Sociological Perspective on “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari”
Danielle Grider
Ivy Tech Community College

Sociological Perspective on “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari”
In the article “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari” by Richard Borshay Lee, he tells his about his experience and what he learned living with the !Kung Bushmen for three years. Richard Borshay Lee is a social anthropologist who was studying the Tswana tribe and their hunting and gathering society of the !Kung. Richard was to accomplish this by not providing them with any food and to not interfere with their food gather activates in anyway. In this Gemeinschaft society, they worked together to teach Richard something important to their people and he almost missed the lesson because although he has learned a lot the !Kung Bushmen, he missed something very important that he would learn by the end of the article. In the !Kung Bushmen culture it is a tradition for one person from the tribe to slaughter an ox for the whole community to share and feast for to “praise the birth of white man’s god-chief” or what we call Christmas. Richard wanted to show his appreciate for the cooperation and insight for his study that they had given him for the three years he spent with them so he wanted to slaughter the biggest and best ox he could find for their Christmas celebration. Richard put a great deal of effort into finding the perfect ox. Ten days before Christmas he finally found the perfect ox. In the article Richard stats “it was solid black, stood five feet high at the shoulder, had a five-foot span of horns, and must have weighted 1,200 pounds of the hoof.”(Lee, 1969), which would be big enough to feed every man, woman, and child who were expected at the feast. After seeing the ox though the !Kung Bushmen laughed and were astonished at the ox he choose. The first person Richard encountered after what he saw as a prize choice of ox quickly discouraged his thinking. She asked Richard “do you expect us to eat that bag of bones?”, in which Richard replied “Bag of bones! It’s the biggest ox at /ai/ai.” (Lee, 1969). As the rest of the tribe scolded him for buying such an old and thin ox Richard became very confused because he thought the ox was enormous and would definitely be enough meat for the feast. Richard began to feel like he was missing something and that he ruined their Christmas celebration. Richard resolved to serve the ox anyways and considered leaving to spend Christmas alone. On Christmas morning it was time to slaughter the ox and Richard quickly found that the ox was plenty big enough and everyone laughed at his confusion. Although Richard was happy with the success of the feast he couldn’t help but feel like he missed something important in the joke they played on him. After talking to several members of the group, he found the true meaning of this joke. The Bushmen people were trying to teach him a lesson of “arrogance” (Lee, 1969). They would not accept a person who would boast upon his hunt and they feared that someday that kind of pride would make a person kill someone one day. Tomazo, a member of the Bushmen, told him that this was to “cool his heart and make him gentle” (Lee, 1969).
The !Kung Bushmen’s intentions were to humiliate him and by doing so it would accomplish their goal of making him realize that one act of generosity does not