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The Old Way: A Story of the First People
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was nineteen when her father took his family to live among the Bushmen of the Kalahari. Fifty years later, after a life of writing and study, Thomas returns to her experiences with the Bushmen, one of the last hunter-gatherer societies on earth, and discovers among them an essential link to the origins of all human society.
Humans lived for 1,500 centuries as roving clans, adapting daily to changes in environment and food supply, living for the most part like their animal ancestors. Those origins are not so easily abandoned, Thomas suggests, and our modern society has plenty still to learn from the Bushmen.
Through her vivid, empathic account, Thomas reveals a template for the lives and societies of all humankind.
Humans lived for 1,500 centuries as roving clans, adapting daily to changes in environment and food supply, living for the most part like their animal ancestors. Those origins are not so easily abandoned, Thomas suggests, and our modern society has plenty still to learn from the Bushmen.
Through her vivid, empathic account, Thomas reveals a template for the lives and societies of all humankind.
348 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
129 people are currently reading
1950 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
47 books255 followersElizabeth Marshall Thomas is the author of The Harmless People, a non fiction work about the Kung Bushmen of southwestern Africa, and of Reindeer Moon, a novel about the paleolithic hunter gatherers of Siberia, both of which were tremendous international successes. She lives in New Hampshire.
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October 21, 2020
The Old Ways
Imagine a digging stick as more important to humankind's existence than a mobile phone. Without an experienced frame of reference, many in today's world would brush aside the thought. Mentally, in our hubristic mind-set, we've pretty much removed ourselves from the natural world that sustains us, for the most part believing we are now in control despite the increasing consequences evidenced.
Over the history of life on earth there have been numerous extinction events (extinctions outpacing speciation), five of which are considered Great Extinctions. There have also been numerous species population bottlenecks, including humans, but current archaeological, paleontological, and genetic data are inadequate to provide conclusive evidence of specific events. We are currently living in an ongoing sixth Great Extinction that is caused by human activity, and at peril.
Why this is pertinent to this review is that at a minimum we are on a course to creating a more primitive environment in which to get by, one possibly not unlike that faced by our earliest ancestors as exemplified in this book.
As late as the 1950s some small bands of hunter-gathers (the !Kung Bushmen) still existed in the Kalahari Desert (in Namibia and Botswana), living much as our ancestors must have fifteen hundred centuries ago. This book is about Laurence Marshall (co-founder of the Raytheon Corporation), with his wife (anthropologist Lorna Marshall), daughter and son, finding these hunter-gathers and documenting their lives. The author is Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, the daughter, and her thorough writing reads like a time travel experience.
An example of the documented !Kung Bushmen society is:
"In most ways, women were the equals of men, fully as respected, fully as important in decision making, fully as free to choose a spouse or get divorced or own a n!ore. Most men, after all, lived for at least part of their lives on the n!oresi of their wives, in service to their wives’ families. Men also were the equals of women, fully as tender toward their children, fully as ready to take part in daily tasks such as getting water or firewood. Yet there was a great dividing line between men and women that the Ju/wasi did not cross. For all their equality, they did not do as we do in industrialized societies—the Ju/wasi did not, for instance, have the equivalent of woman soldiers or male nurses—and the division had a biological element that, considering that the people lived in the Old Way, is no surprise. The division came down to childbearing and hunting. Matters of birth were only for women, and matters of hunting were only for men.
"Perhaps the passive power of women was the stronger of the two, but the active power of men was more apparent. It was the men, not the women, who confronted visiting lions, shaking burning branches at them and telling them to leave . . . Men always accompanied women on any trip that required an overnight stay, but only to protect them, not to supervise them.
"By and large, however, women provided the foods that sustained the people, which they did by normal gathering, and men provided the food that people liked the best and valued most highly, the meat of the important antelopes."
Also telling is, ". . . unlike agricultural and industrial peoples who want to influence the natural world, the hunter-gatherers wanted to join with it . . .”
The reader may notice interesting parallels between the !Kung Bushmen Old Ways society documented, those of some other indigenous peoples like the Hopi, and those of some of our cousins, like elephants, lions and bonobos.
Something that may bother some readers is that in the text there is a smattering of repeated material, usually in different contexts, because the author goes to great lengths in trying to explain the Old Ways.
Pay particular attention in chapter 16, and you may gain a better understanding of what we have lost.
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" ~ T. S. Eliot, The Rock, 1934
"Since the 1950s, change has been rapid. The San [Bushmen] are no longer allowed to hunt the animals they once did and they have inevitably been caught up in the political changes that have taken place in Namibia and Botswana. They now have access to schools and hospitals, but poverty is their overwhelming lot."
The absurdities and harm we have heaped on these Bushmen in our ignorance reflect our own festering cultures — parallels easily seen now in the cultures of most all indigenous peoples.
All in all, this book was an interesting and informative read. One that shows how far we have digressed in our societies and what we have lost in our hubristic progress. Will we need to relearn the Old Ways again in the alien world we are rushing towards?
Imagine a digging stick as more important to humankind's existence than a mobile phone. Without an experienced frame of reference, many in today's world would brush aside the thought. Mentally, in our hubristic mind-set, we've pretty much removed ourselves from the natural world that sustains us, for the most part believing we are now in control despite the increasing consequences evidenced.
Over the history of life on earth there have been numerous extinction events (extinctions outpacing speciation), five of which are considered Great Extinctions. There have also been numerous species population bottlenecks, including humans, but current archaeological, paleontological, and genetic data are inadequate to provide conclusive evidence of specific events. We are currently living in an ongoing sixth Great Extinction that is caused by human activity, and at peril.
Why this is pertinent to this review is that at a minimum we are on a course to creating a more primitive environment in which to get by, one possibly not unlike that faced by our earliest ancestors as exemplified in this book.
As late as the 1950s some small bands of hunter-gathers (the !Kung Bushmen) still existed in the Kalahari Desert (in Namibia and Botswana), living much as our ancestors must have fifteen hundred centuries ago. This book is about Laurence Marshall (co-founder of the Raytheon Corporation), with his wife (anthropologist Lorna Marshall), daughter and son, finding these hunter-gathers and documenting their lives. The author is Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, the daughter, and her thorough writing reads like a time travel experience.
