One of our most influential anthropologists reevaluates her long and illustrious career by returning to her roots—and the roots of life as we know it
When Elizabeth Marshall Thomas first arrived in Africa to live among the Kalahari San, or bushmen, it was 1950, she was nineteen years old, and these last surviving hunter-gatherers were living as humans had lived for 15,000 centuries. Thomas wound up writing about their world in a seminal work, The Harmless People (1959). It has never gone out of print.
Back then, this was uncharted territory and little was known about our human origins. Today, our beginnings are better understood. And after a lifetime of interest in the bushmen, Thomas has come to see that their lifestyle reveals great, hidden truths about human evolution.
As she displayed in her bestseller, The Hidden Life of Dogs, Thomas has a rare gift for giving voice to the voices we don’t usually listen to, and helps us see the path that we have taken in our human journey. In The Old Way, she shows how the skills and customs of the hunter-gatherer share much in common with the survival tactics of our animal predecessors. And since it is “knowledge, not objects, that endure” over time, Thomas vividly brings us to see how linked we are to our origins in the animal kingdom.
The Old Way is a rare and remarkable achievement, sure to stir up controversy, and worthy of celebration.
Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is the author of seven books, nonfiction and fiction—among them The Hidden Life of Dogs, The Harmless People, and Reindeer Moon. She has written for The New Yorker, National Geographic, and The Atlantic, and lives in New Hampshire.
When Elizabeth Marshall Thomas first arrived in Africa to live among the Kalahari San, or bushmen, it was 1950, she was nineteen years old, and these last surviving hunter-gatherers were living as humans had lived for fifteen thousand centuries. Thomas wound up writing about their world in a seminal work, The Harmless People (1959), a book that is still in print.
The history of mankind that most of us know is only the tip of the iceberg, a brief stint compared to fifteen thousand centuries of life as roving clans that seldom settled down adapted every day to changes in environment and food supply, and lived for the most part like the animal ancestors from which they evolved. Those origins are not so easily abandoned, Thomas suggests, and our wired, documented, and market-driven society has plenty to learn from the Bushmen of the Kalahari about human evolution.
As she displayed in The Hidden Life of Dogs, Thomas helps us see the path that we have taken in our human journey. In The Old Way, she shows how the skills and customs of the hunter-gatherer share much in common with the survival tactics of our animal predecessors. And since it is "knowledge, not objects, that endure" over time, Thomas brings us to see how linked we are to our origins in the animal kingdom.
"Heartbreaking and gorgeously observed . . . The Old Way is not only a timely work, but also a timeless one—a last look back before we decide how to go forward."—Alexandra Fuller, The New York Times Book Review
"Heartbreaking and gorgeously observed . . . The Old Way is not only a timely work, but also a timeless one—a last look back before we decide how to go forward."—Alexandra Fuller, The New York Times Book Review
"It is fascinating to see how Thomas has honed her observational powers over the year . . . and how her notion of 'culture' has broadened."—Los Angeles Times
"With a perspective honed over the intervening 50-odd years . . . Thomas captures the fascinating customs of a people that had no future as a tribe."—The Daily News
"A fascinating and rewarding read . . . Marshall proves again and again the full humanity and astonishing sophistication of a people so 'primitive' that she offers them as a link to our earliest Paleolithic forebears, the first humans."—Chauncey Mabe, The San Diego Union-Tribune
"Part memoir, part anthropological study, part skewering of the forces of modernity that have destroyed a way of life that was not just ancient and extraordinary, but full of clues about how we came to be who we are today . . .Thomas has produced a magnificent elegy to a way of life that has only recently passed us by . . . Her book provides us with a cultural artifact of the rarest kind—a first-hand account of a way of life usually only guessed at by experts poring over bones and fossils in the dirt."—Austin Merrill, The News and Observer (Raleigh)
“Throughout the book Thomas evocatively imagines the ancient lives based on what she witnessed during the twilight of one of the last hunter-gatherer societies . . . The Old Way reveals how an indigenous people and an American family were able to transcend their tremendous cultural divide and find common ground.”—The Explores Journal
