Curare

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curare 

Chondrodendron tomentosum, main source plant of 'Tube Curare' and principal source of D-tubocurarine (DTC), the alkaloid constituting medicinal curare.

 

Strychnos toxifera, the Strychnos species which is the principal source of 'Calabash Curare' and its main active constituent - the alkaloid toxiferine

Curare (/kʊˈrɑːri/ or /kjʊˈrɑːri/; koo-rah-ree or kyoo-rah-ree) is a common name for various plant extract alkaloid arrow poisons originating from indigenous peoples in Central and South America. Used as a paralyzing agent for hunting and for therapeutic purposes, Curare only becomes active by a direct wound contamination by a poison dart or arrow or via injection. These poisons function by competitively and reversibly inhibiting the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), which is a subtype of acetylcholine receptor found at the neuromuscular junction. This causes weakness of the skeletal muscles and, when administered in a sufficient dose, eventual death by asphyxiation due to paralysis of the diaphragm. Curare is prepared by boiling the bark of one of the dozens of plant alkaloid sources, leaving a dark, heavy paste that can be applied to arrow or dart heads. Historically, curare has been used as an effective treatment for tetanus or strychnine poisoning and as a paralyzing agent for surgical procedures.

History

The word 'curare' is derived from wurari, from the Carib language of the Macusi of Guyana. It has its origins in the Carib phrase "mawa cure" meaning of the Mawa vine, scientifically known as Strychnos toxifera. Curare is also known among indigenous peoples as Ampi, Woorari, Woorara, Woorali, Wourali, Wouralia, Ourare, Ourari, Urare, Urari, and Uirary.

Classification

Initially, pharmacologist Rudolf Boehm's 1895 sought to classify the various alkaloid poisons based on the containers used for their preparation. During this investigation, he believed curare could be categorized into three main types as seen below . However useful it appeared, it became rapidly outmoded. Richard Gill, a plant collector, found that the indigenous peoples began to use a variety of containers for their curare preparations, henceforth invalidating Boehm's basis of classification.

• Tube or bamboo curare: Mainly composed of the toxin D-tubocurarine, this poison is found packed into hollow bamboo tubes derived from Chondrodendron and other genera in the Menispermaceae. According to their LD₅₀ values, tube curare is thought to be the most toxic.
• Pot curare: Mainly composed of alkaloid components protocurarine (the active ingredient), protocurine (a weak toxicitiy), and protocuridine (non-toxic) from both Menispermaceae and Loganiaceae/Strychnaceae. This subtype is found originally packed in terra cotta pots.
• calabash or gourd curare: Mainly composed of C toxiferine I, this poison is originally packed into hollow gourds from Loganiaceae/Strychnaceae alone.

Manske also observed in his 1955 The Alkaloids:

The results of the early [pre-1900] work were very inaccurate because of the complexity and variation of the composition of the mixtures of alkaloids involved ... these were impure, non-crystalline alkaloids ... Almost all curare preparations were and are complex mixtures, and many of the physiological actions attributed to the early curarizing preparations were undoubtedly due to impurities, particularly to other alkaloids present. The curare preparations are now considered to be of two main types, those from Chondrodendron or other members of the Menispermaceae family and those from Strychnos, a genus of the Loganiaceae [ now Strychnaceae ] family. Some preparations may contain alkaloids from both ... and the majority have other secondary ingredients.

Hunting uses

Curare was used as a paralyzing poison by many South American indigenous people. Since it was too expensive to be used in warfare, curare was mainly used during hunting. The prey was shot by arrows or blowgun darts dipped in curare, leading to asphyxiation owing to the inability of the victim's respiratory muscles to contract. In particular, the poison was used by the Island Caribs, indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, on the tips of their arrows. In addition, the Yagua people, indigenous to Colombia and northeastern Peru, commonly used these toxins in their blowpipes to target prey 30 to 40 paces distant.

Due to its popularity among the indigenous people as means of paralyzing prey, certain tribes would create monopolies from curare production. Thus, curare became a symbol of wealth among the indigenous populations.

In 1596, Sir Walter Raleigh mentioned the arrow poison in his book Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana (which relates to his travels in Trinidad and Guayana), though the poison he described possibly was not curare. In 1780, Abbe Felix Fontana discovered that it acted on the voluntary muscles rather than the nerves and the heart. In 1832, Alexander von Humboldt gave the first western account of how the toxin was prepared from plants by Orinoco River natives.

Curare darts and quiver from the Amazon rainforest.

During 1811–1812, Sir Benjamin Collins Brody experimented with curare (woorara). He was the first to show that curare does not kill the animal and the recovery is complete if the animal's respiration is maintained artificially. In 1825, Charles Waterton described a classical experiment in which he kept a curarized female donkey alive by artificial respiration with a bellows through a tracheostomy. Waterton is also credited with bringing curare to Europe. Robert Hermann Schomburgk, who was a trained botanist, identified the vine as one of the genus Strychnos and gave it the now accepted name Strychnos toxifera.

Medical use

George Harley (1829–1896) showed in 1850 that curare (wourali) was effective for the treatment of tetanus and strychnine poisoning. In 1857, Claude Bernard (1813–1878) published the results of his experiments in which he demonstrated that the mechanism of action of curare was a result of interference in the conduction of nerve impulses from the motor nerve to the skeletal muscle, and that this interference occurred at the neuromuscular junction. From 1887, the Burroughs Wellcome catalogue listed under its 'Tabloids' brand name, 1⁄12 grain (5.4 mg) tablets of curare (price: 8 shillings) for use in preparing a solution for hypodermic injection. In 1914, Henry Hallett Dale (1875–1968) described the physiological actions of acetylcholine. After 25 years, he showed that acetylcholine is responsible for neuromuscular transmission, which can be blocked by curare.

19th century depiction of hunting with blowguns in the Amazon rainforest.

The best known and historically most important (because of its medical applications) toxin is d-tubocurarine. It was isolated from the crude drug – from a museum sample of curare – in 1935 by Harold King of London, working in Sir Henry Dale's laboratory. King also established its chemical structure. Pascual Scannone, a Venezuelan anesthesiologist who trained and specialized in New York City, did extensive research on curare as a possible paralyzing agent for patients during surgical procedures. In 1942, he became the first person in all of Latin America to use curare during a medical procedure when he successfully performed a tracheal intubation in a patient to whom he administered curare for muscle paralysis at the El Algodonal Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela.

