N!ai, the Story of a !Kung woman (1980) (excerpt)
Title
N!ai, the Story of a !Kung woman (1980) (excerpt)
Subject
!Kung (African people)
URL
Excerpt
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Description
Content description from Worldcat (https://www.worldcat.org/title/nai-the-story-of-a-kung-woman/oclc/1060920544):
This film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in her mid-thirties. N!ai tells her own story, and in so doing, the story of Ju/'hoan life over a thirty year period. "Before the white people came we did what we wanted," N!ai recalls, describing the life she remembers as a child: following her mother to pick berries, roots, and nuts as the season changed; the division of giraffe meat; the kinds of rain; her resistance to her marriage to /Gunda at the age of eight; and her changing feelings about her husband when he becomes a healer. As N!ai speaks, the film presents scenes from the 1950's that show her as a young girl and a young wife. The uniqueness of N!ai may lie in its tight integration of ethnography and history. While it portrays the changes in Ju/'hoan society over thirty years, it never loses sight of the individual, N!ai.
Ephemera: available through CCDR Collections at Arizona State University. Photocopied page from Science magazine with a portion cut out.
This film provides a broad overview of Ju/'hoan life, both past and present, and an intimate portrait of N!ai, a Ju/'hoan woman who in 1978 was in her mid-thirties. N!ai tells her own story, and in so doing, the story of Ju/'hoan life over a thirty year period. "Before the white people came we did what we wanted," N!ai recalls, describing the life she remembers as a child: following her mother to pick berries, roots, and nuts as the season changed; the division of giraffe meat; the kinds of rain; her resistance to her marriage to /Gunda at the age of eight; and her changing feelings about her husband when he becomes a healer. As N!ai speaks, the film presents scenes from the 1950's that show her as a young girl and a young wife. The uniqueness of N!ai may lie in its tight integration of ethnography and history. While it portrays the changes in Ju/'hoan society over thirty years, it never loses sight of the individual, N!ai.
Ephemera: available through CCDR Collections at Arizona State University. Photocopied page from Science magazine with a portion cut out.
Original Format
TV broadcast recorded off air by JWK: Betamax tape
Creator
N!ai (herself)
John Marshall (director)
Adrienne Miesmer (producer)
Michael Ambrosino (executive producer)
Mark Erder, John Marshall, and Ross McElwee (cinematography)
Publisher
Documentary Educational Resources
Date
1980
Citation
“N!ai, the Story of a !Kung woman (1980) (excerpt),” Cross-Cultural Dance Resources Collections, accessed April 26, 2024, https://ccdrcollections.omeka.net/items/show/404.