SAN

The San are located in South Africa and up a little bit of the coast of East Africa, in the area of the Kalahari desert. There are some rivers in the area they lived in, such as the Orange, and the Nossob. In the Kalahari, there are less disasters than possibly other spots, however they do have sandstorms and bushfires. The San do not have a government system, they are hunter gatherers, however disputes over what the tribe should do are settled by many people meeting and talking, eventually coming to an agreement. These types of civilizations are called stateless societies. Part of the San’s initial downfall is they’re weak military. They were attacked first by the Bantu, and lost, losing much of their land, before then losing even more of it to europeans, this was because they had never entered the iron age and were using simple stone and wood tools. The other tribes had iron weapons and the europeans had horses and gunpowder. The san have had an interesting history around trading, many people while trying to set up trade deals, as they have no official leader, therefore it’s hard to trade with them. They also have no official currency. The religion of the San is interesting, they believe in two gods, the greater god and the lesser god, the greater god is believed to be a good spirit who can cure disease and just help the tribe survive in general, however sometimes he can turn against them and send bad fortune. The lesser god is known as bad and evil. (Joshua Project) The San are considered to be one of the first groups of people, and had their rise there, they were never really super successful, they are just hunter gatherers. They have had a decline, but still exist with about 100,000 people today. They’re decline has come due to multiple encounters with other tribes and europeans, on top of that though, modern countries kicking them out of their land over things like diamonds and safari hotels. Many of the San have been relocated to other places, and many of them live in cities and other modern areas, where they become addicted to alcohol or to drugs. The modern day area where they used to have total control over is now built up on and modernized, which does not seem to take any inspiration from the ways of the San.