Nisa. La vita e le parole di una donna !kung

by Marjorie Shostak

Nisa è una donna africana di circa cinquant’anni che vive in un remoto angolo del Botswana, nella fascia settentrionale del deserto del Kalahari. Ha avuto quattro mariti, molti amanti e quattro figli, nessuno dei quali è sopravvissuto. Il suo popolo, i !kung san (anche noti come boscimani), ha abbandonato solo di recente i propri tradizionali mezzi di sussistenza: la caccia e la raccolta di piante selvatiche, nell’ambiente semiarido della savana. Marjorie Shostak, un’antropologa che ha vissuto insieme ai !kung per diverso tempo, ci offre un resoconto straordinario della loro vita e ci consegna soprattutto il racconto appassionante che la stessa Nisa le ha fatto della sua difficile esistenza.

"Un libro rigoroso, triste ed emozionante", The New York Times

"Dobbiamo ringraziare una straordinaria antropologa per averci consegnato una storia appassionante", The New York Review of Books

"Sia Nisa che la Shostak sono persone fuori dal comune; dalla loro collaborazione è nato un resoconto incomparabile della vita !kung… una rivelazione dell’universalità delle esperienze e dei sentimenti delle donne a dispetto delle differenze culturali e sociali. Nisa ci aiuta a capire cosa significhi essere !kung, essere donna, essere un essere umano", Choice

Genres: Anthropology, Nonfiction, Africa, Biography, History, Ethnography, Biography Memoir

456 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Marjorie Shostak (May 11, 1945 - October 6, 1996) was an American anthropologist. Though she never received a formal degree in anthropology, she conducted extensive fieldwork among the !Kung San people of the Kalahari desert in south-western Africa and was widely known for her descriptions of the lives of women in this hunter-gatherer society.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic narrative of a hunter/gatherer culture in the Kalahari bush from a female perspective. How rare! How lucky we are to have this. Nisa's story was gathered just as the traditional !Kung culture was beginning to change by encroaching farmer-rancher types and Europeans. This chronicles from birth to death the !Kung life, mostly of women. What I like about this as opposed to some dry abstract is how the way they felt about their daily lives and interaction with others and their environment were so clearly displayed. So much of history is written from a male interpretation and while I appreciate and understand the importance of that contribution, the lack of female perspective in so much of history means a one dimensional comprehension. An understanding lacking in the vibrancy of the human condition, so much so that this type of narrative is such a gem. I was also struck by the universality of women. For all of Western privilege, freedom and equality, the same important milestones for women are present. Also the importance of female collaboration in daily living, which we see unraveling in Western culture. An aside, but I wonder if it is related? This tendency to interpret history from a male perspective. It gives a false sense of importance to male roles, as if rearing the next generation was not as important. And while I wouldn't trade the privilege of choice, it would be good I think to balance our understanding and teaching of history through the eyes of a man with one of woman. It is a diservice to women to belittle their traditional roles, it should be exhaulted! Always.

[Ocrema · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book was definitely great.

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't usually put books I have to read for school on here but this one is a great read for anyone interested in cultures of Africa. Just finished this for one of my Anthropology courses and was astounded by Shostak's intimate portrayal of the !Kung and !Kung women in particular. The book reveals !Kung women's personal issues concerning transitioning from childhood into adulthood. Issues such as trying to find and create an identity, to coping with marriage and the responsibility that it brings, to giving birth and raising children ,we see that !Kung women maintain an enduring strength throughout it all. Mostly about the life of Nisa, a !Kung women, it is through her words that we are granted intimate access to a most beautiful way of life. Breathtaking and sometimes tragic, women everywhere can relate as we see that the
!Kung women’s struggles and triumphs are in fact our own struggles and triumphs.

[Lgordo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book because it highlights how the reader's understanding of anthropology may differ from the anthropologist's meaning. Each chapter included a summary of a topic by the author, and then Nisa's recollections about that aspect of her life.