"In 1950, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas' father, the retired president of Raytheon, together with his wife, a former English teacher, and their two teenage children went out to live among some of the last people in the world still living as nomadic hunter-gatherers. It would be a coming of age like no other, with stunning and unforeseen rewards for the field of Anthropology. Her mother, Lorne Marshall, would write The !Kung of Nyae Nyae, one of the great ethnographies of all time; her brother John made a series of films culminating (just before he died) in the epic Kalahari Family, chronicling the fate of the !Kung through early contacts and discovery of their remarkable way of life, to their tragic displacement from the lands that had sustained them for so many thousands of year. Elizabeth herself, an extraordinarily gifted writer went on to write a number of best-selling books. Now, half a century later, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas returns to those early experiences and re-examines what she learned from the people, places, animals and lifeways encountered in the Kalahari long ago. The result is a brilliantly conceived, wise and hauntingly vivid, portrait of the natural and social worlds inhabited by people living much as our earliest human ancestors must have. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ finest book to date, The Old Way, is a deeply felt, deeply observed masterpiece that transforms the way we look at our own world."—Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection
“Throughout the book Thomas evocatively imagines the ancient lives based on what she witnessed during the twilight of one of the last hunter-gatherer societies . . . The Old Way reveals how an indigenous people and an American family were able to transcend their tremendous cultural divide and find common ground.”—The Explores Journal
"In 1950, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas' father, the retired president of Raytheon, together with his wife, a former English teacher, and their two teenage children went out to live among some of the last people in the world still living as nomadic hunter-gatherers. It would be a coming of age like no other, with stunning and unforeseen rewards for the field of Anthropology. Her mother, Lorne Marshall, would write The !Kung of Nyae Nyae, one of the great ethnographies of all time; her brother John made a series of films culminating (just before he died) in the epic Kalahari Family, chronicling the fate of the !Kung through early contacts and discovery of their remarkable way of life, to their tragic displacement from the lands that had sustained them for so many thousands of year. Elizabeth herself, an extraordinarily gifted writer went on to write a number of best-selling books. Now, half a century later, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas returns to those early experiences and re-examines what she learned from the people, places, animals and lifeways encountered in the Kalahari long ago. The result is a brilliantly conceived, wise and hauntingly vivid, portrait of the natural and social worlds inhabited by people living much as our earliest human ancestors must have. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ finest book to date, The Old Way, is a deeply felt, deeply observed masterpiece that transforms the way we look at our own world."—Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection
"This is the owner's manual we need for humankind. The Old Way gives us critical insight into our past at a turning point in human history by one of the few people who has seen our kind living as we have lived for most of our species' existence. This will be one of the most important books of the millennium."—Sy Montgomery, author of The Snake Scientist and The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans
"A meticulous discussion of the names applied to the people [now called] 'Ju/wasi' . . This is Thomas at her best: respectful of scholarship, traditions and peoples . . . Essential."—Library Journal
