From Subsistence to Commercial Hunting : Changes of Hunting Activities among the San in Botswana (Natural History of Communication among the Central Kalahari San)

Abstract

This study aims at exploring the current state of hunting techniques, hunting activities and their transformation process, taking the San society in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Botswana. Main focus shall be placed upon how the hunters have been acquiring and maintaining trapping and equestrian hunting techniques and knowledge. Through this consideration, we will discuss the change in roles of hunting in the San society. With the spread of commercialism in the Xade area of Botswana, hunting among the San has changed over the years from a means of food supply to sustain subsistence living to hunting for commercial transactions in dried meat and skins. Each hunter finds his own optimal combination of trapping and equestrian hunting etc. Dried meat and skins from the animals, although still used for the traditional custom of gift-giving and for consumption among the San themselves according to their principle off â equal distributionâ , are being increasingly used for commercial transactions of dried meat and products made from the skins.