An example of the documented !Kung Bushmen society is:
"In most ways, women were the equals of men, fully as respected, fully as important in decision making, fully as free to choose a spouse or get divorced or own a n!ore. Most men, after all, lived for at least part of their lives on the n!oresi of their wives, in service to their wives’ families. Men also were the equals of women, fully as tender toward their children, fully as ready to take part in daily tasks such as getting water or firewood. Yet there was a great dividing line between men and women that the Ju/wasi did not cross. For all their equality, they did not do as we do in industrialized societies—the Ju/wasi did not, for instance, have the equivalent of woman soldiers or male nurses—and the division had a biological element that, considering that the people lived in the Old Way, is no surprise. The division came down to childbearing and hunting. Matters of birth were only for women, and matters of hunting were only for men.
"Perhaps the passive power of women was the stronger of the two, but the active power of men was more apparent. It was the men, not the women, who confronted visiting lions, shaking burning branches at them and telling them to leave . . . Men always accompanied women on any trip that required an overnight stay, but only to protect them, not to supervise them.
"By and large, however, women provided the foods that sustained the people, which they did by normal gathering, and men provided the food that people liked the best and valued most highly, the meat of the important antelopes."
Also telling is, ". . . unlike agricultural and industrial peoples who want to influence the natural world, the hunter-gatherers wanted to join with it . . .”
The reader may notice interesting parallels between the !Kung Bushmen Old Ways society documented, those of some other indigenous peoples like the Hopi, and those of some of our cousins, like elephants, lions and bonobos.
Something that may bother some readers is that in the text there is a smattering of repeated material, usually in different contexts, because the author goes to great lengths in trying to explain the Old Ways.
Pay particular attention in chapter 16, and you may gain a better understanding of what we have lost.
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" ~ T. S. Eliot, The Rock, 1934
"Since the 1950s, change has been rapid. The San [Bushmen] are no longer allowed to hunt the animals they once did and they have inevitably been caught up in the political changes that have taken place in Namibia and Botswana. They now have access to schools and hospitals, but poverty is their overwhelming lot."
The absurdities and harm we have heaped on these Bushmen in our ignorance reflect our own festering cultures — parallels easily seen now in the cultures of most all indigenous peoples.
All in all, this book was an interesting and informative read. One that shows how far we have digressed in our societies and what we have lost in our hubristic progress. Will we need to relearn the Old Ways again in the alien world we are rushing towards?
June 10, 2019
As always, please read the publisher's introduction (above) first, for context.
I didn't at all care for the speculative anthropology that opens the book (see Max Carmichael's review, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). The author’s personal observations are the meat of the book, and some are extraordinary. For instance, I invite you to jump to her description of Kalahari lions and other dangerous predators (p. 150). The most memorable part of her wonderful book “The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture” was about the lions and the Bushmen. The Bushmen didn’t bother the lions, and the lions (largely) left the people alone. Which wasn’t true of the hyenas, who regularly killed and ate people, though (usually) old and sick people.
So you should skip over the introductory material and start either with the lions, or with EMT’s family and their first trip into the Kalahari in 1950, when it was largely unknown to Westerners. The wonderful picture of EMT and her mother on p.57 should catch your attention.
And then continue on, skipping over anything that doesn’t hold your attention. But maybe come back to those sections later. These are interesting people — both the locals and the Americans. They were one of the last pure hunter-gatherer cultures, and it was an admirable success. EMT doesn’t gloss over the hardships, and she’s a graceful writer.
Sadly but predictably, the outside world moved in, and the result wasn’t pretty. But the Ju/wasi people have a resilient culture, and the book ends on a note of hope.
I’d written a “meh” review, the book is due, but I decided to give it one more chance. I’m glad I did! 4 stars.
I didn't at all care for the speculative anthropology that opens the book (see Max Carmichael's review, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). The author’s personal observations are the meat of the book, and some are extraordinary. For instance, I invite you to jump to her description of Kalahari lions and other dangerous predators (p. 150). The most memorable part of her wonderful book “The Tribe of Tiger: Cats and Their Culture” was about the lions and the Bushmen. The Bushmen didn’t bother the lions, and the lions (largely) left the people alone. Which wasn’t true of the hyenas, who regularly killed and ate people, though (usually) old and sick people.
So you should skip over the introductory material and start either with the lions, or with EMT’s family and their first trip into the Kalahari in 1950, when it was largely unknown to Westerners. The wonderful picture of EMT and her mother on p.57 should catch your attention.
And then continue on, skipping over anything that doesn’t hold your attention. But maybe come back to those sections later. These are interesting people — both the locals and the Americans. They were one of the last pure hunter-gatherer cultures, and it was an admirable success. EMT doesn’t gloss over the hardships, and she’s a graceful writer.
Sadly but predictably, the outside world moved in, and the result wasn’t pretty. But the Ju/wasi people have a resilient culture, and the book ends on a note of hope.
I’d written a “meh” review, the book is due, but I decided to give it one more chance. I’m glad I did! 4 stars.
March 21, 2013
The Old Way: A Story of the First People is an absolutely fascinating account of the !Kung, or Ju/wasi ("The People"), people of the Kalahari Desert region of southwestern Africa. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas wrote this book in 2006, based upon the many years that she and her family spent with these amazing people starting in the early 1950s. In fact, Thomas's mother ended up publishing several anthropological monographs through Harvard University describing the !Kung hunter-gatherer lifestyle in this desolate and unforgiving landscape. Thomas herself, as a young woman, spent several years living with and getting to know the !Kung, and recorded her observations in her personal journals. Her older brother, John, spent most of his life with these people, working tirelessly on their behalf, and even married a Ju/wasi woman.
Like most people, I'd heard about the "Bushmen of the Kalahari" as a boy, but really had no idea what that meant, or really who these people were. In a nutshell, the !Kung are an ancient people that have essentially lived a nomadic Paleolithic lifestyle in the Kalahari Desert for more than 20,000 years. Interestingly too, with the recent completion of the Human Genome Project, we now know that these people are some of the most ancient and genetically diverse anatomically modern humans (i.e., Homo sapiens) on the planet. If you will, the !Kung peoples are the 'rootstock' of most of us. And as such, I think a book like that which Ms. Thomas has written is incredibly important for all of us to read and think about. In other words, this book has the capability of putting us firmly in touch with who we were, and who we are.
The !Kung also speak an incredibly ancient language--one of the African 'click' languages--a mix of phonemes and click sounds made with the palate, lips, tongue, or cheeks. Linguists believe that the click language that the !Kung speak is at least 60,000 years old, and may rank as one of humanity's oldest existing languages. In reading this book I discovered that utilizing a click language actually makes great sense when living and hunting in a dangerously hostile environment like the Kalahari, as the click sounds tend to blend in and sound more 'natural' and don't alarm prey or alert potential predators like spoken words can.
