lover equally; that is when it is good" (Shostak 257).

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this work is the changing status of !Kung women as result of environmental and demographic change. Traditionally, !Kung women have experienced relative equality with men. This is do mainly to the hunter-gatherer existence in which they live, for "!Kung women are recognized by men and women alike as the primary economic providers of the group" by gathering vegetables, roots, etc. (Shostak 216). However, as Tswana and Herero herdsmen have been in the past century moving in on their territory, and whose "village sites expanded to encompass more of the traditional !Kung waterholes, maintaining the !Kung way of life became increasingly difficult" (Shostak 194). This change has affected woman, though, most of all. As some of the !Kung began to settle in these villages they became second-class citizens, for the women's pattern of child caring began to see drastic changes. While these women had previously had a child perhaps once every four years, now those "who live more sedentary lives have shorter birth spacing between children" (Shostak 195). This could be because of cow's milk's effects of birth patterns or women being "better fed and less active," but "in any case, with two children to carry, the women are less likely to go gathering; they become more dependent of the new food sources, animal husbandry and agriculture" (Shostak 195). Because the role that gave women their equal position is now being threatened, so too is their status.

Shostak's study works on a number of levels, and can indeed by appreciated on many as well. Whether one is interested in an ethnographic study of hunter-gathering tribes, or is concerned about feminist issues, or would just like a unique and interesting tale that provokes consideration, this book comes highly recommended.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Very inteA very interesting book on the lives of !Kung Sun (Bush People).... - The book is written by Shostak a woman, about Nisa also a woman, and that makes it more appealing because it deals with a lot of women issues. I know that Marjorie Shostak is now dead and Nisa is dead too. When you live with the author and the person she is writing about all this time it suddenly becomes a part of your life and you begin to mourn their death. I really admire Nisa and all these !Kung women and how courageous they live but I also know they don't live according to this book anymore. Long a go they changed their lifestyles.

Customer Review: 4 out of 5
What was Nisa all about, and did I like it? - Nisa is an autobiography of a young girl who is part of the Kung tribe. I feel that this book was a very easy read, and some parts of it were interesting but others weren't.

The Kung people have many cultural customs and traditions, such as a woman should give birth alone and in silence, or you shouldn't drink your mother's breast milk if you have a younger sibling. But, Nisa is sort of a rule breaker, or as we would call her, a rebel. Nisa had three husbands, I think. Now, many women in America have had multiple husbands so it's not that big of a deal but along with Nisa's three husbands she has at least 17 affairs, or as they called them lovers. When her husband would go out to hunt for two or three nights another man would sneak to Nisa's hut and they would make love until her husband came back. Many times Nisa got caught, and many times she didn't.

Nisa sometimes had reasons for leaving her husbands, but one of them she just didn't like. The Kung have something that is called a tribe headman. This man decides whether it is ok to get a divorce or not. One of the times Nisa didn't even go to the tribe's headman she just went back to her mother's village. Another time Nisa's husband, who was the father of her children died. Nisa cried and cried, but eventually she got over it. Nisa's next husband was a different story. He beat Nisa all the time, sometimes her back even swelled up. Nisa went to the headman to tell him that she wanted a divorce, but he gave her husband another chance. The next time Nisa went with bruises and the headman told her that she could divorce her husband.

Nisa got pregnant many times, but actually only had 2 kids, one girl and one boy. The Kung people believe that women can have miscarriages in many different ways. For example, they Kung believe that, if the child is not wanted by the mother of father that god will take it away from them. Another way is if the mother is hit or injured while she is pregnant the baby may leave her. Nisa miscarried for many reasons. A lot of the time it was because it wasn't her husband who caused her to get pregnant, it was one of her lovers and it was hard for her to tell her husband, so she just kept lying. Another time Nisa's 3rd husband got very mad at her and hit her with a stick, which made it seem as if the baby wasn't wanted.

Like I said before, I thought that Nisa was a very easy read, but it was still very informative. I really enjoyed how each chapter had a little bit about the culture, and a little bit about Nisa and how she fits in with her culture. Because the book was like that, it made it easier to stay interested because it wasn't 20 pages all about the same thing. I thought it was kind of cool that Nisa was a rebel, because if Nisa just followed all her customs it wouldn't be a very interesting book to read. Nisa seemed like she was very intelligent. She knew how to work her way out of trouble, how to cover up things that she knew she did wrong, and most of all how to lie. I never said that she was necessarily intelligent in a good way. If I were to compare this book to The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, I would say that I enjoyed this book more. I think this is because The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down had whole chapters about the war and their trip to America but I was more interested in Lia herself. That's why I liked Nisa so much, the book was more about her then the culture.

