Thu Le
ANTH 272-02
Short paper 1 N!AI N!ai the story of a !Kung woman produced by John Marshall and Sue Marshall-Cabezas. This documentary, N!ai, like a film, is more than a life story; it is the life and change of a people personified through the thread of one person’s beingness. N!ai was very young women from Namibia when John Marshall began filming the !Kung in the 1950s. through the film, I get an indication of her animation before and after the Whites came into Africa. Furthermore, through this film, I can see how her life ad changed due to such fortunes.
The story follows N!ai, a women who grew up as part of the !Kung people in Africa. The director had complied the footage of for N!ai over the course of 27 years. The footage of N!ai as a young girl, including her wedding ceremonies was recorded in 1951. This first part of the film is N!ai's early years, living a peregrine hunting and gathering life among the Ju/wasi group of the people in North Eastern Namibia in the 1950s. She identified her cognition of the bush, her discontentment with her husband whom she married when she was eleven. Her relationship with her husband did not going well at first, and it even discontented to the extent of N!ai being terrified and hateful towards her husband. She was only eleven years old and too young to get any advised from others people around her. All she wanted is to have the freedom to choose her own husband and do whatever she is liking to do. Thus, she was cheating her husband to sleep with someone else. She even had notions that her husband was crazy due to his half-death trances when practicing medicine. Yet, her relationship with her husband changed once she grew older and listening to what others people were telling her. Finally she eventual acceptance of him many years later after he had become a healer She tells of her feelings as a girl growing breasts, and her fears of childbirth. The excellence of Marshall's photography and the eloquence of N!ai's narration make this section of the film fascinating even for those with little anthropological interest in Africa.
In the second part of the film, N!ai describes the situation of the !Kung in 1978. They are now restricted to a government reserve much smaller than their original land. She remembered her childhood memories with her family. She was following her mother to pick berries, roots and nuts as the season changed. They were also wander the savannas and desert. It makes me feel life their way of life was so simple.They ate anything that they had found around where they live. N!ai and her family are among the !Kung who live in a sedentary government camp. They exist on maize meal and earnings from tourists who come to take their pictures and she started working for the Whites to earn money. Opportunities to make money are unequal and since money became necessary in the exchange for goods and food items, it causes a strain in interpersonal relations. The film shows how N!ai was constantly scolded by the others as they felt that she was not sharing the wealth she has accumulated by posing for photos. People who are living in her village started finding fault with her to extend of hurling abuses at her whenever they can. She said that they are jealous because she make more money than them. The huge irony occurs when N!ai complains of what taking pictures and interviews for the Whites have done in her life, while actually sitting down and doing the interview itself. What's more, an entire film was named after her, and yet she still suffers from being trapped between the Whites and her own people. Through her eyes, we see that N!ai is caught in between having to see to the demands of the White people and the rejection of her and her family by her village people. We see things through the point of view of N!ai, hear her thoughts and witness her anguish and thus we developed great sympathy for her. Men still try to hunt, but without a nomadic lifestyle, they now need horses to find game. Officials say that hunting with horses damages wildlife and !Kung caught using horses for hunting are arrested. The only substantial cash income comes from young men who are recruited into the South African army. White army personnel say the !Kung respect them; the !Kung say they are afraid and they need the food and money.
To sum up, this film is an interesting look into another culture far different then our own, but downfall of this simple culture was far more heartbreaking then I thought it would be. I think the film is powerful and moving in the sense that it is filmed through the eyes of N!ai herself, as in it is narrated and put into context by herself. Moreover the director John Marshall began filming the !Kung as early as in the 1950s, when N!ai was still very young girl and young wife. We see how she put herself through hardships and challenges, even the very natural process of growing up , such as her feelings as a girl growing breasts and her fears of childbirth. Hence we are consistently enveloped by the miserableness of the film as N!ai expresses her thoughts, feelings and experiences and especially that of jealousy and misunderstanding of others, through her fluency and kindness of truth as she speaks. The scene at the end of film made me so impressed, when N!ai sits in front of her shack singing and asking outsiders to leave her alone. Death, she sings, is dancing me ragged. The sorrow and despair in her singing is so genuine and stirring that I believe many audiences, whether they are interested in Marshall's anthropological studies or not, will be moved by the documentary.
References
* N!ai, the story of a !Kung Woman www.youtube.com * N!ai, the story of a !Kung Woman Wikipedia.org *