Ms. Thomas starts off talking about the relationship of these people to the 1,500 centuries, or more, of modern human existence; and up until the mid-1960s, not much had changed from the way our Paleolithic ancestors lived some 60,000-70,000 years ago. She then described the complex relationship that the !Kung had with their environment and the animals that occupied the Kalahari and that the people depended upon for meat. The heart of the book is that these were peoples that were completely connected to the habitat and ecology around them. They intimately understood the habits of all of the animals and and habitat preferences and uses for the plant species of the savannah and desert. Ms. Thomas describes in fascinating detail how plants are gathered and used among the people, marriage and the importance of lineage, how children were raised, how animals were hunted, religious and mythological beliefs, the interactions and social fabric of the family dynamic and small collections of families that lived and migrated together. There is even a whole chapter on the relationship of the !Kung with the top predators of the Kalahari, African lions, leopards, and spotted hyenas.
Inevitably though time and the new way of human life caught up to this remote corner of the world, and Thomas reports that by the 1990s most of the Bushmen, including the !Kung, had been forced off of their natural ranges and now live in government-sponsored shanty towns and have largely given up their hunter-gatherer subsistence lifestyle. And similar to what has happened to many Native American peoples in the United States, it has been a very difficult transition for many of them in trying to adapt to the new ways of 'modern' living. It made me sad to think that these people, so lovingly described and respected by Ms. Thomas in this book, really no longer exist. Sure, there are still Bushmen living in southwestern Africa near their old homelands in the Kalahari Desert, but they're not living "The Old Way" as the "First People" any longer, and that, I think, is a loss for all of humanity.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this book, and count it as a non-fiction favorite read for 2013, and is certainly a book that I will undoubtedly revisit sometime in the future.
Like most people, I'd heard about the "Bushmen of the Kalahari" as a boy, but really had no idea what that meant, or really who these people were. In a nutshell, the !Kung are an ancient people that have essentially lived a nomadic Paleolithic lifestyle in the Kalahari Desert for more than 20,000 years. Interestingly too, with the recent completion of the Human Genome Project, we now know that these people are some of the most ancient and genetically diverse anatomically modern humans (i.e., Homo sapiens) on the planet. If you will, the !Kung peoples are the 'rootstock' of most of us. And as such, I think a book like that which Ms. Thomas has written is incredibly important for all of us to read and think about. In other words, this book has the capability of putting us firmly in touch with who we were, and who we are.
The !Kung also speak an incredibly ancient language--one of the African 'click' languages--a mix of phonemes and click sounds made with the palate, lips, tongue, or cheeks. Linguists believe that the click language that the !Kung speak is at least 60,000 years old, and may rank as one of humanity's oldest existing languages. In reading this book I discovered that utilizing a click language actually makes great sense when living and hunting in a dangerously hostile environment like the Kalahari, as the click sounds tend to blend in and sound more 'natural' and don't alarm prey or alert potential predators like spoken words can.
Ms. Thomas starts off talking about the relationship of these people to the 1,500 centuries, or more, of modern human existence; and up until the mid-1960s, not much had changed from the way our Paleolithic ancestors lived some 60,000-70,000 years ago. She then described the complex relationship that the !Kung had with their environment and the animals that occupied the Kalahari and that the people depended upon for meat. The heart of the book is that these were peoples that were completely connected to the habitat and ecology around them. They intimately understood the habits of all of the animals and and habitat preferences and uses for the plant species of the savannah and desert. Ms. Thomas describes in fascinating detail how plants are gathered and used among the people, marriage and the importance of lineage, how children were raised, how animals were hunted, religious and mythological beliefs, the interactions and social fabric of the family dynamic and small collections of families that lived and migrated together. There is even a whole chapter on the relationship of the !Kung with the top predators of the Kalahari, African lions, leopards, and spotted hyenas.
Inevitably though time and the new way of human life caught up to this remote corner of the world, and Thomas reports that by the 1990s most of the Bushmen, including the !Kung, had been forced off of their natural ranges and now live in government-sponsored shanty towns and have largely given up their hunter-gatherer subsistence lifestyle. And similar to what has happened to many Native American peoples in the United States, it has been a very difficult transition for many of them in trying to adapt to the new ways of 'modern' living. It made me sad to think that these people, so lovingly described and respected by Ms. Thomas in this book, really no longer exist. Sure, there are still Bushmen living in southwestern Africa near their old homelands in the Kalahari Desert, but they're not living "The Old Way" as the "First People" any longer, and that, I think, is a loss for all of humanity.
In conclusion, I highly recommend this book, and count it as a non-fiction favorite read for 2013, and is certainly a book that I will undoubtedly revisit sometime in the future.
April 25, 2012
I am curious about what makes us tick. The genes that evolved on the African savannah are used to explain our behavior: mating, agression, diet. "What would caveman do?", I ask myself as I deal with the wild bunch that are my children. I've always suspected that the club-wielding, meat chowin' caricature was not quite right.
The Old Way is an eyewitness account of what the savannah world was really like. Ms. Thomas was lucky to live with the last generation of Bushmen that lived the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. And that lifestyle looked nothing like that caveman. Their social skills matched ours, and they nature skills were mind-blowing.
This is one of those books that changes my world view. If the book was published today, she'd be speaking at TED.
The last book I enjoyed this much was Born To Run. "Born To Run" talked about men hunting antelopes by running. They were talking about a chapter from the "The Old Way".
The ending is a major bummer, the Bushmen lose their land and lifestyle, win access to alcohol, disease, tiny farms. My google-fu was not strong enough to find a suitable charity.
The Old Way is an eyewitness account of what the savannah world was really like. Ms. Thomas was lucky to live with the last generation of Bushmen that lived the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. And that lifestyle looked nothing like that caveman. Their social skills matched ours, and they nature skills were mind-blowing.
This is one of those books that changes my world view. If the book was published today, she'd be speaking at TED.
The last book I enjoyed this much was Born To Run. "Born To Run" talked about men hunting antelopes by running. They were talking about a chapter from the "The Old Way".
The ending is a major bummer, the Bushmen lose their land and lifestyle, win access to alcohol, disease, tiny farms. My google-fu was not strong enough to find a suitable charity.
September 9, 2011
This is the best report on a hunting-gathering people I have ever seen: first-hand, comprehensive, detailed, with very convincing interpretations. Not only it enlightens me about these bush people, but also on many animals. The report follows up and summarizes their changing living conditions from stone to computer ages in about half a century. It is based on the work of two generations of the author's family living with the tribe for most of their years during that time. Now I have some fair imagination of what our ancestors were like 150,000 to 15,000 years ago.