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In 1950, Thomas (The Hidden Life of Dogs), at 19, joined her civil engineer father, her ballerina mother (who would become a celebrated anthropologist) and her brother on a life-changing expedition into southwest Africa's Kalahari Desert to live among the Ju/wasi Bushmen. Less a rigorous anthropological study than a loving, nostalgic ode to a self-sustaining culture of hunter-gatherers, this book recounts their now extinct way of life. The Ju/wasi used ostrich eggs to hold more than a day's water supply to expand their foraging range, and burned dry grass to encourage the growth of green grass, thus attracting large antelopes and other prey. The Ju/wasi allowed polygamy and divorce, welcomed baby girls as much as baby boys and treated children with unfailing kindness, but practiced infanticide on children born to nursing mothers because, with their low-fat diet, they could produce enough milk for only one child. In recent decades, the Bushmen have been removed from their land and their way of life has been obliterated by modernity, racism, poverty, alcoholism and AIDS. Thomas offers readers a glimpse of how our prehistoric ancestors undoubtedly lived, worked, loved and played. Photos from the Marshall family album freeze the Ju/wasi in the happy 1950s. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"In 1950, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ father, the retired president of Raytheon, together with his wife, a former English teacher, and their two teenage children went out to live among some of the last people in the world still living as nomadic hunter-gatherers. It would be a coming of age like no other, with stunning and unforeseen rewards for the field of Anthropology. Her mother, Lorne Marshall, would write The !Kung of Nyae Nyae, one of the great ethnographies of all time; her brother John made a series of films culminating (just before he died) in the epic Kalahari Family, chronicling the fate of the !Kung through early contacts and discovery of their remarkable way of life, to their tragic displacement from the lands that had sustained them for so many thousands of year. Elizabeth herself, an extraordinarily gifted writer went on to write a number of best-selling books. Now, half a century later, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas returns to those early experiences and re-examines what she learned from the people, places, animals and lifeways encountered in the Kalahari long ago. The result is a brilliantly conceived, wise and hauntingly vivid, portrait of the natural and social worlds inhabited by people living much as our earliest human ancestors must have. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’ finest book to date, The Old Way, is a deeply felt, deeply observed masterpiece that transforms the way we look at our own world." --Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection
"This is the owner's manual we need for humankind. THE OLD WAY gives us critical insight into our past at a turning point in human history by one of the few people who has seen our kind living as we have lived for most of our species' existence. This will be one of the most important books of the millennium."
--Sy Montgomery, author of The Snake Scientist and The Man-Eating Tigers of Sundarbans
Praise for The Harmless People:
“A study of primitive people which, for beauty of...style and concept, would be hard to match.” —The New York Times Book Review
“The charm of this book is that the author can so truly convey the strangeness of the desert life in which we perceive human traits as familiar as our own....The Harmless People is a model of exposition: the style very simple and precise, perfectly suited to the neat, even fastidious activities of a people who must make their world out of next to nothing.” —The Atlantic
Praise for The Hidden Life of Dogs:
"Popular science of the highest order: revelatory, impeccably observed, and a joy to read. A four-woof salute to Thomas and a vigorous tail-wag to boot." —Kirkus Reviews
“A study of primitive people which, for beauty of...style and concept, would be hard to match.” —The New York Times Book Review
“The charm of this book is that the author can so truly convey the strangeness of the desert life in which we perceive human traits as familiar as our own....The Harmless People is a model of exposition: the style very simple and precise, perfectly suited to the neat, even fastidious activities of a people who must make their world out of next to nothing.” —The Atlantic
Praise for The Hidden Life of Dogs:
"Popular science of the highest order: revelatory, impeccably observed, and a joy to read. A four-woof salute to Thomas and a vigorous tail-wag to boot." —Kirkus Reviews
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39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A passionate, thoughtful view of the Bushmen's hunter-gatherer culture,
By
This review is from: The Old Way: A Story of the First People (Hardcover)
Thomas, anthropologist and author of such diverse bestsellers as "The Hidden Life of Dogs," and two excellent pre-history novels, "Reindeer Moon" and "The Animal Wife," began her writing career with the study, "The Harmless People," based on her youthful sojourn among the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert. The Bushmen may be the only people who ever lived without war. But more on that later.
