A Kalahari Family, Part I: A Far Country

A Far Country tells the story of the Marshall family's encounter with a group of Ju/hoansi "Bushmen" in the Kalahari Desert. In 1951, the Marshall family set out to document the life of the Bushmen of the Kalahari. After a week of hard travel in desert-adapted vehicles, they met Toma Tsamkxao and his Ju/'hoan band in Nyae Nyae. In their own words, Toma's extended family describes how they survive by gathering bush foods and hunting game. Thus begins a relationship between the Ju/'hoansi and the Marshalls that will last over half a century. 

About A Kalahari Family 

A Kalahari Family is a five-part, six-hour series documenting 50 years in the lives of the Ju/'hoansi of southern Africa, from 1951 to 2000. These once independent hunter-gatherers experience dispossession, confinement to a homeland, and the chaos of war. Then as hope for Namibian independence and the end of apartheid grows, Ju/'hoansi fight to establish farming communities and reclaim their traditional lands. Through depiction of their efforts of the Ju/hoansi to participate as farmers in the contemporary economy and advocate for their rights to do so, the series challenges stereotypes of primitive and unchanging "bushmen."  

The five films in the series are:  

Part One: A Far Country

Part Two: End Of the Road

Part Three: Real Water

Part Four: Standing Tall

Part Five: Death By Myth

This film is part of the John Marshall !Kung Films Collection, which includes a total of thirty titles produced between 1951 and 2002.

Orthography Note

The group of people depicted in these films are the Ju/'hoansi, speakers of the Ju/'hoan language. Ju/'hoan is part of the !Kung language group; the term !Kung was previously used by the Marshall family and others to refer to Ju/'hoansi. Although the term is outdated, it has been retained here for the sake of consistency with John Marshall's previously published work. The films and their related printed materials also employ antiquated spellings of names and places. For current Ju/'hoan orthography, please see the Ju/'hoan - English Dictionary, compiled by Patrick Dickens and the Ju/'hoan Peoples Literacy Committee.