Title: N!ai, the story of a !Kung woman /
Authors: Marshall, John, 1932-2005,; Mbulu, Letta.; Marshall-Cabezas, Sue.
Publisher: Documentary Educational Resources,
Year: 1980
Subjects: Black people Namibia Social conditions.; Ethnology Namibia; !Kung (African people) Social conditions.; !Kung (African people) Social life and customs.; !Kung (African people) Biography.; !Kung (African people) Economic conditions.; !Kung (African people) Hunting Namibia
Abstract: This classic anthropological film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in her mid-thirties. N!ai tells her own story, and in so doing, the story of Ju/'hoan life over a thirty year period. "Before the white people came we did what we wanted," N!ai recalls, describing the life she remembers as a child: following her mother to pick berries, roots, and nuts as the seasons changed; the division of giraffe meat; the kinds of rain; her resistance to her marriage to /Gunda at the age of eight; and her changing feelings about her husband when he becomes a healer. As N!ai speaks, the film presents scenes from the 1950's that show her as a young girl and a young wife. The uniqueness of N!ai may lie in its tight integration of ethnography and history. While it portrays the changes in Ju/'hoan society over thirty years, it never loses sight of the individual, N!ai. At the time of filming the Ju/'hoansi were one of the few surviving Kalahari groups that lived by hunting and gathering. During his time in the Kalahari, Marshall shot over 600,000 feet of film from which 24 films on the Ju/'hoansi, have been edited. These films on the lives and culture of the Kung people constitute a body of work that continue to define the fields of anthropology and ethnographic filmmaking today.