Mental Health and the San of Southern Africa

Abstract

The San are southern African hunter-gatherers although only around 300 to 600 are thought to still rely almost exclusively on hunting and gathering for their livelihoods. Colonial and post-colonial changes have had profound negative effects on San mental health and well-being and almost all San number among southern Africa’s poorest and most marginalized peoples. Some groups, however, were affected by colonization far earlier and more deeply than others, and post-colonial life among different African powerholders has brought different experiences. Furthermore, many social and geographical spaces exist to allow old ways to continue and a variety of new ways to emerge from their interfaces with new experiences. This chapter brings together Joram |Useb, a prominent San Elders from Namibia, with Chris Low, an academic with over 19 years of experience working on issues of health and healing among the San. We begin by sketching the broad story of San mental health. We then narrow our focus toward the interface of Western medicine with San ideas and draw out traditional ways in which mental health problems have been and remain conceived and treated. We end with some examples of recent San initiatives and ideas that hold promise for the support of mental health across San of southern Africa. Key themes to emerge in this discussion include witchcraft, the after-effects of employment and fighting within the South African Defence Force on some San groups, and “thinking too much, " a common San idiom linked to mental distress.