I recommend Nisa to people who are interested in autobiographies, but ones that are also about other cultures. I think this book offers a wide range of topics and is a very good book to debate this book. If I were to rate this book I would rate it 4 stars, because it kept me interested yet it was a very easy read.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Dense, informitive, sad, and often moving - Majorie Shostak's account of her anthropology trip to Africa's Kalahari Desert examining the rituals, lifestyles and existence of the !Kung tribe is not to be read like an expanded version of a National Geographic article. It is written with academic rigor and precise examination of a !Kung woman Nisa. The majority of the book is told through Nisa's words which are translated into English with as much accuracy possible by Shostak. Shostak prefaces each chapter with a more general description of the events of Nisa's life which follow. The !Kung have such a different life style than Westerners, so naturally the story telling methods Nisa uses are a little unfamiliar. There is much more repetition of certain phrases and ideas that some of us might find excessive. If one can get past this they will soon see what an expert Nisa actually is. Also it is a tribute to Shostak that she didn't slice up the narrative to make it more accessible for Westerners.

The book in begun with an extensive introduction, about 40 pages. Although at first this might feel over detailed and cumbersome, it is a necessity to read it before jumping into Nisa's narrative because some of the actions taken might seem unfathomable without a better understanding of !Kung life. For instance, when Nisa describes stealing and hoarding food for herself as a child, we might feel she is extremely selfish. But after reading the introduction we understand that in !Kung life there is virtually no private property. Imagine being a young child and having nothing of "your own." I think we all would have stolen to some extent. Also during the time the book was written there was a struggle within the anthropology communities as to whether these "field work" expeditions we're even worth taking. There were many who thought that the "white man" was so engrained with his own cultural sense of morality that any attempt to interpret or understand someone different would be wasted time. So it is possible that in parts of the long introduction Shostak was justifying to her academic circle why it was important that she did go to see another kind of life.

After the introduction is over, we move into various important events in Nisa's life, described by Nisa and prefaced by Shostak. Although these interviews were not given chronologically they are presented in as workable a series events as possible. We are taken first through her childhood in which Nisa's mother has her second child and no longer allows her to breast feed because it is believed that once her younger brother is born, it is his milk. We are then taken, to various cases of childhood problems. The `Discovering sex' chapter is worth noting, children go away and as Nisa says "play sexually". Although the parent's sometimes mildly scorn this, they remember how important is was for them in developing as sexual beings, so they pretty much look away. I think that our incredibly sexually conservative and private culture could learn something from this. It shouldn't necessarily be discouraged for children to discover certain aspects of themselves, and have sexual feeling, (we should stop pretending as if they don't!)

We are then taken through trial marriages; theeseoften "fail", because the girl married is too young. The most important events in a !Kung woman's life are first menstruation, marriage, and childbirth.

Another chapter worth noting is most clearly illuminates why Shostak's expedition into the Kalahari was so vital to understanding !Kung life. The chapter entitled 'Change' accounts the arrival of the very different Christian cattle herders. The Hero brought, (among other things), permanent villages, alcohol, western religion, tobacco, etc. Although some people might consider some of these things "civilization", (and I would not count myself among this crowd), the sad truth is that !Kung culture is dieing. More and more are forsaking the old way of life for the much more stable continuous food source. And even if the corrupt regimes they live under exploit their way of life to promote tourism, they are being stifled the the exact same regimes. Nisa's generation is the last link to the nearly completely un- westernized !Kung life. Without Shostak's magnificent book we would have a much harder time understanding this beautiful nomadic way of life.

One of the amazing thing about this book, unlike many other cross cultural examinations, is that it doesn't concentrate on some of the "shocking" taboos that might have made it a bestseller, (just under Tom Clancy). It instead just tells the story of a woman. One does not finish it and say, "wow they're different they need Jesus." One feels a connection to Nisa, and we realize not that we are different but that we are more similar than we would know or like to know. This also shows us that they're clearly are universal human emotions. Nisa goes through, love, hate, guilt, grief, regret, resentment, fear, happiness, etc, just like every human being! To go through it is to be human. Even in a culture totally different than ours these emotions are still there. In an age where we feel like we must "spread democracy", like we're spreading humanity, it is all the more important to realize that the same humanity exists whether or not they are infested with corrupt corporate puppets. I would recommend this book to anyone who feels lie they want to know more about other societies, and ways of life, in a more in depth format.

We have two wonderful women to thank for this powerful book on !Kung life, or !Kung life as it should be.

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