After its introduction in 1942, curare/curare-derivatives became a widely used paralyzing agent during medical and surgical procedures. In medicine, curare has been superseded by a number of curare-like agents, such as pancuronium, which have a similar pharmacodynamic profile, but fewer side effects.

Chemical structure

The various components of curare are organic compounds classified as either isoquinoline or indole alkaloids. Tubocurarine is one of the major active components in the South American dart poison. As an alkaloid, tubocurarine is a naturally occurring compound that consists of nitrogenous bases, although the chemical structure of alkaloids is highly variable.

Similar functional groups among the three compounds enables curare to bind to Acetylcholine receptors.

Like most alkaloids, tubocurarine and C toxiferine consist of a cyclic system with a nitrogen atom in an amine group. On the other hand, while acetylcholine does not contain a cyclic system, it does contain an amine group. Because of this amine group, curare alkaloids can bind readily to the active site of receptors for acetylcholine (ACh) at the neuromuscular junction, blocking nerve impulses from being sent to the skeletal muscles, effectively paralyzing the muscles of the body.

Pharmacological properties

A neuromuscular junction. Curare blocks Ach receptors (bottom left).

Curare is an example of a non-depolarizing muscle relaxant that blocks the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), one of the two types of acetylcholine (ACh) receptors, at the neuromuscular junction. The main toxin of curare, d-tubocurarine, occupies the same position on the receptor as ACh with an equal or greater affinity, and elicits no response, making it a competitive antagonist. The antidote for curare poisoning is an acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor (anti-cholinesterase), such as physostigmine or neostigmine. By blocking ACh degradation, AChE inhibitors raise the amount of ACh in the neuromuscular junction; the accumulated ACh will then correct for the effect of the curare by activating the receptors not blocked by toxin at a higher rate.

The time of onset varies from within one minute (for tubocurarine in intravenous administration, penetrating a larger vein), to between 15 and 25 minutes (for intramuscular administration, where the substance is applied in muscle tissue).

It is harmless if taken orally because curare compounds are too large and highly charged to pass through the lining of the digestive tract to be absorbed into the blood. For this reason, people can safely eat curare-poisoned prey, and it has no effect on its flavor.

Anesthesia

Isolated attempts to use curare during anesthesia date back to 1912 by Arthur Lawen of Leipzig, but curare came to anesthesia via psychiatry (electroplexy). In 1939 Abram Elting Bennett used it to modify metrazol induced convulsive therapy. Muscle relaxants are used in modern anesthesia for many reasons, such as providing optimal operating conditions and facilitating intubation of the trachea. Before muscle relaxants, anesthesiologists needed to use larger doses of the anesthetic agent, such as ether, chloroform or cyclopropane to achieve these aims. Such deep anesthesia risked killing patients who were elderly or had heart conditions.

The source of curare in the Amazon was first researched by Richard Evans Schultes in 1941. Since the 1930s, it was being used in hospitals as a muscle relaxant. He discovered that different types of curare called for as many as 15 ingredients, and in time helped to identify more than 70 species that produced the drug.

In the 1940s, it was used on a few occasions during surgery as it was mistakenly thought to be an analgesic or anesthetic. The patients reported feeling the full intensity of the pain though they were not able to do anything about it since they were essentially paralyzed.

On January 23, 1942, Harold Griffith and Enid Johnson gave a synthetic preparation of curare (Intercostrin/Intocostrin) to a patient undergoing an appendectomy (to supplement conventional anesthesia). Safer curare derivatives, such as rocuronium and pancuronium, have superseded d-tubocurarine for anesthesia during surgery. When used with halothane d-tubocurarine can cause a profound fall in blood pressure in some patients as both the drugs are ganglion blockers. However, it is safer to use d-tubocurarine with ether.

In 1954, an article was published by Beecher and Todd suggesting that the use of muscle relaxants (drugs similar to curare) increased death due to anesthesia nearly sixfold. This was refuted in 1956.

Modern anesthetists have at their disposal a variety of muscle relaxants for use in anesthesia. The ability to produce muscle relaxation irrespective of sedation has permitted anesthetists to adjust the two effects independently and on the fly to ensure that their patients are safely unconscious and sufficiently relaxed to permit surgery. The use of neuromuscular blocking drugs carries with it the risk of anesthesia awareness.

Plant sources

There are dozens of plants from which isoquinoline and indole alkaloids with curarizing effects can be isolated, and which were utilized by indigenous tribes of Central and South America for the production of arrow poisons. Among them are:

In family Menispermaceae:

• Genus Chondrodendron notably C. tomentosum
• Genus Curarea, species C. toxicofera and C. tecunarum
• Genus Sciadotenia toxifera
• Genus Telitoxicum
• Genus Abuta
• Genus Caryomene
• Genus Anomospermum
• Genus Orthomene
• Genus Cissampelos, section L. (Cocculeae) of genus

Other families:

• several species of the genus Strychnos of family Loganiaceae including S. toxifera, S. guianensis, S. castelnaei, S. usambarensis
• a plant in the subfamily Aroideae of family Araceae called taja
• at least three members of the genus Artanthe of family Piperaceae
• Paullinia cururu in the family Sapindaceae

Some plants in the family Aristolochiaceae have also been reported as sources.

Alkaloids with curare-like activity are present in plants of the fabaceous genus Erythrina.

Toxicity

The toxicity of curare alkaloids in humans has not been established. Administration must be parenterally, as gastro-intestinal absorption is ineffective.

LD50 (mg/kg)

human: 0.735 est. (form and method of administration not indicated)

mouse: pot: 0.8–25; tubo: 5-10; calabash: 2–15.

Preparation

In 1807, Alexander von Humboldt provided the first eye-witness account of curare preparation. A mixture of young bark scrapings of the Strychnos plant, other cleaned plant parts, and occasionally snake venom is boiled in water for two days. This liquid is then strained and evaporated to create a dark, heavy, viscid paste that would be tested for its potency later. This curare paste was described to be very bitter in taste.

In 1938, Richard Gill and his expedition collected samples of processed curare and described its method of traditional preparation; one of the plant species used at that time was Chondrodendron tomentosum.