For perfection, adding some counterbalancing points would be even better. The book paints a very rosy picture of the bush people, as they seem to beat us in many aspects in harmony of the community, sexual equality, child education, elderly support, controls of birth and crime, some areas of popular knowledge in astronomy and botany, and religion, etc. I don’t dispute the theme that the old way worked, if it means the survival and prosper of the species, because we are all living proofs of that, but how their lives suffer from endless hardship, monotony, and countless premature deaths is not described proportionally. I’m sure of the dark side of the old way, simply considering virtually none of us would want to live in it for its own sake, and virtually no bushman would refuse to turn to our new ways if informed and given choice (they surely want our materials and ease--in the book, because some clothes were given to only one family, the whole tribe was in such intense envy that many sadly left the community).
This brings to the obvious question of whether we, “civilized” people, should help protect their old way, or rather restore it, now that we have already caused them out of it. The book covers much the debate among some people on this, but avoids to clearly and strongly lay down the author's own opinion. It says to the effect of that keeping their old way would be a great enrichment of human knowledge or ideology. However, I think that enrichment is really in the interest of ours, and not of theirs. In order for them to live the old way without introducing new pains, they would have to be completely isolated from and ignorant about us, which means we would have not contacted them whatsoever, either as tourists, employers, exploiters, helpers, competing hunters, journalists, or anthropologists. Even if this could be retroactively done, it would nevertheless defy the purpose for enriching our knowledge as we then could not observe them. I guess the author is full aware of this dilemma, hence the avoidance. But I would rather want to hear what she says. To me, even “unsolvable” or “I don’t know” would still be much better than silence.
For perfection, adding some counterbalancing points would be even better. The book paints a very rosy picture of the bush people, as they seem to beat us in many aspects in harmony of the community, sexual equality, child education, elderly support, controls of birth and crime, some areas of popular knowledge in astronomy and botany, and religion, etc. I don’t dispute the theme that the old way worked, if it means the survival and prosper of the species, because we are all living proofs of that, but how their lives suffer from endless hardship, monotony, and countless premature deaths is not described proportionally. I’m sure of the dark side of the old way, simply considering virtually none of us would want to live in it for its own sake, and virtually no bushman would refuse to turn to our new ways if informed and given choice (they surely want our materials and ease--in the book, because some clothes were given to only one family, the whole tribe was in such intense envy that many sadly left the community).
This brings to the obvious question of whether we, “civilized” people, should help protect their old way, or rather restore it, now that we have already caused them out of it. The book covers much the debate among some people on this, but avoids to clearly and strongly lay down the author's own opinion. It says to the effect of that keeping their old way would be a great enrichment of human knowledge or ideology. However, I think that enrichment is really in the interest of ours, and not of theirs. In order for them to live the old way without introducing new pains, they would have to be completely isolated from and ignorant about us, which means we would have not contacted them whatsoever, either as tourists, employers, exploiters, helpers, competing hunters, journalists, or anthropologists. Even if this could be retroactively done, it would nevertheless defy the purpose for enriching our knowledge as we then could not observe them. I guess the author is full aware of this dilemma, hence the avoidance. But I would rather want to hear what she says. To me, even “unsolvable” or “I don’t know” would still be much better than silence.
February 25, 2014
After opening with unnecessary and dubious evolutionary abstractions and generalizations, Marshall settles into her personal, concrete narrative of Bushman life, which makes this worth reading as she updates and expands on the observations of her youth.
The saga of these resourceful and socially robust people shows, by contrast, what a false view we technologically advanced people have of our own societies, and how much we could learn from them if we recognized how dysfunctional and destructive our own culture truly is, at its very foundations.
As Marshall points out at the end of her book, the Bushmen survive and sustain key elements of their culture even in the wake of unimaginable trauma: kidnapping and slavery, the theft and destruction of their entire resource base and livelihood, and the forced imposition of alien lifeways, all at the hands of "civilized" Anglo-European invaders.
My reform-minded friends keep telling me that indigenous cultures are dead and vanished, they're irrelevant and have nothing to teach us because they've failed (they allowed us to conquer them), and since we won, our way is clearly the best; there's no turning back; we just have a few problems we need to solve by reforming our basically successful institutions. They'll keep saying this all the way down the slope of societal decline.
That said, Marshall's thesis of the "Old Way," positing the Bushmen as representatives of the oldest truly human culture, sharing a continuum with other apes and savannah wildlife, is a distraction, part of her unnecessary attempt to legitimize her studies by association with evolutionary theory.
The saga of these resourceful and socially robust people shows, by contrast, what a false view we technologically advanced people have of our own societies, and how much we could learn from them if we recognized how dysfunctional and destructive our own culture truly is, at its very foundations.
As Marshall points out at the end of her book, the Bushmen survive and sustain key elements of their culture even in the wake of unimaginable trauma: kidnapping and slavery, the theft and destruction of their entire resource base and livelihood, and the forced imposition of alien lifeways, all at the hands of "civilized" Anglo-European invaders.
My reform-minded friends keep telling me that indigenous cultures are dead and vanished, they're irrelevant and have nothing to teach us because they've failed (they allowed us to conquer them), and since we won, our way is clearly the best; there's no turning back; we just have a few problems we need to solve by reforming our basically successful institutions. They'll keep saying this all the way down the slope of societal decline.
That said, Marshall's thesis of the "Old Way," positing the Bushmen as representatives of the oldest truly human culture, sharing a continuum with other apes and savannah wildlife, is a distraction, part of her unnecessary attempt to legitimize her studies by association with evolutionary theory.
April 22, 2007
Ultimately, the book appeals to the emotions rather than the intellect (but perhaps rightfully so). It is not a serious anthropological study by any means. Certain facts offered in the text could be disputed, her frequent analogies range from unneccesary to utterly ridiculous, and her attempts at providing evolutionary explanations for the long-enduring behaviors exhibited by Ju/wasi--and the rest of humanity--are amateur at best. Rather, its value lies in in the unique insight it provides as a personal account describing Elizabeth's firsthand experiences as an outsider among the Ju/wasi, and, for whatever it's worth, the nostalgic recollection and reflection offered by a person who has witnessed great change in his or her lifetime. And perhaps most noteworthy, the people known as the Ju/wasi are transformed from some exotic culture in a farwaway, obscure land to individuals that people from a vastly different way of life can relate to, sympathize with, and mourn for.
