To Hold Our Ground: A Field Report

For thousands of years, Ju/'hoansi have lived in the Nyae Nyae region in northeastern Namibia. Many Ju/'hoansi living in outer regions had been killed or dispossessed by the 1950's, but in Nyae Nyae, Ju/'hoansi were the only permanent inhabitants. There, waterless approaches isolated their ancient communal land and protected them from enslavement. 

In 1970, the Ju/'hoansi lost 70% of Nyae Nyae when 'Bushmanland' was established as the only homeland for 'Bushmen' in Namibia. The people were shuffled into a rural slum at Tshumkwe, the administrative capital of Bushmanland, where Ju/hoan men did menial jobs for the Administration and the elderly received rations of mealie meal. No food was produced on the land, and the malnourished population suffered and declined from tuberculosis and other diseases. 

To survive, Ju/'hoansi had to develop subsistence farming strategies and produce food to eat in Eastern Bushmanland. In a country where most people had been reduced to extreme poverty under South African occupation, "Bushmen" were the poorest. 

Until the mid 1980's, the Colonial Administration planned to complete the dispossession of the "Bushmen" by expropriating Eastern Bushmanland for a game reserve. Only a few Ju/'hoansi were to stay in their rightful home, wearing skins to entertain the tourists. The rest, around 2,000 people, were to be evicted with no means to survive.

In 1982, a development foundation was started to help Ju/'hoansi keep Eastern Bushmanland and develop subsistence farming strategies. The foundation was joined by a number of concerned Namibians and was funded by European Non-Government Organizations. This visual report, produced in conjunction with a major Land Rights Conference in Namibia in 1991, shows the Ju/'hoan struggle to hold onto their last fragment of land.

This film is part of the John Marshall !Kung Collection which includes a total of thirty titles documenting a Ju/hoansi (!Kung) community in Namibia and 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 Although the term is outdated, it has been retained here for the sake of consistency with John Marshall's previously published work.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.