Adjuvants

Various irritating herbs, stinging insects, poisonous worms, and various parts of amphibians and reptiles are added to the preparation. Some of these accelerate the onset of action or increase the toxicity; others prevent the wound from healing or blood from coagulating.

Diagnosis and management of curare poisoning

Curare poisoning can be indicated by typical signs of neuromuscular-blocking drugs such as paralysis including respiration but not directly affecting the heart.

Curare poisoning can be managed by artificial respiration such as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In a study of 29 army volunteers that were paralyzed with curare, artificial respiration managed to keep an oxygen saturation of always above 85%, a level at which there is no evidence of altered state of consciousness. Yet, curare poisoning mimics the total locked-in syndrome in that there is paralysis of every voluntarily controlled muscle in the body (including the eyes), making it practically impossible for the victim to confirm consciousness while paralyzed.

Spontaneous breathing is resumed after the end of the duration of action of curare, which is generally between 30 minutes and 8 hours, depending on the variant of the toxin and dosage. Cardiac muscle is not directly affected by curare, but if more than four to six minutes has passed since respiratory cessation the cardiac muscle may stop functioning by oxygen-deprivation, making cardiopulmonary resuscitation including chest compressions necessary.

Chemical antidote

Since tubocurarine and the other components of curare bind reversibly to the ACh receptors, treatment for curare poisoning involves adding an acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor, which will stop the destruction of acetylcholine so that it can compete with curare. This can be done by administration of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors such as pyridostigmine, neostigmine, physostigmine, and edrophonium. Acetylcholinesterase is an enzyme used to break down the acetylcholine (ACh) neurotransmitter left over in motor neuron synapses. The aforementioned inhibitors, termed "anticurare" drugs, reversibly bind to the enzyme's active site, prohibiting its ability to bind to its original target, ACh. By blocking ACh degradation, AChE inhibitors can effectively raise the amount of ACh present in the neuromuscular junction. The accumulated ACh will then correct for the effect of the curare by activating the receptors not blocked by toxin at a higher rate, restoring activity to the motor neurons and bodily movement.

Gallery

• 

  Abuta selloana. Certain species in the menispermaceous genus Abuta—particularly the Colombian species A. imene—have sometimes been used in the preparation of curare.

• 

  Anomospermum schomburgkii. Certain species in the genus Anomospermum have been used in the preparation of some forms of curare.

• 

  Cissampelos pareira. Certain species in the genus Cissampelos have been employed in the preparation of curare.

 

Blowgun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowgun 

Demonstration of a blowgun by a Yahua hunter

A blowgun (also called a blowpipe or blow tube) is a simple ranged weapon consisting of a long narrow tube for shooting light projectiles such as darts. It operates by having the projectile placed inside the pipe and using the force created by forced exhalation ("blow") to pneumatically propel the projectile. The propulsive power is limited by the strength of the user's respiratory muscles and the vital capacity of their lungs.

History

Mixtec blowgun Tlacalhuazcuahuitl depicted in Codex Bodley

Many cultures have used such a weapon, but various indigenous peoples of Eastern Asia, Southeast Asia, Western Europe, North America, Central America (the Huehuetenango region of Guatemala), and South America (the Amazon Basin and the Guianas) are best known for its historical usage.

Projectiles include seeds, clay pellets, and darts. Some cultures dip the tip of the darts in curare or other arrow poisons in order to paralyze the target. Blowguns were very rarely used by these tribes as anti-personnel weapons, but primarily to hunt small animals such as monkeys and birds. North American Cherokees were known for making blowguns from river cane to supplement their diet with rabbits and other small creatures.

Blowguns are depicted in paintings on pre-Columbian pottery and are mentioned in many Mesoamerican myths. Back then and today, the Maya use a blowgun to hunt birds and small animals with spherical dry seeds and clay pellets. The clay ammunition is made slightly larger than needed (to allow for shrinkage and refinement) and stored in a shoulderbag. The outside of the dry clay pellet is shaved off and burnished right before use.

Shorter blowguns and smaller bore darts were used for varmint hunting by pre-adolescent boys in traditional Cherokee villages. They used the blowguns to cut down on small rodents such as rats, mice, chipmunks and other mammals that cut or gnaw into food caches, seed and vegetable stores, or that are attracted to the planted vegetables. While this custom gave the boys something to do around the village and kept them out of mischief, it also worked as an early form of pest control. Some food was also obtained by the boys, who hunted squirrels with blowguns well into the 20th century.

Today blowguns are used with tranquilizer darts to capture wildlife or to stun caged dangerous animals. Herpetologists use blowguns to capture elusive lizards with stun darts. Blowguns are also used recreationally, with either darts or paintballs.

Sport blowgun

There are several competition styles practised around the world. A standardization of competition style, based upon fukiya, is being pursued by the International Fukiyado Association and hopes to become an Olympic event. It is a 10-metre (33 ft) target shooting, using a standardized length 120 cm or 48 inch, and barrel caliber, dart shape, length and weight are free. In each round the shooter shoots 5 darts and there are 6 rounds per game, for a total of 30 darts. The target faces are 7 (6 cm), 5 (12 cm), 3 (18 cm) points. The bullseye is 160 cm above the floor.

Two other styles are also being pursued to make up the Olympic blowgun event, both based upon the Cherokee Annual Gathering Blowgun Competition. The Field Style competition is similar to the winter Biathlon, where the shooter runs from a starting line to a target lane, shoots and retrieves the darts, and continues to the next station. The course length varies from 400 to 800 m (440 to 870 yd) or longer, with from 9 to 16 targets at various heights and shooting distances. The final style is the Long Distance target shoot. The target is a circle of 24 cm (9 in) diameter, and the firing line is 20 m (66 ft) away. Three darts are fired by each shooter, at least one of which must stick in the target. All successful shooters move to the next round, moving back 2 m (6.6 ft) each time.

The sport blowgun competition is managed by the International Fukiyado Association, with which national associations in the United States, France, Germany and the Philippines are affiliated.

Gallery

• 

  A Dayak man using a blowgun, Dutch East Indies, circa 1920

• 

  Rivercane quiver with blowgun darts, fletched with bull thistle

• 

  Demonstration of Eastern Cherokee blowgun in Oconaluftee Indian Village, Cherokee, North Carolina

• 

  An Achuar man with a blowgun, Ecuador

• 

  A Jakaltek Maya holds a clay pellet between his lips as he prepares to insert it into his blowgun in Guatemala.

