Eating Christmas In The Kalahari Summary

The article “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari” by Richard Borshay Lee is investigating how the Kung Bushmen’s annual tradition of killing an ox for the community during the Christmas season. Lee begins the article by giving a brief history of how Christmas was introduced to the Bushmen, their basic interpretations of the Christmas story, and why the tradition of killing the ox for the community started. Lee then explains why he decided to study this tradition and how the people view him because he brought supplies to the area that were not readily available to the Bushmen. Lee continues by describing his plan for that Christmas was to find the largest ox possible and practice the tradition to hopefully gain the trust of the Bushmen. However, …show more content…
Hakekgose then explained that the way the Kung behaved during the feast was how they always behaved, and every ox was categorized the same every year. Hakekgose also said that the reason that Lee was told the ox was not enough was because they do not like hunters who come back and brag about their hunt. Lee then interviewed another bushman, /gaugo. /gaugo explained that it is tradition to insult the quality of the ox, and they treat every hunt the same each year. After the interviews Lee began to understand the culture in more detail. Lee concludes the article with the fact that his experience over the Christmas holiday was to teach him a lesson about how he acted during the study. He learned that, while the people did not like him, they relied on him for rare resources, and they did not want him to leave. Lee was left with the question of how the Kung and other bushmen cultures still survive today despite contact with powerful outsiders, but he now understands that their culture will survive into the future despite outside