Eating Christmas In The Kalahari

Egalitarian or customs and believes that maintain equal approach to resources and leadership among the food forager society is called social leveling mechanism. In the article Eating Christmas in the Kalahari, Richard Lee talks about the Kung Bushmen way of practicing social leveling mechanism, which is shown by two clear ways. These ways are publicly ridiculed and in the other manner they show no signs of gratitude and thankfulness. For example, when hunting for a large animal for the Christmas feast, Kung Bushmen does not allow the hunter to act as a chief or the leader because this might cause that individual to treat others as inferiors. Moreover, this act is encouraged in their culture in order to avoid conflicts between individuals in their society. Based on their beliefs, they ridiculed and disrespected Richard Lee for hunting an ox. However, they used this strategy to prevent Lee’s thoughts from any feeling of empowerment or authority compare to the other Bushmen. On the other hand, this master plan will allow the other Bushmen to avoid feeling inferior.
Kung also ridiculed Lee’s way of hunting, by mentioning that the ox is old. When Richard learned this information about how the Bushmen thought about his kind gesture, he became disappointed and discouraged. However, later he learned that the Bushmen do not only ridicule the outsiders, but themselves as well. The reason behind this act is to create a society that contains a social leveling mechanism or having an equal approach to assets and leaderships. Moreover, Kung wanted Richard to know that he is not superior compare to others for hunting a fairly good ox; also preventing Lee from thinking that others are beneath