Hearth and Home

The movie portrays Xi's (the main character of the film) village as one hut around which his entire extended family gathers. They apparently all live in it as well. The hut is quite accurate in its design and form, down to the cooking fire out front of it that is an essential feature of all bushmen huts. This fire is always maintained and kept going by the wife of the couple living in the hut. An important difference between the movie and reality is that, in the film, there is only one hut that apparently all 20 bushmen live in.

In actuality, a !Kung San band consists of several families, totaling between 10 and 30 people, with each family having its own hut (Stockard, 2002, pp.18-19). The huts provide shelter during infrequent rain storms and storage space for food and weapons but are generally not large enough to sleep an entire family, so a family will sleep outside under a commonl blanket (Stockard, 2002, pp.19). The huts are constructed around a central open location, the common social area for the band(Stockard, 2002, pp.19) . They are constructed of cut and bent saplings over which layers of grass are laid and being of such a simple design, require only several hours to complete (Stockard, 2002, pp.19). Each hut is built so that its entrance faces the common area and it is in this central space that most of the community interactions and exchanges occur (Stockard, 2002, pp.19).

The Gods Must be Crazy accurately portrays the living quarters found in !Kung San society, it just does not include enough to do justice to the population of the band. The inclusion of several more, grouped around a communal location, would more accurately represent an actual Bushmen band. In addition, it both correctly and incorrectly portrays the population of a Bushmen band. My next post shall focus on the film's portrayal of Ki's community in contrast to the structure of an actual !Kung San one. Until the 'morrow!

Stockard, Janice E. (2002). Marriage in Culture: Practice and Meaning across Diverse Societies. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. 
  Uys, Jamie (Producer), & Uys, Jamie (Director). (1980) The Gods Must Be Crazy [Motion picture]. South Africa: Ster Kinekor