May 16, 2013
Interesting...but told me a bit more than I wanted to know, which is usually a good thing but not so much this time...however, the saving grace of this book was how it showcased a snapshot in time of a people of extremes who lived the way of our ancestors. Historically tribal fun!
May 6, 2015
'The Old Way' describes a hunter-gatherer's life from the most ancient of times until the very recent past.
August 26, 2024
Although clearly I wouldn't stand a chance living the old way, at least I can comfort myself with the knowledge that I'm also utterly incompetent at living in my own society.
November 12, 2015
Great and easy read book about anthropology. If you have not read it and plan to read more than 100 books in your life this is a must read.
Pro: Easy to read and very interesting. This a great book to start of with if you want to know how all humanity used to live.
Con: After having read a lot of others anthropology books I can much clear see the mistakes in this book. Even though the !Kung are presented in a fair way and everything is correct it does leave violent parts out of the book, or fighting parts. It tends to focus on the egalitarian aspect on foragers. While this is not false I think other books expand on the real image of foragers and their darker sides. This is a problem I have experienced with all anthropology books that only focus on the narrative part and don't include the science of evolutionary psychology to understand what they describe. It is easy to become biased or present things in a way that support your worldview whatever your worldview is communism or feminism.
Pro: Easy to read and very interesting. This a great book to start of with if you want to know how all humanity used to live.
Con: After having read a lot of others anthropology books I can much clear see the mistakes in this book. Even though the !Kung are presented in a fair way and everything is correct it does leave violent parts out of the book, or fighting parts. It tends to focus on the egalitarian aspect on foragers. While this is not false I think other books expand on the real image of foragers and their darker sides. This is a problem I have experienced with all anthropology books that only focus on the narrative part and don't include the science of evolutionary psychology to understand what they describe. It is easy to become biased or present things in a way that support your worldview whatever your worldview is communism or feminism.
January 13, 2024
I enjoyed this retrospective, although it felt a bit windy at times. The lens of examining how the practices of 1950s hunter-gatherers may tie back through evolution allows the author to cover interesting tangents about the behavior of lions, but as with all evolutionary theory, it eventually becomes creative storytelling. I just don't find "evolutionary midrash" to be more interesting than the OG midrash.
It also felt very idealized. The author keeps saying improbable things that are often contradicted by other anthropologists working in adjacent communities.
For example, she says the babies never cry and she only saw one toddler tantrum, ever. Marjorie Shostak, who worked with a different !Kung tribe, witnessed unhappy children crying and toddlers fighting their mothers.
Thomas says children were always supervised and bad behavior immediately stopped (somehow without tears, I suppose); Shostak describes children playing at the outskirts of the village and bullying and even raping each other. It is possible that things were different in the group Thomas visited. It's also possible she just didn't get all the intel.
Thomas says murders were only committed by crazy people or to keep the tribe safe; yet in a previous chapter she describes more casual killings, such as one man killing another for taking the honey from his hive. Shostak finds casual impulsive killing more common as well.
Thomas says infidelity almost never occurred; Shostak described infidelity as common, although kept quiet and not officially tolerated.
They both agree that girls can reject potential suitors, but Shostak illustrates that tribal patience for would-be spinsters wears thin fast.
The !Kung people have a distinct "noble savage" aura about them in Thomas's book. They have that aura in general culture, and have been held up often as the picture of man in perfect harmony with his world. Thomas's books are definitely part of what created that mystique.
However, such an idyllic society is unlikely; Jean Briggs ("Never in Anger") also describes a society in which calmness prevails, but nobody comes out of the womb that way. She describes how that calm is developed in 5-8yo children, often with great effort and at great cost. It is hard to see Thomas's description as anything but idealized.
On the whole, an enjoyable book, but bring your salt shaker.
It also felt very idealized. The author keeps saying improbable things that are often contradicted by other anthropologists working in adjacent communities.
For example, she says the babies never cry and she only saw one toddler tantrum, ever. Marjorie Shostak, who worked with a different !Kung tribe, witnessed unhappy children crying and toddlers fighting their mothers.
Thomas says children were always supervised and bad behavior immediately stopped (somehow without tears, I suppose); Shostak describes children playing at the outskirts of the village and bullying and even raping each other. It is possible that things were different in the group Thomas visited. It's also possible she just didn't get all the intel.
Thomas says murders were only committed by crazy people or to keep the tribe safe; yet in a previous chapter she describes more casual killings, such as one man killing another for taking the honey from his hive. Shostak finds casual impulsive killing more common as well.
Thomas says infidelity almost never occurred; Shostak described infidelity as common, although kept quiet and not officially tolerated.
They both agree that girls can reject potential suitors, but Shostak illustrates that tribal patience for would-be spinsters wears thin fast.
The !Kung people have a distinct "noble savage" aura about them in Thomas's book. They have that aura in general culture, and have been held up often as the picture of man in perfect harmony with his world. Thomas's books are definitely part of what created that mystique.
However, such an idyllic society is unlikely; Jean Briggs ("Never in Anger") also describes a society in which calmness prevails, but nobody comes out of the womb that way. She describes how that calm is developed in 5-8yo children, often with great effort and at great cost. It is hard to see Thomas's description as anything but idealized.
On the whole, an enjoyable book, but bring your salt shaker.
September 7, 2020
The most interesting aspects of Thomas's description of the Ju/wasi might be the deep-rooted cultural traditions for fostering equality. Individuals feel a need to not stand out, not even by appearing more skilled than others. Food distribution is governed by practices designed to encourage sharing and emphasize the community's connectedness. The society described in this book does not at all sound like one I would wish to live in, but it is fascinating to hear how one long-lived culture found very stable approaches - very different from those of my own culture - to some of the fundamental human social problems.
May 12, 2010
As my interests tend to travel in clusters, I picked this up right after I read the article about the Hadza hunter-gatherer tribe of Tanzania in the Dec 2009 issue of National Geographic.
The book was a slow start for me, but overall I would say that it was a fascinating read, even if I wouldn't call it a page-turner. The chapters about the fate of the Kalahari Bushmen in modern times (similar to the Hadza article) were not as interesting to me either ) but I understand the author's intention of including that part of the story in her book.
What made this book enjoyable to me, however, were the chapters upon chapters that described the traditional Ju/wasi culture that lasted into the 1950s. Their social fabric made them such a successful society, and while I wouldn't call it a utopia, it's was fun for me to imagine us all living in such a simple, peaceful community, so close in touch with our surroundings and each other.