• 

  A Jakaltek Maya hunter aims at the eye of his target and then blows a clay pellet towards it.

• 

  Illustration c. 1480 of Medieval Europeans using a blowgun to hunt birds.

Materials

Darts are typically made of hardwoods to prevent cracking, although bamboo skewers can be used informally. The dart's fletch can be made of many materials, such as down, feather tips, and animal fur. Modern materials, such as aluminium or carbon-reinforced plastic, are also used.

In Japan, the competition darts are made of cone shaped cellophane rolled into a cone (Fukiya), topped with a non-pointed brass brad. The Japan Sports Fukiya Association JSFA has privatized the sport, and all materials must be purchased from them. International Fukiya Association IFA chairman H.Higuchi promotes worldwide blowgun rule cooperating with other countries.

In other nations, the modified piano wire is used to make the 0.40 in (10 mm) cal and 0.50 in (13 mm) cal darts, with certain manufacturers making specialty darts for odd sized or larger caliber barrels (0.35 in [9 mm] cal, 0.625 in [16 mm] cal, 0.68 in [17 mm] cal, and 0.75 in [19 mm] cal).

Use of home-made darts in the larger sizes, or for hunting is common, utilizing bamboo skewers (3 and 6 mm or 1⁄8 and 1⁄4 in diameter), wire coat hangers, and even nails, or knitting needles.

Specifications

As a primitive weapon, there are no set dimension for a blowgun's length and diameter. However, generally there are several sizes:

1. Fukidake — diameter is 13 mm (0.51 in) cal in Japan. Tournament length is 120 cm (47 in), but for practice one can use a 50 cm (20 in) tube. No mouthpiece is used; users wrap their lips around the tube. International versions can be slightly more flexible, allowing a tube of 122 cm (4 ft) and 13 mm (0.50 in) cal under IFA rules. Darts consist of a paper cone 20 cm (8 in) long, weighing 0.8 g (3⁄100 oz).
2. Cherokee – made of river cane, 2 to 3 m (6 to 9 ft). Dart is 15 to 56 cm (6 to 22 in) long and made of locustwood or other available hardwoods such as oak, ash, maple, walnut, etc., fletched with thistle down or rabbit fur, that provides an air seal.
3. Jakaltek — wooden blowgun averages 1 m (3 ft) long with a sight placed 30 cm (12 in) from the end. Clay pellets are the most common type of ammunition and clay is sometimes added under the sight when the diameter of the blowgun is too thin for more stability and a better aim.
4. Modern (US/EU) — typically has a diameter of 0.40 in (10 mm) cal, however, both the 0.50 in (13 mm) cal and 0.625 in (16 mm) cal are admitted for competitive shooting, with restrictions on barrel length and darts dimensions/weight; with varying lengths having distance restrictions imposed. Bell-shaped mouthpiece. Standard length limited to 121 cm (48 in) in IFA sanctioned competition.
5. Paintball marker — made to be identical to the size of a 0.68 in (17 mm) cal paintball.
6. Sumpit — usually about 1.2 to 1.8 m (4 to 6 ft) in length and 2 to 3 cm (0.79 to 1.18 in) in diameter. It is made from bamboo or wood, and can a single piece or two to three pieces joined together. Metal spearheads are uniquely commonly affixed at the tip, allowing them to also be used as stabbing weapons. They use thick short darts with soft cork plugs or resin-coated feathers or fibers at the blunt end. Bird-hunting versions can use clay pellets.

Legality

A law was passed in Guatemala in the 1930s outlawing the use of the blowgun in an effort to protect small game. It was difficult to enforce in rural areas, but was one of the reasons for the decline of blowgun use in Guatemala.

In the United Kingdom under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, and in Australia, the blowgun is categorized as an offensive weapon, and as such it is illegal to manufacture, sell or hire or offer for sale or hire, expose or have in one's possession for the purpose of sale or hire, or lend or give to any other person. Antique blowguns are, however, exempt.

In Canada, the blowgun is classified as a prohibited weapon and is defined as any device that "being a tube or pipe designed for the purpose of shooting arrows or darts by the breath". Any imported blowgun must be deactivated by either drilling a hole or by blocking it.

In the Republic of Ireland, blowpipes (blow guns) are classified as illegal offensive weapons.

In the US State of California, blowguns are illegal. They are also illegal in Massachusetts and the District of Columbia, but are legal elsewhere. There is currently no age requirement for using a blowgun.

Poisoned darts

See also: Sumpit

Shooting darts with a blowgun is an extremely stealthy, and even lethal, hunting technique if the darts are poisoned with plant extracts or animal secretions. In Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, some isolated areas in South America, and in the Amazon and Orinoco basins, blowgun hunters impregnate the tips of their darts with curare. The explorer Joseph Gumilla first mentioned the use of this poison. In ancient literature, it's also referred to as uiraêry, uirary, uraré, woorara, and wourali.

The Ticuas, an ethnic group from Brazil, Columbia, and Peru, produce a type of curare called Ticuna. This poison acts quickly on the prey, killing birds like the toucan in a matter of three to four minutes and small monkeys in about eight to ten minutes.

In the Orinoco basin, the blowgun and curare are used by: the Hoti, who make blowguns that are unique in their components; the Panare, who obtain blowguns from the Hoti; the Huottuja, or Piaroa, who get their blowguns from the Yekuana or Maquiritares; the Maquiritare, who get their curare from the Piaroa; and the Pemones, who also get their blowguns from the Yekuana or Maquiritares, though they make their own curare.

In the upper Rio Negro basin, the combination of blowguns and poisoned darts is used by the Curripacos, or Banivas, who make their own blowguns using technology and materials different, in part, from those of the ethnic groups of the Orinoco. They also produce their own curare. Their ancestors, the Waodani, used a match known as kakapa along with the curare to impregnate the darts of their blowpipes.

The Piaroa are known for making curare to impregnate the darts of their blowguns. They produce it beginning with extracts of different species of plants from the Strychnos genus - mainly maracure (Strychnos crevauxii)- mixed with kraraguero sap to increase the adhesion of the poison. An animal hit by a dart poisoned using the Piaroa recipe usually dies within fifteen minutes, depending on its body mass.

