săn, people of SW Africa, consisting of several groups and numbering over 85,000 in all. They are generally short in stature; their skin is yellowish brown in color; and they have broad noses, flat ears, bulging foreheads, and prominent cheekbones. The San have been called Bushmen by whites in South Africa, but the term is now considered derogatory. Although many now work for white settlers, about half are still nomadic hunters and gatherers of wild food in desolate areas like the Kalahari desert of SW Africa. Their social unit is the small hunting band; larger organizations are loose and temporary. Caves and rock shelters are used as dwellings. They possess only what they can carry, using poisoned arrowheads to fell game and transporting water in ostrich-egg shells. The San have a rich folklore, are skilled in drawing, and have a remarkably complex language characterized by the use of click sounds, related to that of the Khoikhoi. For thousands of years the San lived in S and central Africa, but by the time of the Portuguese arrival in the 15th cent., they had already been forced into the interior of S Africa. In the 18th and 19th cent., they resisted the encroachment on their lands of Dutch settlers, but by 1862 that resistance had been crushed.

See E. M. Thomas, The Harmless People (1959, repr. 1969); J. B. Wright, Bushmen Raiders of the Dakensberg, 1840–1870 (1971); L. J. Marshall, !Kung of Nyae Nyae (1975) and Nyae Nyae !Kung Belief and Rites (1999); R. B. Lee and I. DeVore, Hunter-Gatherers (1976).

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

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