So when anthropologists say that the women are pretty equal and can choose who and when to marry, that gives you one idea. Then you see that the pressure to marry is pretty overwhelming and ever-present (even though a !Kung woman can live quite well as a spinster), and by the time you're up to your third "no not him" people stop caring what you think and tell you to just shut up and get married already.

The sad part is that although Nisa technically could have married any of a number of men, she wound up with the most persistent and aggressive one, who also (shocking, shocking) also turned out to be jealous, controlling, and abusive. She eventually leaves him and he stalks her for years but doesn't dare take any action. These are the details that really bring the society to life and show that while many things are different, people are people and the important things are the same.

Side point, this shows that even in a society where boys and girls are treated pretty equally for the first chunk of their lives and socialization is moderate at best, men and boys are more aggressive and girls are more easily pushed around. This starts quite early, with Nisa describing what sounds a lot like rape at the hand of the preschool set.

I found it interesting how much forced sex there was among children, and how Nisa nochalantly says that you get used to it and eventually learn to enjoy sex when you get older. It makes me wonder if this sentiment is widely felt among !Kung women or if she is especially resilient (she is quite forceful), and how our social dynamic regarding sex affects our reaction to rape.

Speaking of rape, she also describes several cases of marital rape, even while the anthropologist says that girls aren't usually forced before they get their period, or while they have their period. Yes, everyone thinks it's very bad that Nisa's daughter got killed by her husband (accidentally) for refusing sex, but ultimately, that is what happened, and the killer was barely punished.

The author briefly addresses these homocides, and notes that the level of violence is on par with or higher than the rate in the average American large city. I'm pointing this out because anthropologists also consider the !Kung a peaceful society. (Although we consider our cities peaceful too, that's because urban violence tends to concentrate in specific areas. Among the !Kung, it would be diffuse, and therefore slightly higher on a personal level.) It's all relative, and it really helps to hear the first-hand account with specific details.

However, the author does note that the level of beating in Nisa's accounts doesn't match what anthropologists witness, while living in the villages. And there's a pitfall in that too. After all, don't we all dramatize our stories in the retelling? And violence is the easiest drama there is. It's clear that Nisa is a dramatic ranconteur, which is what draws her and the author together. So some of the details are probably best taken with a grain of salt, although which details and how much salt is impossible for the casual reader to know.

This is a bit rambly, but the upshot is that this was an interesting read, which really shed light on how to understand more general anthropological writings.

[Steve Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kong Woman
By Marjorie Shostak

This book from 1981 is made up of interviews that the author had with a African tribal woman who was of people who were still involved with lives of hunter-gathering. I read it because I was curious about what life was like before agriculture, before work, and everything that came with all that more recent development of humankind.
They really didn’t have a bad life. The time put into hunting and gathering it minimal, not even every day. The rest of life is living; hanging out talking, singing, playing, and having sex.

A lot of what Nisa talks about with the author has to do with her sex/love life. The writer notes that she isn’t sure that this isn’t because they think that is what she is ultimately interested in, but comes to a conclusion that this is just what the people are interested in. So they marry but also have lovers. But the lovers are not supposed to be out in the open, there is a lot of sneaking around when the man is off hunting for a day or two. There is also considerable violence with the men finding out and beating the women. Yet the women hold some degree of power in the community. They are the ones who provide most of the food. The hunting, done mostly by the men was done with bow and arrows. The shaft of the arrows treated with a poison which would aid in bringing down larger animals which could not be instantly killed by the arrows.
I was left with a feeling that there is a lot that is ideal, as in the Garden of Eden, about their lives with the food being there for the taking and construction of housing being constructed with just what is there.
It is a shame that they simply could not accept their polyamorous nature as a given and OK rather than the men occasionally freaking out about it and getting violent in all their pathetic insecurity.