In the Philippines, Borneo, and Sulawesi, the sumpit (or sumpitan) blowgun darts are typically coated in the sap of Antiaris toxicaria (upas) which causes convulsions and death by cardiac arrest. Uniquely among blowguns, sumpit are also commonly tipped with metal spearheads for use in close combat or when the ammunition is exhausted, functionally similar to bayonets.

The Orang Asli of Peninsular Malaysia use the concentrated sap of Antiaris toxicaria (Malay : ipoh) to coat the point of their darts.

 

The Gods Must Be Crazy

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gods_Must_Be_Crazy 

 

The Gods Must Be Crazy
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jamie Uys
Written by	Jamie Uys
Produced by	Jamie Uys
Starring	Nǃxau ǂToma Sandra Prinsloo Marius Weyers Nic de Jager Michael Thys Louw Verwey Ken Gampu Simon Sabela
Narrated by	Paddy O'Byrne
Cinematography	Buster Reynolds Robert Lewis
Edited by	Stanford C. Allen Jamie Uys
Music by	John Boshoff
Production company	C.A.T. Films
Distributed by	Ster-Kinekor (South Africa) 20th Century Fox (U.S.)
Release date	10 September 1980 (South Africa)
Running time	109 minutes
Countries	South Africa Botswana
Languages	English Afrikaans Juǀʼhoan
Budget	US$5 million
Box office	R 1.8 billion (approx. $200 million USD)

The Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 comedy film written, produced, edited and directed by Jamie Uys. An international co-production of South Africa and Botswana, it is the first film in The Gods Must Be Crazy series.

Set in Southern Africa, the film stars Namibian San farmer Nǃxau ǂToma as Xi, a hunter-gatherer of the Kalahari Desert whose tribe discovers a glass bottle dropped from an airplane, and believe it to be a gift from their gods. When Xi sets out to return the bottle to the gods, his journey becomes intertwined with that of a biologist (played by Marius Weyers), a newly hired village school teacher (Sandra Prinsloo), and a band of guerrilla terrorists.

The Gods Must Be Crazy was released by Ster-Kinekor in South Africa, where it broke box-office records, becoming the most financially successful release in the history of South Africa's film industry. The film was a commercial and critical success in other countries, including the United States, where it was distributed by 20th Century Fox, with the film's original Afrikaans dialogue being dubbed in English. Despite its success, the film attracted criticism for its depiction of race and perceived ignorance of discrimination and apartheid in South Africa.

The film was followed by one official sequel, The Gods Must Be Crazy II, released by Columbia Pictures in 1989.

Plot

Xi and his San tribe are living happily in the Kalahari Desert, away from industrial civilization. One day, a glass Coca-Cola bottle is thrown out of an airplane by a pilot and falls to the ground unbroken. Initially, Xi's people assume the bottle to be a gift from their gods, just as they believe plants and animals are, and find many uses for it. Unlike other bounties, however, there is only one glass bottle, which causes unforeseen conflict within the tribe. As a result, Xi, wearing only a loincloth, decides to make a pilgrimage to the edge of the world and dispose of the divisive object.

Along the way, Xi encounters biologist Andrew Steyn, who is studying the manure of wildlife; Steyn's assistant and mechanic, M'pudi; Kate Thompson, a woman who quit her job as a journalist in Johannesburg to become a village school teacher; and eventually a band of guerrillas led by Sam Boga, who are being pursued by government troops after a failed assassination attempt.

Steyn is tasked with bringing Kate to the village where she will teach, but he is awkward and clumsy around her. Their Land Rover stalls while trying to ford a deep river; he hoists it out with a winch, but it continues lifting the vehicle to a very high treetop level while a forgetful Steyn is distracted extricating Kate from a briar bush. She more than once mistakes his attempts to evade wild animals, and putting out an evening campfire, as advances towards her. Eventually, a snobbish safari tour guide named Jack Hind arrives, and takes Kate the rest of the way to the village.

One day, Xi happens upon a herd of goats, and shoots one with a tranquilizer arrow, planning to eat it. He is arrested and sentenced to jail. M'pudi, who once lived with the San and can speak the San language, is discontent with the verdict. He and Steyn arrange to hire Xi as a tracker for the remainder of his sentence in lieu of prison time, and teach Xi how to drive Steyn's Land Rover. Meanwhile, the guerrillas invade Kate's school, taking her and the students as hostages as they make their escape to a neighbouring country.

Steyn, M'pudi and Xi, immersed in their fieldwork, find that they are along the terrorists' and chlldrens' path, and observe their movements with a telescope. They manage to immobilize six of the eight guerrillas using makeshift tranquilizer darts launched by Xi with a miniature bow, allowing Kate and the children to confiscate the guerillas' firearms. Steyn and M'pudi apprehend the remaining two guerrillas by frightening one with a snake and by shooting at a tree above the other, causing latex to drip from the tree and irritate his skin. Jack Hind arrives and takes away Kate, taking credit for the rescue that Steyn, M'pudi and Xi had actually planned and executed.

Later, with Xi's term over, Steyn pays his wages and sends him on his way. Xi has never seen paper money (banknotes) before, and throws them on the ground. Steyn and M'pudi then drive from their camp to visit Kate. Steyn attempts to explain to Kate his tendency to be uncoordinated in her presence, but accidentally and repeatedly knocks over a number of objects in the process. Kate finds his efforts endearing, and kisses Steyn.

Xi eventually arrives at God's Window, the top of a cliff with a solid layer of low-lying clouds obscuring the landscape below. Convinced that he has reached the edge of the world, he throws the bottle off the cliff, and returns to his family.

San people

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_people 

San
Bushmen

Juǀ'hoan children in Namibia.
Total population
~105,000
Regions with significant populations
Botswana	63,500
Namibia	27,000
South Africa	10,000
Angola	<5,000
Zimbabwe	1,200
Languages
All languages of the Khoe, Kx'a, and Tuu language families
Religion
San religion, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Khoekhoe, Basters, Griqua

Map of modern distribution of "Khoisan languages" ; the languages shaded blue and green are traditionally viewed as San languages.

The San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are members of various Khoe, Tuu, or Kxʼa-speaking indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures that are the first cultures of Southern Africa, and whose territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa. In 2017, Botswana was home to approximately 63,500 San people, which is roughly 2.8% of the country's population, making it the country with the highest population of San people.

