Embers of society: Firelight talk among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen
Wiessner, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014. Comparison of 174 day and night conversations among Ju/'hoan people plus 68 translated texts. Day talk centred on economic matters and gossip; night talk on singing, dancing, ceremonies and stories conveying how institutions work and building trust across regional networks. Firelight gave time for social life without cutting subsistence work; night activities steered away from the tensions of the day.
Wiessner, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014. Comparison of 174 day and night conversations among Ju/'hoan people plus 68 translated texts. Day talk centred on economic matters and gossip; night talk on singing, dancing, ceremonies and stories conveying how institutions work and building trust across regional networks. Firelight gave time for social life without cutting subsistence work; night activities steered away from the tensions of the day.
Written from the abstract.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi:10.1073/pnas.1404212111 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1404212111