These people in the late 1970s are not living in total isolation. Civilization is encroaching and causing the corrupting changes that seem to go with is price. There is some working for other people nearby and consumption of beer. This is pretty sad in my opinion. No one really needs beer although I understand that it can provide a brief cheap transcendence
Much if what Nisa says is just reported and not further explained. There is a certain amount of talk of “god” doing or causing this or that. But we don’t get to go into what exactly that means to her. But then again what does it mean to anyone? Is this a man/king in the sky? We also don’t know where this god comes from. Is it something long in the culture or a product of European or Arabic colonialism. It is unclear how long these people have been involved with outsiders. But the outsider corruption is in full swing by the time this anthropologist shows up with her Land Rover. And she pays for the interviews. The outsiders have also got the people hooked on tobacco.

Anyway, The is is the first hunter-gatherer related book on anthropology that I have read. It was all quite interesting. There is a follow-up book. Maybe I’ll look at that one some day.

[Talia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was really interesting and an easy read. I'm fascinated by the Khoisan people. I have been since I saw their rock carvings at Wildebeest Kuil and the rock paintings at Giant's Castle four years ago. They really are quite sophisticated. Last fall, I took a world civilization class and ended up doing my final paper on the San. Finding sources and information was a pain. This book never came up in my searches. At Wildebeest Kuil, I watched some videos about the trance dance. they talked about everything mentioned in this book about the dances, including the psychoactive root. When I did my search for source material, I didn't find anything about that root. I was upset that I couldn't find anything because it's a big part of the trance. I couldn't just cite "that one video I saw at Wildebeest Kuil. ", so I didn't include it. Now I have a source, six months later.
There were several things that I found interesting about the book and !Kung life. I found it interesting that the author only referred to the primary !Kung god as 'God', in all of my research I've only seen him as being called /Kaggen. I'm curious as to why she didn't use his name. I suppose that she didn't because she didn't want to offend Christian Americans. Referring to him as God makes it easy to believe that it's the same god as the Christian God.
I was rather disturbed by the sexual play among children. It was kind of shocking. As I got further in the book I realized that the !Kung have a healthier view of sex and of themselves. The !Kung are a very sexual people. They also seem to enjoy fighting, to a degree. The violence was also shocking.
What fascinated me the most were the rituals surrounding marriage and first menstruation. This is the first society I have come across that celebrates menstruation. It's usually a taboo topic.
The wedding ceremony sounds beautiful, though I don't really think marrying off child brides is a good thing. Especially if the marriages are known to have a low chance of lasting.
I admire how !Kung women give birth. They are so brave to do it alone. Their ability to give birth and then go back to their hut to rest for a few days before resuming their usual routines is beautiful and moving.
I can't imagine what it would be like to have a child nurse for years and having to carry that child wherever you went.
!Kung culture is beautiful and rich. I'm glad I had the opportunity to learn more about it.

[Ace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nisa is as enigmatic and charming as Marjorie Shostak suggests; each chapter features an anthropological view of the !Kung people, focusing on topics ranging from birth to marriage to aging and death, as well as a narrative from Nisa's point of view on the same topic. By writing this way, Shostak crafted a generalization of !Kung life that meshes beautifully with Nisa's personal experiences that sometimes match the generalization but more often than not depart from it, providing readers with a rich understanding of Nisa's life and !Kung culture. Though nonfiction, Nisa has a way with words; interviews with her are accompanied with detail and dialogue that sound almost like fiction and draw readers in better than some novels can.

The only thing I wished Shostak had formatted differently was her dialogue. Normally, each person speaking would have their own paragraph, but Shostak often included multiple speakers' dialogue, all within separate quotation marks, within the same paragraph and sometimes without dialogue tags. This format is both unconventional and, at times, a bit confusing. Other than that, though, Nisa offers an intimate, well-written understanding of !Kung life from a female gatherer's perspective.