Definition

The term "Sann" has a long vowel and is spelled Sān (in Khoekhoegowab orthography). It is a Khoekhoe exonym with the meaning of "foragers" and was often used in a derogatory manner to describe nomadic, foraging people. Based on observation of lifestyle, this term has been applied to speakers of three distinct language families living between the Okavango River in Botswana and Etosha National Park in northwestern Namibia, extending up into southern Angola; central peoples of most of Namibia and Botswana, extending into Zambia and Zimbabwe; and the southern people in the central Kalahari towards the Molopo River, who are the last remnant of the previously extensive indigenous "San" of South Africa.

History

Bush-Men Hottentots armed for an Expedition, 1804

The hunter-gatherer San are among the oldest cultures on Earth, and are thought to be descended from the first inhabitants of what is now Botswana and South Africa. The historical presence of the San in Botswana is particularly evident in northern Botswana's Tsodilo Hills region. San were traditionally semi-nomadic, moving seasonally within certain defined areas based on the availability of resources such as water, game animals, and edible plants. Peoples related to or similar to the San occupied the southern shores throughout the eastern shrubland and may have formed a Sangoan continuum from the Red Sea to the Cape of Good Hope.

From the 1950s through to the 1990s, San communities switched to farming because of government-mandated modernisation programs. Despite the lifestyle changes, they have provided a wealth of information in anthropology and genetics. One broad study of African genetic diversity completed in 2009 found that San people were among the five populations with the highest measured levels of genetic diversity among the 121 distinct African populations sampled. Certain San groups are one of 14 known extant "ancestral population clusters"; that is, "groups of populations with common genetic ancestry, who share ethnicity and similarities in both their culture and the properties of their languages".

Despite some positive aspects of government development programs reported by members of San and Bakgalagadi communities in Botswana, many have spoken of a consistent sense of exclusion from government decision-making processes, and many San and Bakgalagadi have alleged experiencing ethnic discrimination on the part of the government. The United States Department of State described ongoing discrimination against San, or Basarwa, people in Botswana in 2013 as the "principal human rights concern" of that country.

Names

Portrait of a bushman. Alfred Duggan-Cronin. South Africa, early 20th century. The Wellcome Collection, London

The endonyms used by San themselves refer to their individual nations, including the ǃKung (ǃXuun) (subdivisions ǂKxʼaoǁʼae (Auen), Juǀʼhoan, etc.) the Tuu (subdivisions ǀXam, Nusan (Nǀu), ǂKhomani, etc.) and Tshu–Khwe groups such as the Khwe (Khoi, Kxoe), Haiǁom, Naro, Tsoa, Gǁana (Gana) and Gǀui (ǀGwi). Representatives of San peoples in 2003 stated their preference of the use of such individual group names where possible over the use of the collective term San.

Both designations "Bushmen" and "San" are exonyms in origin, but San had been widely adopted as an endonym by the late 1990s. "San" originates as a pejorative Khoekhoe appellation for foragers without cattle or other wealth, from a root saa "picking up from the ground" + plural -n in the Haiǁom dialect. The term Bushmen, from 17th-century Dutch Bosjesmans, is still widely used by others and to self-identify, but in some instances the term has also been described as pejorative.

Adoption of the Khoekhoe term San in Western anthropology dates to the 1970s, and this remains the standard term in English-language ethnographic literature, although some authors have later switched back to Bushmen. The compound Khoisan, used to refer to the pastoralist Khoi and the foraging San collectively, was coined by Leonhard Schulze in the 1920s and popularised by Isaac Schapera in 1930, and anthropological use of San was detached from the compound Khoisan, as it has been reported that the exonym San is perceived as a pejorative in parts of the central Kalahari. By the late 1990s, the term San was in general use by the people themselves. The adoption of the term was preceded by a number of meetings held in the 1990s where delegates debated on the adoption of a collective term. These meetings included the Common Access to Development Conference organised by the Government of Botswana held in Gaborone in 1993, the 1996 inaugural Annual General Meeting of the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA) held in Namibia, and a 1997 conference in Cape Town on "Khoisan Identities and Cultural Heritage" organised by the University of the Western Cape. The term San is now standard in South African, and used officially in the blazon of the national coat-of-arms. The "South African San Council" representing San communities in South Africa was established as part of WIMSA in 2001. "Bushmen" is now considered derogatory by many South Africans, to the point where, in 2008, use of boesman (the modern Afrikaans equivalent of "Bushman") in the Die Burger newspaper was brought before the Equality Court, which however ruled that the mere use of the term cannot be taken as derogatory, after the San Council had testified that it had no objection to its use in a positive context.

The term Basarwa (singular Mosarwa) is used for the San collectively in Botswana. The term is a Bantu (Tswana) word meaning "those who do not rear cattle". Use of the mo/ba- noun class indicates "people who are accepted", as opposed to the use of Masarwa, an older variant which is now considered offensive.

In Angola they are sometimes referred to as mucancalas, or bosquímanos (a Portuguese adaptation of the Dutch term for "Bushmen"). The terms Amasili and Batwa are sometimes used for them in Zimbabwe. The San are also referred to as Batwa by Xhosa people and Baroa by Sotho people. The Bantu term Batwa refers to any foraging tribesmen and as such overlaps with the terminology used for the "Pygmoid" Southern Twa of South-Central Africa.

Society

Further information: San healing practices, San rock art, and San religion

 

Drinking water from the bi bulb plant

 

Starting a fire by hand

 

Preparing poison arrows

 

San man

The San kinship system reflects their interdependence as traditionally small mobile foraging bands. San kinship is comparable to Eskimo kinship, with the same set of terms as in European cultures, but also uses a name rule and an age rule. The age rule resolves any confusion arising from kinship terms, as the older of two people always decides what to call the younger. Relatively few names circulate (approximately 35 names per sex), and each child is named after a grandparent or another relative.

Children have no social duties besides playing, and leisure is very important to San of all ages. Large amounts of time are spent in conversation, joking, music, and sacred dances. Women have a high status in San society, are greatly respected, and may be leaders of their own family groups. They make important family and group decisions and claim ownership of water holes and foraging areas. Women are mainly involved in the gathering of food, but may also take part in hunting.

