THEAFRICANS
temporary people whose name is written as !Kungand who livetoday near
the border between northeastern Namibia and Botswana. They found that
the modern !Kung live in groups that fluctuate between twenty-three and
forty members during the year. The nutritious perennial mongongo nut is
their staple food, providing one-third of their food supply, while other
plants provide another one-third and the rest comes from hunting. They
spend most of the year in poolside camps near the source of the nuts, but for
a couple of months during the dry season they move to permanent water
holes further from the nut trees, when some of them hike sixteen miles to
collect nuts, carrying their water supply with thern.?
Another study deals with the modern G/wi people, who live in the
Kalahari Desert, where food is scarcer. The G/wi bands tend to be larger,
with forty to sixty members, and they use a much larger territory than the
!Kung, but they often split up into smaller family units. Plants form three-
fifths of their diet, but in the early summer, the period of greatest shortage
of plants and large antelopes, the men giveup bow-and-arrow hunting and
catch smaller game with traplines, making time to help the women with