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't read a lot of non-fiction but I'm glad that when I do it's as good as Nisa. I read this for a cultural anthropology class so the addition of lectures with the book really gave me a further understanding and clearer perspective of what goes on in the book. It was a very interesting glimpse at the hunting and gathering lifestyle in that it gives us, the readers, an idea of life before agriculture and shows us that really we are not more sophisticated or better than our ancestors in a lot of fundamental ways, and further we are not any better than cultures like the !Kung San.
The book is very well written, Shostak writes in a way that is clear, informative and smooth. Nisa's narrative is vibrant and descriptive. Together they balance each other out, Nisa's parts give a personal account that an anthropologist could never give and Shostak supplements this with information and observations she gathered in her studies. the last part of the book offers a little more history and follow up that is just as interesting as the rest and in fact very important in fully comprehending the ethnography. I do wish it there was more updates about contemporary the Khoisan people and what has changed.

[Maryann Pasda DiEdwardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nisa is by a second wave feminist, Marjorie Shostak. 
 Raised in the secular humanistic tradition of Judaism. .Her personal philosophy combined insights from African cultures, her own Judaism, and other spiritual sources. Diagnosed with breast cancer in April 1988, she resolved to return to the Kalahari to see Nisa once again, and did so in 1989. She recorded another series of interviews that form the basis of “Nisa Revisited,” a manuscript that Shostak had almost completed before her death.

[Leslie King · Rating 3 out of 5]

Caveat: 100% read this for school.

Had some problems with Shostak's research, and research lens. I think a number of things could have been explored more, and highly doubt she had a full grasp of the language after only 8 months. In a culture that encourages both bragging and downplaying accomplishments, I really don't think there was enough ...understanding of what was truly happening.

I also recognize that this was a significant work, and pushed for more study of women's roles in various cultures, instead of dismissal of "lesser" women's work.

[Jussi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Metsästäjäkeräilijäheimon varttuneen naisen kertomus elämästään, What’s there not to like? Vahva suositus

[Cecil Whitehead · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so cool, I get so excited reading it that I lose the ability to read and have to calm myself down to be able to read again lol. Nisa is so matter-of-fact, brilliantly sharp, effervescent, self-assured, self-possessed… her energy radiates from the pages, hopefully not altered too much by translation. She generously explains the complexities & nuance of her life story & culture with such clarity of vision & piercing memory (both of sensory detail and broader arcs). The anthropologist author does a decent job of not being condescending or centering her perspective too much and she’s pretty open about her second-wave feminist perspective & completely centering women’s voices (too often overlooked anthropologically) and how her presence itself changes dynamics. The wisdom recorded here about energetic healing, living in community, navigating conflict, the emergence of sexuality in childhood and its development through life, love, marriage, trickster gods, polyamory, taboo, magic…. it’s profound. Points glaringly to so many gaping wounds in our society, our alienation, our shame, our loneliness, our repression, our senseless violence, the way we’ve forgotten how to ritually mock our successful hunters to keep them humble. And at the same time the people in this account are entirely and wholly humanized with all the rich complexity of jealousy, fear, loathing.. feelings seem to move through and out and the freedom and respect most grant one another allow for an all-permeating sense of agency and fulfillment.