Water is important in San life. Droughts may last many months and waterholes may dry up. When this happens, they use sip wells. To get water this way, a San scrapes a deep hole where the sand is damp. Into this hole is inserted a long hollow grass stem. An empty ostrich egg is used to collect the water. Water is sucked into the straw from the sand, into the mouth, and then travels down another straw into the ostrich egg.

Traditionally, the San were an egalitarian society. Although they had hereditary chiefs, their authority was limited. The San made decisions among themselves by consensus, with women treated as relative equals. San economy was a gift economy, based on giving each other gifts regularly rather than on trading or purchasing goods and services.

Most San are monogamous, but if a hunter is skilled enough to get a lot of food, he can afford to have a second wife as well.

Subsistence

Villages range in sturdiness from nightly rain shelters in the warm spring (when people move constantly in search of budding greens), to formalised rings, wherein people congregate in the dry season around permanent waterholes. Early spring is the hardest season: a hot dry period following the cool, dry winter. Most plants still are dead or dormant, and supplies of autumn nuts are exhausted. Meat is particularly important in the dry months when wildlife can not range far from the receding waters.

Women gather fruit, berries, tubers, bush onions, and other plant materials for the band's consumption. Ostrich eggs are gathered, and the empty shells are used as water containers. Insects provide perhaps 10% of animal proteins consumed, most often during the dry season. Depending on location, the San consume 18 to 104 species, including grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, moths, butterflies, and termites.

Women's traditional gathering gear is simple and effective: a hide sling, a blanket, a cloak called a kaross to carry foodstuffs, firewood, smaller bags, a digging stick, and perhaps, a smaller version of the kaross to carry a baby.

Men hunt in long, laborious tracking excursions. They kill their game using bow and arrows and spears tipped in diamphotoxin, a slow-acting arrow poison produced by beetle larvae of the genus Diamphidia.

Early history

Wandering hunters (Masarwa Bushmen), North Kalahari desert, published in 1892 (from H.A. Bryden photogr.)

A set of tools almost identical to that used by the modern San and dating to 42,000 BC was discovered at Border Cave in KwaZulu-Natal in 2012.

Historical evidence shows that certain San communities have always lived in the desert regions of the Kalahari; however, eventually nearly all other San communities in southern Africa were forced into this region. The Kalahari San remained in poverty where their richer neighbours denied them rights to the land. Before long, in both Botswana and Namibia, they found their territory drastically reduced.

Genetics

Various Y chromosome studies show that the San carry some of the most divergent (oldest) human Y-chromosome haplogroups. These haplogroups are specific sub-groups of haplogroups A and B, the two earliest branches on the human Y-chromosome tree.

Mitochondrial DNA studies also provide evidence that the San carry high frequencies of the earliest haplogroup branches in the human mitochondrial DNA tree. This DNA is inherited only from one's mother. The most divergent (oldest) mitochondrial haplogroup, L0d, has been identified at its highest frequencies in the southern African San groups.

In a study published in March 2011, Brenna Henn and colleagues found that the ǂKhomani San, as well as the Sandawe and Hadza peoples of Tanzania, were the most genetically diverse of any living humans studied. This high degree of genetic diversity hints at the origin of anatomically modern humans.

A 2008 study suggested that the San may have been isolated from other original ancestral groups for as much as 100,000 years and later rejoined, re-integrating into the rest of the human gene pool.

A DNA study of fully sequenced genomes, published in September 2016, showed that the ancestors of today's San hunter-gatherers began to diverge from other human populations in Africa about 200,000 years ago and were fully isolated by 100,000 years ago.

Ancestral land conflict in Botswana

Main article: Ancestral land conflict in Botswana

Much aboriginal people's land in Botswana, including land occupied by the San people (or Basarwa), was conquered during colonisation, and the pattern of loss of land and access to natural resources continued after Botswana's independence. The San have been particularly affected by encroachment by majority peoples and non-indigenous farmers onto land traditionally occupied by San people. Government policies from the 1970s transferred a significant area of traditionally San land to white settlers and majority agro-pastoralist tribes. Much of the government's policy regarding land tended to favor the dominant Tswana peoples over the minority San and Bakgalagadi. Loss of land is a major contributor to the problems facing Botswana's indigenous people, including especially the San's eviction from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The government of Botswana decided to relocate all of those living within the reserve to settlements outside it. Harassment of residents, dismantling of infrastructure, and bans on hunting appear to have been used to induce residents to leave. The government has denied that any of the relocation was forced. A legal battle followed. The relocation policy may have been intended to facilitate diamond mining by Gem Diamonds within the reserve.

Hoodia traditional knowledge agreement

Hoodia gordonii, used by the San, was patented by the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 1998, for its presumed appetite suppressing quality. A licence was granted to Phytopharm, for development of the active ingredient in the Hoodia plant, p57 (glycoside), to be used as a pharmaceutical drug for dieting. Once this patent was brought to the attention of the San, a benefit-sharing agreement was reached between them and the CSIR in 2003. This would award royalties to the San for the benefits of their indigenous knowledge. During the case, the San people were represented and assisted by the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA), the South African San Council and the South African San Institute.

This benefit-sharing agreement is one of the first to give royalties to the holders of traditional knowledge used for drug sales. The terms of the agreement are contentious, because of their apparent lack of adherence to the Bonn Guidelines on Access to Genetic Resources and Benefit Sharing, as outlined in the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The San have yet to profit from this agreement, as P57 has still not yet been legally developed and marketed.

Representation in mass media

Rock paintings in the Cederberg, Western Cape

 

San paintings near Murewa, Zimbabwe

 

San paintings near Murewa

Early representations

The San of the Kalahari were first brought to the globalized world's attention in the 1950s by South African author Laurens van der Post. Van der Post grew up in South Africa, and had a respectful lifelong fascination with native African cultures. In 1955, he was commissioned by the BBC to go to the Kalahari desert with a film crew in search of the San. The filmed material was turned into a very popular six-part television documentary a year later. Driven by a lifelong fascination with this "vanished tribe", Van der Post published a 1958 book about this expedition, entitled The Lost World of the Kalahari. It was to be his most famous book.

