The Dobe Ju/’hoansi are – or were until their recent resettlement – hunters and
foragers living in and around the Kalahari Desert in Botswana and Namibia. They
speak a “click” language of the Khoisan family. They have been intensively studied
with special attention to their subsistence system and economy (Lee 1979, 1993;
Lee and DeVore 1976). In their traditional subsistence system, men hunted and
women gathered plant foods. In the 1960s, when these observations were made,
meat, procured by men hunting, provided 30% of the overall caloric intake and
plants provided the remaining 70% (Lee 1993, p. 50). Men did perform some gath-
ering, raising their total contribution to the diet to about 45%, but, interestingly,
women never hunted (Lee 1993, p. 56; Marshall 1976, p. 96). A wide variety of
game was pursued and over 100 species of plants were considered edible (Lee
1993, p. 45). The most important plant food by far was the mongongo or mangetti
nut (Ricinodendron rautanenii), a highly nutritious food which is virtually a staple
in the Ju/’hoansi diet.