[Sedona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marjorie Shostak’s Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman is an anthropological non fiction biography of Nisa’s life and study of !Kung women as a whole. Aside from the prologue and epilogue, each chapter is presented in two parts: first is the larger context of the !Kung people pertaining to the specific section and Shostak’s interpretation of Nisa’s words; second is a translation of an interview with Nisa. The prologue and epilogue provide an overview of the book and a deeper analysis of the interviews, respectively. Through this format and through the overall creation of Nisa, Shostak attempts to show the unfiltered story and unrelenting nature of Nisa and !Kung women as a whole for the purpose of globalizing the realities of a different society. I believe that Shostak succeeded brilliantly in her attempts. Nisa demonstrates how different society’s different beliefs, specifically pertaining to social structure, shape their people’s actions and feelings. More specifically, Nisa’s story reveals a social structure contrasting that of America’s patriarchy, inviting women to consider how their own society dictates their actions and feelings.
It is important to note that the majority of Nisa is a direct translation of Nisa’s (a pseudonym to protect the real woman’s identity) words, making the most prevalent and most important source of the book a primary source. The combination of Nisa’s anecdotes and Shostak’s background information (supplied from various gatherer-hunter studies and more specifically The !Kung San by R. Lee) and analysis provides a balanced view of how the actions of a !Kung woman, information supplied by Nisa, are a reflection of the !Kung’s beliefs, information supplied primarily by Shostak but also by Nisa. For example, throughout chapters 8 and 9, Nisa describes her experiences giving birth. She explains how women of the village might react if they here or see her crying during childbirth: “...they’ll laugh at me and say, ‘How come you’re already a young woman, yet, when you feel the labor, you start to cry?’” (Shostak 174). In the !Kung culture, stoicism during childbirth is expected and prized. It is believed that should the child hear the cries of its mother, it will be scared to be born. Worse, it is believed that should God hear the mother’s cries he will believe that the child is unwanted and take it (meaning kill it). Yet another example is the !Kung women’s open discussion of sex. !Kung society does not dictate a taboo against sex. In fact they often joke around about it while gathering or preparing food. In the epilogue Shostak describes some of her experiences, broadly explaining that “All !Kung women, it seemed, loved to talk and joke about sex” (Shostak 317). While the above evidence is strictly anecdotal, it does not mean it should be regarded as less trustworthy. The point Shostak is making is based on anecdotes. She is studying the daily life of a !Kung woman, often the mundane parts, meaning scientific evidence is not as necessary or useful as anecdotal evidence in this case. (Though it is important to note that scientific facts, such as percentages, were used in the prologue and sometimes in the beginning of chapters).
Nisa’s many and varied anecdotes express her feelings toward aspects of her life, including people and practices. Throughout chapters 2 and 3 Nisa describes her early life. Most notable to me were her expressions of love and pride for her father. In the section Life in the Bush, Nisa recounts her exclamations when her father would come home with meat: “Ho, ho, Daddy’s bringing home meat! Daddy’s coming home with meat!” (Shostak 81). Phrases like this are repeated throughout the early chapters of the book. They carry with them a sense of pride and love. Shostak explains that it was a source of great pride for oneself or one’s family member to be an established hunter. According to her information, only one animal is killed for every four days of hunting and on average a hunter will kill 80 and 120 large animals throughout his career. Though Nisa is primarily based on anecdotal evidence, in this case statistical evidence is necessary to emphasize and explain Nisa’s reactions to her father bringing home many kills. Chapters 5 and 6 present a different side to Nisa’s feelings. While chapters 2 and 3 showed her mostly happy, in chapters 5 and 6 she struggles with growing up and taking on the responsibilities that her society mandates. Nisa is married off for the first time at 12 years old in a trial marriage. Throughout this marriage and her other early marriages she is very unhappy and confused, often saying, “I’m still a child and won’t marry” (Shostak 120). While she grapples with these changes, she often runs away from her marriage hut. These feelings are presented as normal and typical among the !Kung culture, suggesting that society has shaped how young women believe they ought to react (this is explored more later on).
To American readers, some of Nisa’s anecdotes could seem strange, specifically ones about sex and periods. Sex has become such a taboo subject in our culture, as have menstrual cycles. This led me to think about just how much our own society affects our actions. We live in a society unlike the egalitarian society of the !Kung. We live in a society where the patriarchy rules. It rules not only the government, but our daily lives. Women, talk to any man about your period and watch them flinch. Sure, some men are open and supportive but the majority are not, some even fear it. Since men are the ones in power and they are the ones who control most of our society, periods have become a taboo subject, something for women to feel shame about. Comparatively, in the !Kung society where women and men share nearly equally power and influence, periods are brushed off as not too important. They are something that happens and life goes on. In patriarchal societies periods are made a big deal of due to men’s misunderstanding of them. In the epilogue Shostak describes how the !Kung did not “recognize any effect of the menstrual cycle on women’s moods or behavior” (Shostak 316). This deeply contrasts the American belief that menstrual cycles very much so impact a woman’s mood. So does this mean that society truly has such a big impact on the feelings of its people? I think it does. The patriarchy uses the excuse that women’s menstrual cycle affects their mood so heavily that they cannot be trusted to be in positions of power. Simply put, it comes back to the problematic and age old reasoning that a woman couldn’t be president because what if she’s moody on her period and decides to bomb someone. Just as the !Kung women, when it was explained to them that we believed the menstrual cycle affects women’s mood, laughed at the absurdity, should we laugh at the absurdity of the previous statement.
Overall, Nisa encouraged deep reflection on my part. Shostak’s writing was not the main focus of the book which I believe drove the impact and her mission home even more. The separation of her ideas from Nisa’s story felt like the appropriate choice to convey the story with as much objectivity as should be expected from an anthropologist. Though I do believe Nisa’s name should be listed as an author because around half of the book is her words. While I believe Shostak’s intended audience was people around the world in general, I think the book geared more toward the mind of a woman and her experience in society. Furthermore, it made me think about our own patriarchal society and compare it with the egalitarian society of the !Kung. In attempting to make me, a reader, understand another culture, Shostak managed to do even more than her surface goal and make me think about my own society.