With "The Old Way," she returns to the subject of that first book - a title that has been in print since 1959. Marshall first encountered the Ju/wasi, one of the five groups of Bushmen, in 1950 when she was 18, on the first of several Kalahari trips with her parents and brother. Her father, a founder of Raytheon, was a highly organized, take-charge sort of person, with versatile skills. Her mother, a former ballerina turned teacher, became a noted anthropologist over the course of these (and more) trips, and her brother devoted most of his life to the Bushmen. In the 1950s the Ju/wasi maintained their ancient nomadic culture in near isolation. Except for bits of metal they obtained in trade and used for arrowheads, the Ju/wasi made everything they needed from local material. They did not farm and had no domestic animals, but obtained all their food from hunting and gathering. They were the last people on earth, says Thomas, to follow the "Old Way," a way of life that depends on knowledge handed down one-to-one from generation to generation. The Old Way depends on intimacy between habitat and humanity. Thomas' book is not a scientific study or a memoir, but a bit of both, as well as a celebration and lament for a culture now gone. It's also a thoughtful reflection on how the Old Way shaped our species from the time we came down out of the trees and stepped on to the Savannah. Water, says Thomas, controlled the size of human hunter-gatherer groups, and that remained true among the Ju/wasi. Rain was scarce, and water holes passed down through families. Though children were betrothed young, they did not cohabit until the girl reached menarche - about age 17 - and the average age for bearing a first child was 19. Similarly, though no birth control was used, women bore children about four years apart and seldom had more than four. This was just what could be sustained, without starvation or overburdening the mother or group. Alliances were complex, all going to foster the strength of the group. Survival depended on group cohesion and the force of their culture went into strengthening those bonds, subsuming, smothering, the desires of the individual. The sharing of food, for instance, had little to do with who actually killed or gathered the food and the complex system was worked out before the gathering or hunting trip began. Periodic dances also reinforced ties and helped to dispel repressed tensions. Repression was the usual means of maintaining harmony. Temper tantrums, even among children, were frowned upon - for one thing childish noise could attract predators. Arguments flared, of course, but were almost always settled without violence. War, to the Ju/wasi, was unknown. Not because they were right thinking pacifists, but because they had developed the perfect weapon to make war - or murder - unthinkable. The Ju/wasi had only one real weapon - the poisoned arrow. It was all they used to hunt (though they finished off game with a spear). The poison was invariably fatal. A man who settled an argument with a stab from an arrow couldn't take it back - but he would have days to watch his victim die. And the victim, facing certain death, would be perfectly healthy for a day or more and quite capable of wreaking revenge. The lack of suitable weapons, and even more, the lack of any kind of shield, convince Thomas the Ju/wasi have never known war. She makes a convincing case. By the 1980s, however, the Ju/wasi were being forced into villages. Many of those Marshall knew as children are now dead - killed in fights, often fueled with drink. Today, alcohol and violence have decimated the Ju/wasi. While the book's conclusion is wrenching, most of it is a celebration of their intricate culture. Marshall captures the imagination with anecdotes - many from her old journals - that illustrate the matter-of-fact resourcefulness of a people who know the intricacies of all the plants and animals of their desert home. Some of her anecdotes simply demonstrate the odd commonalities of humanity: "Although I will eventually learn enough !Kung to stumble along in the language...at this point I am at the stage where the Ju/wasi either address me in baby talk or raised voices, or both." She describes gathering trips that take all day, but don't get going until mid-morning, baffling her own Yankee work ethic. Until she realizes the wisdom of waiting until lions and other nighttime predators are well and truly asleep. The lion stories are horrifically thrilling. She describes a lioness coming to the edge of their small encampment and roaring threateningly: "The roar was so deep and so loud that it had no direction. It seemed to be coming from anywhere, everywhere." Yet, scary as they were, the lions never hunted or preyed upon the Bushmen. Marshall does not try to provide answers for all her questions. Some things are "unknowable." This eloquent, passionate book does foster a sense of wonder at our own evolution. Though we've traded much of our intimacy with the earth for modern civilization, Marshall shows how many traces of the Old Way linger on in our blood.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A cautionary tale writ large,
By
This review is from: The Old Way: A Story of the First People (Hardcover)
In "The Old Way: A Story of the First People", Elizabeth Marshall Thomas gives us a compelling tale of how the people of the tribes of the Kalahari have survived in an inhospitable land for some 150,000 years and in doing so, she also gives us vital clues on the survival of the human tribe in general. Thomas takes the reader on a journey with the Ju/Wasi as they live in the Nyae Nyae region and, through her telling of their tale, shows us meaningful and poignant examples of how to deal with interpersonal realtionships and the difficulties that arise therein.