The book was a slow start for me, but overall I would say that it was a fascinating read, even if I wouldn't call it a page-turner. The chapters about the fate of the Kalahari Bushmen in modern times (similar to the Hadza article) were not as interesting to me either ) but I understand the author's intention of including that part of the story in her book.
What made this book enjoyable to me, however, were the chapters upon chapters that described the traditional Ju/wasi culture that lasted into the 1950s. Their social fabric made them such a successful society, and while I wouldn't call it a utopia, it's was fun for me to imagine us all living in such a simple, peaceful community, so close in touch with our surroundings and each other.
March 27, 2013
The Old Way, was a sad book because from the beginning one knows how it will end. The same way it has ended for all such peoples that come in contact with the “White Man’s Way”, whether from the desert or the rain forest, the South Sea tropics or the arctic. I spent two years in the Canadian Arctic in the early 1970s and the Inuit people were much like the Bushmen, having been “civilized” beginning about the same time (1950s).
Why is this so inevitable? It is not that they cannot adapt. We don’t let them adapt. We don’t listen to what they want, what they need. We are the winners, so we are right. We are right so we must be more intelligent and know better. We tell them. The do-gooder ODAs and NGOs have the same mentality.
We can learn much about how our society could function from how people lived according to The Old Way, with daughter holding mother’s hand stretching back through the mists of time.
Why is this so inevitable? It is not that they cannot adapt. We don’t let them adapt. We don’t listen to what they want, what they need. We are the winners, so we are right. We are right so we must be more intelligent and know better. We tell them. The do-gooder ODAs and NGOs have the same mentality.
We can learn much about how our society could function from how people lived according to The Old Way, with daughter holding mother’s hand stretching back through the mists of time.
November 30, 2021
I am so glad the author decided to write a book of her incredible first hand experiences of living among the Ju/wasi in the Kalahari part of Namibia. She was nineteen when she and her family took up residence in the Kalahari in the early 1950's; this began a life long commitment to the area and its people shared by her entire family and perhaps most by her brother who became a strong advocate and activist as the 20th century came to the Bushland. It's a captivating read and the black and white pictures are an extra treat. It is not scientifically written so it's a pretty easy read and the personal experiences kept me interested throughout. Unfortunately time moves into the Ju/wasi's lives and one can't help but wonder if the change was not expedited by the Marshall family's introduction of the native people to more contemporary life. It would have probably happened anyway and perhaps it was more gentle because of the Marshalls.
January 4, 2022
At first I was expecting something more academic, so I disliked the constant speculative assertions about how humans must have behaved in ancient Africa; but then it became clear that this book is a sort of blend of memoir and experienced older person passing on thoughts and opinions based on quite a long time of both study and personal experience. As that type of book, it is great - as nobody really knows what humans were like 100,000 years ago, this sort of speculation is perhaps as close as we can get.
The second and third parts of the book, describing the disintegration of the old culture in the face of modernity and encroaching "civilization", is immensely saddening; you feel both the loss that these people experienced, and the loss to humanity to have moved so far from the way of being we originally evolved to embody.
The second and third parts of the book, describing the disintegration of the old culture in the face of modernity and encroaching "civilization", is immensely saddening; you feel both the loss that these people experienced, and the loss to humanity to have moved so far from the way of being we originally evolved to embody.
July 18, 2020
This was a wondrous, dryly funny, and heartfelt story about an ancient people and their vanished way of life. The first half, about the hunter-gatherer culture of the Ju/wasi in the 50s, is of course the most fascinating because it plays into the "lost Eden" myth of our ancestors, while the second half details the more current plight of the Ju/wasi. I'm very glad Marshall spoke about how the projected "myth" (such as that seen in The God's Must Be Crazy) brought about so much trouble for these poor folks, who just want to continue caring for their families
February 15, 2020
I found the beginning of this book not to my liking. After the first 50 pages or so, the story of the Old Way began in earnest. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ descriptions made me mourn for these people and their culture.
September 8, 2024
The author lived as a child with her family among hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari. This is a very interesting summary of their ways before the modern world stepped in and made their way of life illegal (no deeds for land, thus no property rights).
November 25, 2017
B+. A very good study.
December 7, 2024
SNF... couldn't beat to hear about the cruelty upon these people by the farmers.
August 15, 2020
Parts of this story are great, but it is mixed in with some overly romanticized dreck. Unfortunately, Thomas's strong bias means that even the great parts need to be taken with a grain of salt. Her descriptions are biased and exaggerated, and I don't know enough to determine how much is real.
On Ju/wasi unimaginably vast knowledge of their environment,
> Over the millennia, inaccuracies were filtered out, leaving the oldest and purest scientific product—solid, accurate information that had often been put to the test.
For example, she lauds the Ju/wasi for the great care they take in securing their poisoned arrows from their children. Never in her whole stay was anybody accidentally killed. They are so much more careful of human life than we Westerners with our guns. (If people her neighborhood are being regularly shot, then this is understandable. Where does she live?!) Then again, a hundred-odd pages later, she describes one incident where a child kills someone else with a poisoned arrow, and then a second incident where she herself is stabbed by a child with a poisoned arrow. Huh?
Unlike dirty Westerners, the Ju/wasi bushmen valued their elders:
> the Ju/wasi felt differently, for a very good reason. The older someone is, the more that person remembers about what happened before the rest of the group was born, events that, without written records, would be lost if someone couldn't describe them
A few pages later, Thomas describes how after someone is too old to contribute food, a group might abandon them to be eaten by hyenas. Oh.
Several times Thomas talks about how we are all descended from chimpanzees. She often speculates wildly about how the "Old Way," practiced by the Ju/wasi, is a better and evolutionarily more fit way of life. The ending, about the end of the Ju/wasi's culture, is rather sad. (It is also poorly written, with Thomas trying to describe in words a documentary that her brother made.)
> A man went off alone into the veld and crawled into an aardvark burrow. Obviously, he was not entirely sane. When people passed by, he would burst out of the burrow and shout at them. The passersby were very startled, of course, which others later said was the disturbed man's intent—he wanted only to scare them away, not to hurt them. Nevertheless, the people pondered what to do about this man in his burrow and eventually decided that he was too dangerous. So a few of the men sought him out and killed him. … Thus as I see it, if my minuscule sample counts for anything, two of the five known killings were safety measures, conducted out of necessity, not as the result of anger or loss of control.