[Margaret Rowley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a classic anthropological text, and has received probably more citations than there were words in my own thesis, so I wanted to read it over the summer. What I like about the book: Nisa speaking in her own words, even if there is no dialogic editing. I appreciated the candid attitude with which Shostak confronted her own feelings about being in the field, talking with Nisa, and engaging with the !Kung. It's helpful to get a baseline of another set of social mores- especially one that, say, doesn't include a concept of virginity, and where sex is not (in most cases) taboo.

If I had to critique this text, it would be for Shostak's preoccupation with finding an "average !Kung woman" to interview. I view this as a futile effort, and believe that all anthropologists probably should. Where humans are concerned, I suspect the only way to create or address an "average" is to quantitatively sample and then average it out- not to search for a human who sits in the middle of the pack. Add to this that Shostak's impetus for choosing Nisa in the first place was that she stood out - she was not average - and there is some interesting cognitive dissonance in the foundation of the book. Shostak's work reads a little like salvage anthropology, where she is concerned about documenting something "authentic" and soon-to-be-lost. She comments toward the end of the book that she's worried that Nisa's preoccupation with sex may not reflect what's actually going on in society, but this is the danger inherent in creating a biography, and Nisa steers the proverbial ship the way she wants it to go. The worry that Nisa may not be telling the "truth" (whatever that means when it comes to storytelling, memory, and "culture") seems to hearken back to a long-ago time when anthropologists steeped themselves in the scientific method. I suspect that the contemporary field feels much less of a need to be preoccupied with whether interlocutors are "telling the truth" since much truth is flexible anyway.

All in all, I think I needed to read this book, and I'm glad I did. I'll be chewing on the prose and content for a long time.

[Allison Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

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This book has been chilling in my TBR pile fir probably about a decade now but I finally picked it up and I’m glad I did. It was a delight to read. Weird that the name Nisa made it to the title as it’s a moniker the author gave her to keep her anonymity but that’s just me being picky about things that don’t matter.⁣
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This was written in the 70s during what was quite possibly the beginning of the end of the !Kung culture. The !Kung lived in the bush and were hunter/gathers. This was a book that half explained the culture/customs from an anthropologists POV and then the !Kung woman’s storytelling of her own life. ⁣
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It was charming, sad, raw and illuminating. It spoke of daily life of gathering and constantly being on the move and building huts and was rather heavily sexually oriented. There was drama, surrounding coupling, marriages, taking lovers and the hiding or acceptance of those lovers. ⁣
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Although the life seems difficult to anyone reading, the !King were well nourished and had much more leisure time than their western counterparts. Although life expectancy wasn’t the greatest, it seems like !Kung lead mostly peaceful lives, with both sexes of equal importance (compared to other cultures). This is just their story. ⁣
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It left me feeling a bit sad (and thinking about the book Ishmael) but I can only assume that the !Kung have come close or have completely lost their culture by now. I’m not sure I want to know. ⁣
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On that note, if you like biographies or auto-biographies def give this one a go. It was a surprisingly good read. ⁣
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[Ann]

Marjorie Shostak was an anthropologist studying the women of the !Kung hunter-gatherers on the edge of the Kalahari in the 1960's and 1970's.

