The trance dance, which may last for hours on end, constitutes the Bushmen s major ritual and involves the entire band community. The world-view of the Bushmen as outlined above, is reflected in the law of the Bushmen. However, just as there is in Bushman society a minimum of religion , as developed cultures know it, so there is a minimum of law . In a habitat as barren as the central Kalahari Desert, the groups or bands , as they are known in the literature, are per force small in size and highly mobile. In fact, a central Kalahari Bushman band seldom numbers more than fifty members.
Bushman society is therefore band society.
The Bushman band does, however, constitute an early form of political society with an elementary legal order. Each band is composed of several families. Whereas the band constitutes the largest social unit, the family constitutes the most cohesive and enduring one. The family is also the basic unit of interband migration and the formation of new bands. The formation of a new band is a comparatively rare event, but interband migration is a common occurrence.