San 1 Flashcards
What do we call the hunter gatherers who first lived in SA?
The San people
How did the first people in South Africa live?
By hunting, fishing and gathering food such as honey, nuts and berries.
How have we learnt about the way the San people lived?
Through paintings, objects and stories
How do stories tell us about the San?
The San passed down stories through the years. Theses stories tell us about their beliefs: the good characters in the stories shared and helped each other, and the bad characters were proud and selfish
What does nomads mean?
The San were nomads, which means that they moved around a lot and didn’t have permanent homes.
How have we learnt about the San through objects?
A few times a year San families would gather together in a cave. Archeologists have dug in theses a caves and found arrows, digging sticks, animal bones and the remains of fireplaces. These give us information on how the San lived.
How do the San paintings teach us about their way of life?
The San painted pictures of what they did in their lives on the walls of caves, and these can still be seen today. They painted pictures of what was important to them, and about their beliefs.
Why did the San live in communities of only 3 or 4 families?
Because there was not enough wild food to support bigger communities .
Who did most of the gathering in the San community?
The women
What did they have with them when they were gathering? What did they wear?
They carried small bags to carry their digging sticks and wore a cloak called a kaross which was used to carry food and firewood.
What was a digging stick used for ?
To dig up underground food such as roots and bulbs .
Why did the San never use up all the food in one place?
They knew that they had to leave some plants so that they could grow for the following year.
What did the San use when their waterholes had dried up?
Sip wells
How did they use sip wells?
Sip wells were deep holes scraped away until they reached damp sand. Then the San would put a long, hollow grass stem into the sip well and suck water through. This water was stored in ostrich eggs.
What did the San hunt with?
Bows and arrows.