This book is the result of her interviews with one of those women, Nisa It is Nisa's life story as told to Marjorie in conversations that took place over a period of many years, left off, to be taken up again during Marjorie's next visit.

What I liked best about this book is that the translation seemed to me to capture Nisa's voice and the rhythms of African oral storytelling tradition.

It was also an interesting study, and sad to see how the way of life of the !Kung, and all of the San people have changed so dramatically.

[Robert Greenberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nisa is infuriating and endlessly fascinating because her life, spanning the 1950s-1970s, is completely alien to my own. The subject of Shostak's anthropological study, Nisa's biography is a tale full of sadness and experience. She outlives her children and goes through several husbands while also juggling a seemingly endless supply of lovers. The simple life of the !Kung tribe in Botswana is an eye into another reality, where most of our diseases and problems don't exist. Instead, they hunt, eat, dance, sing make love, and wander from place to place as food or family beckon them. Shostak's chapters open with context and then Nisa's story spellbinds us.

[Mandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is the kind of ethnography I would want to write, where the informant speaks for herself! what a master work. I was really inspired by learning more about the !Kung as well as Nisa herself.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is the story of Nisa, a member of the !Kung hunter-gatherer people of southern Africa's Kalahari desert, told in her own words -- earthy, emotional, vivid -- to Marjorie Shostak, an American ethnographer. Together, these two women break through immense barriers of language and culture to give us a fascinating view of a remarkable life."
~~back cover

I was introduced to the !Kung (the ! stands for a click sound) while doing my undergraduate work, so was delighted to find this book, which I hadn't previously read. Each chapter is divided into two parts: first is the ethnographer's account of the subject of the chapter as regards the entire tribe; second is Nisa's own words, talking about how the subject of the chapter played out in her life.

It surprised me that so much of Nisa's "memoirs" concerned lovers and husbands and sex, although I suppose that was truly an important part of !Kung life. The !Kung (at least as they were during the period Ms. Shostak was doing her field work) were truly Paleolithic people, which means no external forms of entertainment. No books, no radio, no tv -- living their entire lives within a circumscribed area. So aside from dances, what was there to do but to gossip amongst themselves ... and to pursue illicit love affairs, to add spice to an otherwise monotonous daily routine?

It made for a very interesting book ... if you like ethnographies.

[Dale Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nisa was a women who lived as part of a San !Kung tribe that hunted and gathered in the Kalahari desert of Botswana. Her story was told by an Anthropologist, Marjorie Shostak who met her while she did field work studying the tribe. She interviewed her extensively and with her permission wrote her story from birth to old age as she told it.

The story is fascinating- she describes her experience, for example, when her sibling was born and she could no longer nurse because her sibling wanted her mother's breast. She describes her marriage and many lovers. I didn't like her much, yet I felt I learned a lot from reading her story.

She describes !Kung culture and there are a lot of similarities and differences between our culture and theirs.

The book was written in 1981, when the hunter gatherer lifestyle was beginning to fade away. I did some reading to find out what happened to the group and now, and Wikipedia says that "today, the great majority of ǃKung people live in the villages of Bantu pastoralists and European ranchers." The book is an interesting read, especially if you are interested in indigenous peoples.

The view point shifts between the author telling her story as she does her field work, Nisa telling her story to the author, and some overview discussion of the IKung Culture. The changes strengthen the book.

