Kalahari Bushmen: The End Of A Myth - 48-min documentary

Nov 1996A searching film which separates today's Bushmen from their mythical status. A small community of South Africa's original Bushmen huddle in the red sand outside their huts. Every morning they dress up in loincloths for bus loads of tourists. By midday, they are back in their T-shirts. Unemployment is the biggest problem. Unlike Namibian Bushmen, South Africa's Bushmen do not have enough land to survive by their old hunter-gatherer ways. Lacking money and self-esteem, they turn to alcohol. Only one Bushman still works for the Parks' Board. All the rest have been fired or quit. Apartheid has done nothing for them. Many were used by the army to hunt down the then banned ANC. Today they still live in old army camps. In one tent, frenzied Bushmen dance a disease out of a sick person's body. While many whites work for Bushmen's rights, others are angry at the thought of land or compensation being given to 'lazy impostors'. Even the Bushmen themselves are exasperated at their outdated Image: "We dislike people calling us Bushmen, like objects that they can laugh at." Is our notion of 'the noble savage' simply extinct?

Channel: News & Politics
Uploaded: December 31, 1969 at 6:59 pm
Author: journeymanpictures

Length: 10:09
Rating: 3.67
Views: 3634

Tags: Apartheid  Bushmen  Journeyman  Kalahari  Namibian  Pictures  rights  unemployment  

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