The Old Way

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas began studying the Kalahari hunter-gatherers when she was only 19 and wrote a book, THE HARMLESS PEOPLE, about their lives. As she revisits their culture, she shows how the African natives have long known more about their world and been less superstitious than their "educated" counterparts. They don't need modern science to tell them how to eat a poisonous beetle without getting sick, for example. As a writer, Thomas is adept at using humor and keen observation to back up her points. As a narrator, though, her reading can be monotonous. THE OLD WAY is a fascinating book that is worth listening to, but it could use a livelier narration. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

August 21, 2006
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.