African tribes are very unusual and difficult to percept for us. African people live their own lives, they have their own traditions and customs. The vision of the life of African people is absolutely different from ours. Modern people who live in the civilized world cannot understand how it is to live in a place where there are absolutely no modern conditions for life. Modern people cannot imagine their lives without hot and cold water from faucets, bathrooms with perfect conditions, and other conditions without which life is impossible for every person who lives in the civilized world. African people live in their worlds and do not know other lives.
The book “Nisa: the life and words of a !Kung woman” by Marjorie Shostak is a story-telling about Nisa, her life, and the life of other African people in their separate world. The main contribution of the book is that it tells us about the style of life of African people, about their rituals and traditions by the very participant of that life, not by the side viewer.
Marjorie Shostak spent a lot of time getting acquainted with the traditions of the life of African people, to learn their language to be able to understand what African people are talking about. The story is told by the Nisa, a !Kung woman of the tribe, and Marjorie Shostak had written down all the stories she was telling.
The introduction of a book is rather long (for about 40 pages) and has great value. The introduction gives us the understanding that we are absolutely different from African people, that our moral rules are different and it predetermine absolutely different way of life and behavior. Let me give one example from the book for you to understand what I am talking about. Nisa was stealing food in her childhood. This is inadmissible in our world, in our life, and we may think that Nisa was not so good person as Marjorie Shostak wanted to tell us.
But after reading introduction we would understand that there was nothing personal in the African tribes. People did not understand the taking of other people things as stealing. Everything was common. This understanding of life is rather unusual and in some ways may be even inadmissible for us, but it is the description of the life of other people with absolutely different understanding of life.
The given example explains why it is very important to read the introduction before reading the very stories of Nisa. Introduction inserts us in the world where Nisa lives, gives us the understanding that there are absolutely different rules of life in African tribes and our vision of life cannot be used while evaluating the actions and the thoughts of African people.
The whole book consists of different chapters which divide the stories of Nisa according to their topics, to the themes they belong to. In spite of this division, the story-telling is not organized step by step as it should be. The chapter “Earliest memories” tells us about the Nisa’s childhood, her remembering about it. As we know the remembering may be rather confused and mingled. The same is in the Nisa’s telling about her early ears of life.
Looking on the contents, we may make a conclusion that the topics choice for the book was not by chance. I am inclined to think, that Marjorie Shostak tired to put such topics in the book which could represent us, the readers the difference between our life and the life of Africa people. “Family life”, “Trial marriages”, “Discovering sex”, “Taking lovers”, “A healing rituals” are some names of the chapters of the book. These chapters inform us about the specific way of life of people with different traditions. Reading this book we, civilized people, get to know about the life of people which is absolutely strange and unknown for us. Marjorie Shostak wanted to show us the difference between these two worlds, which appear to exist in one time and the difference between which seems to be in thousand years.
Marjorie Shostak had chosen Nisa as the story-teller of the African tribes’ lives not by chance. Nisa is a !Kung woman. We get to know from the book what does it mean. We read in the book, “!Kung women assume roles of great practical importance, both in family and in the economy. They have maximum influence over decisions…” (Shostak and Nisa 1990-238). I suppose this was the main reason why Marjorie Shostak had chosen Nisa as a story-teller. People, who have some power or influence in the world, are aware of more information.
Marjorie Shostak’s book comprises not only the information about traditions and style of life of African people but also the spirit of African people, their understanding of life, their vision of the world which is absolutely different from the vision of world of civilized people. The telling from the African person is much more valuable than the telling of the person who just looks from the side. The vision from inside is always more valuable. The life of African people is rather strange for us, and this is the reason to get to know more about them.
Reference List
Shostak, Marjorie and Nisa. Nisa: the life and words of a !Kung woman. Earthscan, 1990.