> It was the Old Way, the dark side of the Old Way. We were not sure what happened to this man, but we didn't see him again. Better to marry, because your partner will help you. Better to connect to your partner's people, because they will help you. Better to connect to the next generation by having children and grandchildren, because they will help you, and their partners will help you, and their partners' people will help you. Better to be part of the social fabric. That, too, was the Old Way.
> The farmer captured many of the people and made them get into the back of his truck. Among his captives was Toma, who was too weak to resist. The farmer took these people back to his farm.
> Perhaps firm marriage belongs to the Old Way. It certainly was the way of the Ju/wasi. My mother wrote, "Divorce is untoward, disruptive; it can cause trouble. Anything other than peace and harmony in human relations makes the Ju/wasi uneasy. The instances of strife (that we observed) were breaks in their predominantly peaceful, well-adjusted human relations."
> the Ju/wa children were every parent’s dream. No culture can ever have raised better, more intelligent, more likable, more confident children.
> when babies first talked, they didn’t use the clicks. That also was developmental and came later, first with just one click, which some babies seemed to substitute for all the clicks
> With the possible exception of certain articles of clothing (the Ju/wasi did not have spare clothes), almost every object in Nyae Nyae was subject to xaro, received as a gift from someone else, to be given as a gift to another person later. … You could never refuse a gift, although it obligated you, and you had to make a gift in return, but not immediately. A return gift made too soon would seem like a trade, not like a gift made from the heart, and thus would not strengthen the social bond, which was its purpose. This concept was so strong that the Ju/wasi never traded with one another. Trading was acceptable, but only with different people.
On Ju/wasi unimaginably vast knowledge of their environment,
> Over the millennia, inaccuracies were filtered out, leaving the oldest and purest scientific product—solid, accurate information that had often been put to the test.
For example, she lauds the Ju/wasi for the great care they take in securing their poisoned arrows from their children. Never in her whole stay was anybody accidentally killed. They are so much more careful of human life than we Westerners with our guns. (If people her neighborhood are being regularly shot, then this is understandable. Where does she live?!) Then again, a hundred-odd pages later, she describes one incident where a child kills someone else with a poisoned arrow, and then a second incident where she herself is stabbed by a child with a poisoned arrow. Huh?
Unlike dirty Westerners, the Ju/wasi bushmen valued their elders:
> the Ju/wasi felt differently, for a very good reason. The older someone is, the more that person remembers about what happened before the rest of the group was born, events that, without written records, would be lost if someone couldn't describe them
A few pages later, Thomas describes how after someone is too old to contribute food, a group might abandon them to be eaten by hyenas. Oh.
Several times Thomas talks about how we are all descended from chimpanzees. She often speculates wildly about how the "Old Way," practiced by the Ju/wasi, is a better and evolutionarily more fit way of life. The ending, about the end of the Ju/wasi's culture, is rather sad. (It is also poorly written, with Thomas trying to describe in words a documentary that her brother made.)
> A man went off alone into the veld and crawled into an aardvark burrow. Obviously, he was not entirely sane. When people passed by, he would burst out of the burrow and shout at them. The passersby were very startled, of course, which others later said was the disturbed man's intent—he wanted only to scare them away, not to hurt them. Nevertheless, the people pondered what to do about this man in his burrow and eventually decided that he was too dangerous. So a few of the men sought him out and killed him. … Thus as I see it, if my minuscule sample counts for anything, two of the five known killings were safety measures, conducted out of necessity, not as the result of anger or loss of control.
> It was the Old Way, the dark side of the Old Way. We were not sure what happened to this man, but we didn't see him again. Better to marry, because your partner will help you. Better to connect to your partner's people, because they will help you. Better to connect to the next generation by having children and grandchildren, because they will help you, and their partners will help you, and their partners' people will help you. Better to be part of the social fabric. That, too, was the Old Way.
> The farmer captured many of the people and made them get into the back of his truck. Among his captives was Toma, who was too weak to resist. The farmer took these people back to his farm.
> Perhaps firm marriage belongs to the Old Way. It certainly was the way of the Ju/wasi. My mother wrote, "Divorce is untoward, disruptive; it can cause trouble. Anything other than peace and harmony in human relations makes the Ju/wasi uneasy. The instances of strife (that we observed) were breaks in their predominantly peaceful, well-adjusted human relations."
> the Ju/wa children were every parent’s dream. No culture can ever have raised better, more intelligent, more likable, more confident children.
> when babies first talked, they didn’t use the clicks. That also was developmental and came later, first with just one click, which some babies seemed to substitute for all the clicks
> With the possible exception of certain articles of clothing (the Ju/wasi did not have spare clothes), almost every object in Nyae Nyae was subject to xaro, received as a gift from someone else, to be given as a gift to another person later. … You could never refuse a gift, although it obligated you, and you had to make a gift in return, but not immediately. A return gift made too soon would seem like a trade, not like a gift made from the heart, and thus would not strengthen the social bond, which was its purpose. This concept was so strong that the Ju/wasi never traded with one another. Trading was acceptable, but only with different people.
July 4, 2017
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was indeed lucky person to live with one of the last remaining population of Bushman tribes (called Ju/wasi) in Kalahari desert in 1950, truly palaeolithic people living in the ecological niche that most of our ancestors were occupying for hundreds of thousands years. She calls it the Old Way and this book represents a fascinating account of their culture, hunter-gatherer subsistence and way of life. She claims that there are no more Bushmen in Africa living in the wild the Old way any more. Emergence of new African states (Namibia, Botswana) and tightening grip of government control, fast-spreading agriculture together with conservationist movement driven by desire to preserve African wildlife (for the sake of tourism and commercial hunting) basically eroded environment where Bushman could still live the Old Way. In Kalahari you need vast areas of intact land to be able to live on pure hunting-gathering. There are no such areas any more. Pre-neolithic people may still live in some remote areas of Amazonia or Papua New Guinea, but they found different ecological niche in the jungle, probably not resembling the way our hominid specie really lived in Africa after leaving the jungle 2-5 mil years ago. In this context, Kalahari Bushman lifestyle and numerous stories described by Marshall takes you deep into the origins of humankind and debunks many myths surrounding life on the savannah. For those who dare to look into our own unrecorded history and Homo Sapiens arrival on the scene, this is the best book. And yes, she confirms, our ancestors hunted big game by running them to exhaustion - especially elands. How were this people living only in grass shelters equipped with digging poles protected by lions? What about hyenas or leopard, venomous snakes? How did they get water, truly scarce resource in the semi-desert? How much of their diet was meat? Answers to all these question you found in the book. I visited Namibia this year, travelling not very far from the places where they originally lived, so for me this was a vital supplement of my recollections and knowledge from the trip.
