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The Kalahari Bushman A Dying Culture - By PHILIppa logan

18 hours is barely enough time to sum up a culture that has been lost to, discrimination, bureaucracy and modernisation. Africa's earliest inhabitants the Bushmen were driven from their land and denied their natural heritage.

I am fortunate to have shared this brief time with these extraordinary people who have an inborn wisdom of the earth they inhabit. They are a small people and the harsh environment has etched its’ geography in the harrowed lines of their faces.

For generations their land sustained them. Sadly their livelihood today comes from the tourists who pay to watch them perform their tribal stories and show them how they foraged their land.

The Bushman people have suffered great injustice, loosing the rights to live, forage and hunt off a land where they have lived for generations. Women were abused by white colonialists, their breasts a sort after pouch to hold tobacco. Only a few hundred true Bushmen have survived, their modern lives now plagued with alcoholism, TB and HIV AIDS.

Dressed for a hunt. A thin chammy mask disguise, blends into the dry yellow bush veld.
It was July, I was dressed in a winter jacket. We were surprised to be met by these small people wearing very little in these harsh conditions. One generation would never been enough to pass on their knowledge of roots, leaves, herbal medicines, how to forage and hunt.
Fire, the heart of survival. She blows the embers that have been ignited using a bow drill with precision.
She stood there like mother nature herself. She demanded respect, generations of wisdom exhaled.
I loved this cross culture photo. Water the life blood of the kalahari and the over used iconic heart of modern culture.
I felt humbled by this tribes natural knowledge. I would not have the expertise to survive this habitat, how can we expect this tribe to survive in ours.
The stories, danced out against the fire light, told stories of the lost kill on a hunt.

It was a privilege to have the opportunity to photograph this incredible tribe. I hope I have to opportunity to return one day or hear that their land has been returned to them.

Created By
Philippa Logan
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Credits:

Philippa Logan