[Greg Torres · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feeling about this book. I read it for class and liked some parts more than others. I enjoy reading about other cultures and found Shostak's accounting of the !Kung to be interesting. One of the eye opening things is that you think of cultures like these of being more oppressive to women, but the !Kung, while not equal are probably better than many. We have a tendency to judge cultures based on things we find important abnd can look down on cultures like the !Kung. But they have survived for thousands? of years and while things like infection are certainly an issue they seem to be happy overall.
What I did not like about the book was Nisa herself. I understand what Shostak was trying to do, but I feel Nisa is just unlikeable and it is hard to get behind a character you just do not like. I also do not really trust her. Many parts of the story seem embellished and that makes it seem less authentic.
Overall, not a bad book and I feel better for reading it. But it can be a tedious read at times and I am glad I am done with it.

[Emma Behrens · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had the pleasure of reading and discussing Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman for a course in macrosociology. Admittedly, I would not have picked up a copy of Shostak’s ethnography on my own accord, but it was quite an engaging piece of academic reading.
The text immerses readers in the world of the !Kung people, a hunter-gatherer society in late-20th-century Africa. Through a series of in-depth interviews over a period of six years, Shostak formed a relationship with a woman named Nisa, her individual case study acting as a lens through which readers can perceive !Kung life. Her story is filled with love, laughter, and loss, and is profoundly human in nature.
A staple of sociological anthropology classes, Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman is an engaging read, a lovely introduction to the world of ethnographic research.

[Bob Lamothe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this in college for an anthropology class. The thing that sticks with me was how annoying Nisa was. She was selfish, ungrateful, and entitled. I remember how she would whine about not getting enough meat. It was unclear to me what she contributed, but she certainly expected much from her father, her lovers, and her husbands. If you have to read this for college make sure you give your SJW professor everything they expect in your reports. I you don't have to read this don't bother, just read an article by a feminist how everything is a mans fault and you'll get the idea.

[Zoë · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad I took my time with this deep and richly rewarding book. Each encounter with it brought visual memories of my visit to Botswana and an appreciation for the culture and all the people I met there. By the end of the book the !Kung San language structure (I assume faithfully translated from the tape recordings) became more nuanced and the meanings clarified themselves. The book captures an important time in the San culture before wide spread and challenging changes began to take place. Shostak was key in helping preserve information about a vanishing people and culture.

[dru · Rating 3 out of 5]

this was informative and interesting near the entire way through, but it was also incredibly repetitive and i do wish we’d gotten more analysis of nisa’s stories from the author—i understand the importance of objectivity but there was so much violence in nisa’s life that was brushed over and it often felt out of line with the anthropologists’ claims of !kung culture. i don’t know, this obviously differs person to person but it was difficult to read about abuse, rape, and homicide so casually with little to no acknowledgment of said violence.

[Taliarochminska]

One of the major misconceptions about the life of hunter gatherers is that it was not actually characterized by constant deprivation. Contrarily, they worked for 2-3 hours, had abundance of nutritious food, water and leisure with both men and women contributing substantially to social and economic life. Their life was full of human worth, and defined by the social relations, more than anything else.

[Eliza Holt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Admittedly had to read this for a class -- it started slow, got very gruesome and mindbogglingly uncomfortable to read at times, but by the end of it, this woman, this Nisa, felt like a relative that has passed that I so long to get to speak to again, though she likely passed in real life long before I was even born. I wish Shostak were still here, so I could somehow reach her and tell her how much I enjoyed this book.

[Amélie Brouillard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interessanter Einblick, wobei natürlich fraglich ist, wieviel da eventuell misinterpretiert oder nicht richtig dargestellt wurde. Ich denke nicht, dass Nisa so eine einfach Persönlichkeit hat, wie sie hier dargestellt wird, da gab es bestimmt noch einige Sprachbarrieren. Schade, dass es keine Erzählung von Nisa über Marjorie gibt.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought that this book told a good story. Makes you want to read more Anthropological memoirs, if you haven't already gotten the bug. Emphasizes that we can transcend cultural differences on a deep level if we so choose. written in a way that does not require professional training to appreciate.

[kayleigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 stars.

I read this for my Anthropology class, so I'm not going to review it. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be, but I really didn't love it. I'm definitely using it towards my 2018 reading challenge, though.