San ostrich egg shell used for storing water collected during wet season to drink during dry season. Ash design, stopper held in by string.
Donor:
Lynne Farmer and University Appropriation
Collection place:
Kalahari Desert, Southern Africa
Verbatim coll. place:
Kalahari Desert; Bushmen
Culture or time period:
San
Materials:
Eggshell (animal material) (ostrich)
Object type:
ethnography
Object class:
Jars
Function:
1.5 Household
Accession date:
1969
Context of use:
These are San water containers made from ostrich eggs with stoppers and an ash design meaning they were most likely used for drinking. In the Kalahari Desert, people get their water from wells in calcrete areas and groundwater trapped in upper sand layers. Pools also form during the wet season in which water can be obtained and wells were deepened in order to access even more water. Accessing water in the dry season was often a challenge, one of the ways San people coped with this was by storing water from the wet season in these ostrich eggs and then storing them so they were readily available when most of the sources were dry. It’s clear that the San were frugal when it came to water in the wake of climate change, but they also do receive aid from the Bostwanan government and also engaged in shamanistic-like rain-making rituals. However the government’s intervention in this case is a double-edged sword since it also groups people into denser settlements and increases competition for water. Climate change is a salient issue in the Kalahari Desert since it continues to see reduced rainfall and make the existing water less safe to drink. San people have voiced their concern for their environmental predicament and have advocated for wind-powered borehole drilling and pumping, for example. Overall, the San have become further impoverished and have made the connection that much of this is due to climate change. Ostrich eggs are hardly as effective as they once were.
Department:
Africa (except Ancient Egypt)
Comment:
cf. 5-515, 5-9872 Crate, Susan A., and Mark Nuttall, eds. Anthropology and climate change: from encounters to actions. Routledge, 2016.
Loans:
S1980-1981 #26: Department of Anthropology (UC Berkeley) (October 14, 1980–October 17, 1980), S1980-1981 #28: Department of Anthropology (UC Berkeley) (October 20, 1980–October 27, 1980), S1984-1985 #19: Merritt College (November 7, 1984–April 22, 1985), and S1992-1993 #22: Heffernan Films (March 1, 1993–March 2, 1993)