This, her second book about the individuals of the Ju/Wasi, tells of the traditions of hunting and gathering that are vital to their survival, and of the dire consequences that result when they are prevented from pursuing and passing on those traditions to their children. Thomas also reminds us of how, when people from so-called developed countries meddle in the affairs of countries and people we don't fully understand, even the best of intentions can go awry. Her descriptions of the dances and singing she witnesses moved me deeply, and seemed to stir long-forgotten memories of a time when we all sat huddled in a circle in the night, telling tales and sharing the lore that helped us to survive the spirits and predators lurking in the cold darkness beyond the glow of our small fires. By interweaving and illustrating her study of the Ju/Wasi and the Nyae Nyae region in which they lived with vignettes of the individuals of the tribe, Thomas brings us to a mirror in which we can glimpse our own ancestor's struggles for survival, no matter where that may have been. "The Old Way: A Story of the First People" is a well-written and passionate book, and one that contains many lessons we would be well advised to re-learn and hold close to our hearts as we sruggle to find a means to continue to survive in an increasingly complex world.
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful and rare,
By
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This review is from: The Old Way: A Story of the First People (Hardcover)
I first heard of the Bushmen through National Geographic's Genographic Project (Spencer Wells "The Journey of Man") which found genetic evidence suggesting Bushmen are one of the oldest, if not the oldest, peoples in the world--a "genetic Adam" from which all the worlds ethnic groups can ultimately trace genetic heritage. Within the face of a Bushmen one can see all the genetic expressions of the world (Asian eyes, African nose, Indian skin, etc..) So I was delighted when this new book appeared by bushmen expert Elizabeth Marshall Thomas who, along with her brother and parents, were one of the first westerners to live with and scientifically document the Bushmen in the 1950s (when Elizabeth was a teenager). Her parents and brother went on to become famous Bushmen experts and proponents in their own careers.
Older members of the Bushmen tribe were valued and respected for their wisdom, likewise Elizabeth is passing down her knowledge and experience for later generations. The Bushman way of life she saw in the 1950s, perhaps as old as 150,000 years, no longer exists - all it took was one generation and the long unbroken chain known as "The Old Way" has disappeared. It is the same sad story told the world over from Native Americans to Tibet to Eskimos. Yet Elizabeth reveals a deeper lesson, which is the "myth" that the Bushmen ever wanted it any other way - they want the comforts of modernization, just as we would prefer not to hunt and gather food each day. Bushmen want to travel, see the world, be a part of wider humanity, and for that we can celebrate and welcome all they have to teach. This book provides that introduction.
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Inside This Book
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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eland music, menarchal rite, ostrich eggshell beads, leather capes, knee children, bride service, ostrich eggshells, grass shelter, eastern god, bush foods, gathering trip, slow game, large antelopes Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Nyae Nyae, Gao Feet, Megan Biesele, Polly Wiessner, South African, South West Africa, Claire Ritchie, Kai Kai, Old Rules, First People, Kalahari Family, World Wildlife, Green Leaf Horn, John Marshall, Old Gau, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Etosha Park, Place of Buffalo, Richard Estes New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
eland music, menarchal rite, ostrich eggshell beads, leather capes, knee children, bride service, ostrich eggshells, grass shelter, eastern god, bush foods, gathering trip, slow game, large antelopes Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Nyae Nyae, Gao Feet, Megan Biesele, Polly Wiessner, South African, South West Africa, Claire Ritchie, Kai Kai, Old Rules, First People, Kalahari Family, World Wildlife, Green Leaf Horn, John Marshall, Old Gau, The Gods Must Be Crazy, Etosha Park, Place of Buffalo, Richard Estes New!
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Front Cover | Front Flap | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Flap | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 25
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42
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- Kung of Nyae Nyae by Lorna J. Marshall on 6 pages
- The Harmless People by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas in Front Matter, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Warrior Herdsmen by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas in Front Matter, and Back Matter
- Gorillas in the Mist by Dian Fossey Dr. in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Demonic Males by Richard Wrangham in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
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- When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson on 6 pages
- The Pressure's Off: There's a New Way to Live by Larry Crabb on page 28, page 100, and page 171
- The Pressure's Off: There's a New Way to Live by Larry Crabb on page 42, page 114, and page 185
- Soul Talk: Speaking with Power Into the Lives of Others by Larry Crabb on page 196, and Back Matter
- Studying War: Anthropological Perspectives (War and Society - ISSN 1069-8043) by S. P. Reyna on page 69, and page 84
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