November 17, 2025
I am a huge fan of anthropology books. I enjoyed so much getting to know about the way of life of the first people, the way they prioritize equality, non-violence and helping each other out. It made me really sad that our modern society has completely lost its way in comparison to those who are very sadly labelled as “savages.” There is absolutely nothing savage about them. On the contrary, we, in modern society, have so much to learn from them.
It is so heartbreaking that capitalism has eroded their culture, community and way of life. Their lands have been turned into hunting grounds for rich white people and that is such a shame. These people have had everything stolen from them and barely received any compensation in return. Instead, their social ties are further being fragmented by the lure of alcohol shops profiting off of their despair and helplessness.
I am so grateful to the author for having written this book. I have learned so much from her. It is so admirable that she will give some of the proceeds from the sale of this book to support these people. However, I removed one star because at times the narration feels a bit dry and I had to push myself through some parts of the book.
And also, sometimes she just hypothesizes that this is what something might mean. She hypothesizes because she does not speak their language. For instance, they have a trance dance that takes place from evening to morning the next day and she couldn’t explain properly the purpose of this ritual as she doesn’t speak their language and couldn’t ask them. So, these parts of the book were a bit disappointing.
But overall, this is a very important and urgent read.
It is so heartbreaking that capitalism has eroded their culture, community and way of life. Their lands have been turned into hunting grounds for rich white people and that is such a shame. These people have had everything stolen from them and barely received any compensation in return. Instead, their social ties are further being fragmented by the lure of alcohol shops profiting off of their despair and helplessness.
I am so grateful to the author for having written this book. I have learned so much from her. It is so admirable that she will give some of the proceeds from the sale of this book to support these people. However, I removed one star because at times the narration feels a bit dry and I had to push myself through some parts of the book.
And also, sometimes she just hypothesizes that this is what something might mean. She hypothesizes because she does not speak their language. For instance, they have a trance dance that takes place from evening to morning the next day and she couldn’t explain properly the purpose of this ritual as she doesn’t speak their language and couldn’t ask them. So, these parts of the book were a bit disappointing.
But overall, this is a very important and urgent read.
June 12, 2022
I listened to this audiobook in preparation for a trip I'll soon be taking to Southern Africa. My objective was to learn more about the aboriginal people of the Kalahari desert and how they fit in to the present political system. I feel like the very end of the book was what I was looking for, while the majority was an extremely detailed look at these people's vanished "Old Way" of subsistence living and the author's personal theories about how this evolved from our time as arboreal primates. I got way more than I was bargaining for about how they dug for specific roots, how a certain grub provided the poison for their arrows, how a complex system of gift giving created societal ties, how they coexisted with large predators etc etc etc. I suppose all of this would have felt more relevant if this society still functioned, but Elizabeth Marshall Thomas draws almost entirely from fieldwork she and her family did in the 1950s. By the time this book was published in 2006 the "old way" was long gone.
I was glad to be finished. 3.25 stars. I should also mention that the author narrates her own book. She doesn't have a very interesting voice or inflection, but no reader who wasn't fluent in the click language of these people could possibly have done the job.
I was glad to be finished. 3.25 stars. I should also mention that the author narrates her own book. She doesn't have a very interesting voice or inflection, but no reader who wasn't fluent in the click language of these people could possibly have done the job.
February 28, 2020
AMAZING. This is an essential read! Deeply inspiring with its report of how the two groups of Bushmen lived, it has an update on contemporary conditions which are an unintentional indictment of civilization's corrosive effects.
Through her time having personal experience with the Ju/wasi and /Gwi, as well as her subsequent research and learning, and a few return visits to the people of the Kalahari, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas reports factually, with only the slightest bit of opinionated interpretation (always acknowledged as such) where needed to discern the why behind something which is observable. And usually this amounts to confirming some facet of Bushman mythology or culture which doesn't fit in with civilized or Western science or accepted fact.
I can't imagine anyone reading this and being disappointed or feeling their time wasted - this receives my highest endorsement.
Through her time having personal experience with the Ju/wasi and /Gwi, as well as her subsequent research and learning, and a few return visits to the people of the Kalahari, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas reports factually, with only the slightest bit of opinionated interpretation (always acknowledged as such) where needed to discern the why behind something which is observable. And usually this amounts to confirming some facet of Bushman mythology or culture which doesn't fit in with civilized or Western science or accepted fact.
I can't imagine anyone reading this and being disappointed or feeling their time wasted - this receives my highest endorsement.
June 23, 2019
I really enjoyed this book as it is a personal account of the authors experiences with probably the oldest culture on earth, before they were severely changed by the influence of younger cultures. They had been influenced some in the beginning when she and her family set out to be with the Bushmen, but they still were living the culture their ancestors had lived, albeit with a few items they may have not had in the past. The book delves inti various different parts of the Bushmens culture and I suggest it highly to anyone who enjoys reading books about other cultures. There are also of course the sad parts of how expatriate Europeans and Bantu had cruelly treated them and took away their land.
January 27, 2022
This is probably a generous 5 (more so 4.5), but given how much I learned about a totally new culture it deserves the rating. Great learning about the Juwa (Bushmen) and how they preserved the hunter-gatherer way of living. Tragic to read about how greed got in the way and took their land/life away from them, but it felt like that was where the book was heading throughout. She did a good job of going through every part of their culture + survival strategies, so I felt some emotional attachment to preserving that way of life. Then when I learned that the white man was taking that away from them, I grew much more attached to the issue. Lot of learning about general animal patterns + ancestral human survival; crazy that we grew up on that tradition.
November 11, 2017
Fascinating but slow read
The Old Way is an excellent view of the world of the First People, how they lived for so many previous millennia, and what has happened to them in this one. Sometimes beautifully written, always wonderfully observed, it yet suffers from repetition, and the unavoidable lack of a normal narrative line for most of the book. These are people who survived by changing as little as possible, not constantly striving toward some far-off goal in the way we come to expect in histories. But this is an important book, and well worth the effort to read and finish.
The Old Way is an excellent view of the world of the First People, how they lived for so many previous millennia, and what has happened to them in this one. Sometimes beautifully written, always wonderfully observed, it yet suffers from repetition, and the unavoidable lack of a normal narrative line for most of the book. These are people who survived by changing as little as possible, not constantly striving toward some far-off goal in the way we come to expect in histories. But this is an important book, and well worth the effort to read and finish.
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