In 1961, he published The Heart of the Hunter, a narrative which he admits in the introduction uses two previous works of stories and mythology as "a sort of Stone Age Bible", namely Specimens of Bushman Folklore' (1911), collected by Wilhelm H. I. Bleek and Lucy C. Lloyd, and Dorothea Bleek's Mantis and His Friend. Van der Post's work brought indigenous African cultures to millions of people around the world for the first time, but some people disparaged it as part of the subjective view of a European in the 1950s and 1960s, stating that he branded the San as simple "children of Nature" or even "mystical ecologists". In 1992 by John Perrot and team published the book "Bush for the Bushman" – a "desperate plea" on behalf of the aboriginal San addressing the international community and calling on the governments throughout Southern Africa to respect and reconstitute the ancestral land-rights of all San.

Documentaries and non-fiction

John Marshall, the son of Harvard anthropologist Lorna Marshall, documented the lives of San in the Nyae Nyae region of Namibia over a more than 50-year period. His early film The Hunters, released in 1957, shows a giraffe hunt. A Kalahari Family (2002) is a five-part, six-hour series documenting 50 years in the lives of the Juǀʼhoansi of Southern Africa, from 1951 to 2000. Marshall was a vocal proponent of the San cause throughout his life. His sister Elizabeth Marshall Thomas wrote several books and numerous articles about the San, based in part on her experiences living with these people when their culture was still intact. The Harmless People, published in 1959 (revised in 1989), and The Old Way: A Story of the First People, published in 2006, are the two primary works. John Marshall and Adrienne Miesmer documented the lives of the ǃKung San people between the 1950s and 1978 in Nǃai, the Story of a ǃKung Woman. This film, the account of a woman who grew up while the San lived as autonomous hunter-gatherers, but who later was forced into a dependent life in the government-created community at Tsumkwe, shows how the lives of the ǃKung people, who lived for millennia as hunter gatherers, were forever changed when they were forced onto a reservation too small to support them.

South African film-maker Richard Wicksteed has produced a number of documentaries on San culture, history and present situation; these include In God's Places / Iindawo ZikaThixo (1995) on the San cultural legacy in the southern Drakensberg; Death of a Bushman (2002) on the murder of San tracker Optel Rooi by South African police; The Will To Survive (2009), which covers the history and situation of San communities in southern Africa today; and My Land is My Dignity (2009) on the San's epic land rights struggle in Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

A documentary on San hunting entitled, The Great Dance: A Hunter's Story (2000), directed by Damon and Craig Foster. This was reviewed by Lawrence Van Gelder for the New York Times, who said that the film "constitutes an act of preservation and a requiem".

Spencer Wells's 2003 book The Journey of Man—in connection with National Geographic's Genographic Project—discusses a genetic analysis of the San and asserts their genetic markers were the first ones to split from those of the ancestors of the bulk of other Homo sapiens sapiens. The PBS documentary based on the book follows these markers throughout the world, demonstrating that all of humankind can be traced back to the African continent (see Recent African origin of modern humans, the so-called "out of Africa" hypothesis).

The BBC's The Life of Mammals (2003) series includes video footage of an indigenous San of the Kalahari desert undertaking a persistence hunt of a kudu through harsh desert conditions. It provides an illustration of how early man may have pursued and captured prey with minimal weaponry.

The BBC series How Art Made the World (2005) compares San cave paintings from 200 years ago to Paleolithic European paintings that are 14,000 years old. Because of their similarities, the San works may illustrate the reasons for ancient cave paintings. The presenter Nigel Spivey draws largely on the work of Professor David Lewis-Williams, whose PhD was entitled "Believing and Seeing: Symbolic meanings in southern San rock paintings". Lewis-Williams draws parallels with prehistoric art around the world, linking in shamanic ritual and trance states.

Les Stroud devoted an episode of Beyond Survival (2011) to the San Bushman of the Kalahari.

Films and music

Rock painting of a man in Twyfelfontein valley

A 1969 film, Lost in the Desert, features a small boy, stranded in the desert, who encounters a group of wandering San. They help him and then abandon him as a result of a misunderstanding created by the lack of a common language and culture. The film was directed by Jamie Uys, who returned to the San a decade later with The Gods Must Be Crazy, which proved to be an international hit. This comedy portrays a Kalahari San group's first encounter with an artifact from the outside world (a Coca-Cola bottle). By the time this movie was made, the ǃKung had recently been forced into sedentary villages, and the San hired as actors were confused by the instructions to act out inaccurate exaggerations of their almost abandoned hunting and gathering life.

"Eh Hee" by Dave Matthews Band was written as an evocation of the music and culture of the San. In a story told to the Radio City audience (an edited version of which appears on the DVD version of Live at Radio City), Matthews recalls hearing the music of the San and, upon asking his guide what the words to their songs were, being told that "there are no words to these songs, because these songs, we've been singing since before people had words". He goes on to describe the song as his "homage to meeting... the most advanced people on the planet".

Rock engraving of a giraffe in Twyfelfontein valley

Memoirs

In Peter Godwin's biography When A Crocodile Eats the Sun, he mentions his time spent with the San for an assignment. His title comes from the San's belief that a solar eclipse occurs when a crocodile eats the sun.

Novels

Laurens van der Post's two novels, A Story Like The Wind (1972) and its sequel, A Far Off Place (1974), made into a 1993 film, are about a white boy encountering a wandering San and his wife, and how the San's life and survival skills save the white teenagers' lives in a journey across the desert.

James A. Michener's The Covenant (1980), is a work of historical fiction centered on South Africa. The first section of the book concerns a San community's journey set roughly in 13,000 BC.

In Wilbur Smith's novel The Burning Shore (an instalment in the Courtneys of Africa book series), the San people are portrayed through two major characters, O'wa and H'ani; Smith describes the San's struggles, history, and beliefs in great detail.

Norman Rush's 1991 novel Mating features an encampment of Basarwa near the (imaginary) Botswana town where the main action is set.

Tad Williams's epic Otherland series of novels features a South African San named ǃXabbu, whom Williams confesses to be highly fictionalised, and not necessarily an accurate representation. In the novel, Williams invokes aspects of San mythology and culture.

In 2007, David Gilman published The Devil's Breath. One of the main characters, a small San boy named ǃKoga, uses traditional methods to help the character Max Gordon travel across Namibia.

Alexander McCall Smith has written a series of episodic novels set in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. The fiancé of the protagonist of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni, adopts two orphaned San children, sister and brother Motholeli and Puso.

The San feature in several of the novels by Michael Stanley (the nom de plume of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip), particularly in Death of the Mantis.