This Is the World’s Oldest Human Population
Nicola Lo Calzo
For his series “Comeback to Kalahari,” photographer Nicola Lo Calzo
spent two months in South Africa with the San of the southern
Kalahari—one of the most ancient indigenous groups in the world.
According to researchers, the San are descended from humanity’s earliest ancestors and are among the most genetically diverse people on Earth.
Originally hunters and gatherers, many of the San in South Africa
were forced to give up their lifestyle and become farmers in the 1930s
when the government created the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park on their
territory. Since then, the San have fought to reclaim their ancestral
land in South Africa and other parts of the continent. Today, according
to the South African San Institute, at least 600 people are registered as part of the southern Kalahari San community.
Lo Calzo chose to photograph them as well as their community provide a holistic sense of place. “In all my work, including ‘Inside Niger’ and ‘Morgante,’
I have been interested in marginalized social groups,” Lo Calzo said
via email. “I wish to understand and to explore their survival strategy
in a world increasingly normalized and normalizing. In the case of the
San people, their relationship to the past, to their own tradition,
their complex coexistence with the global world, their history of
persecution and their contemporary strategy of resistance are aspects I
have tried to investigate through this [project].”
Nicola Lo Calzo
Nicola Lo Calzo
Nicola Lo Calzo
With SASI’s support and guidance, Lo Calzo spent time in Andriesvale,
Upington, and Platfontein, South Africa. Still, his main challenge was
finding acceptance in the community. “Especially in a country that has
not yet resolved its racist and segregationist past ... the mission was
difficult but very stimulating,” he said.
Although the San have settled many of their land battles, Lo Calzo
said that they are still struggling to find their place in South African
society. “In the absence of basic social services, poverty, alcoholism,
unemployment, illiteracy, cannabis and AIDS affect the population. For
example, in the township of Andriesvale, the nearest school, with a
rudimentary hospital, is 15 kilometers from the township. People live by
their wits. Some of them dress in hunters’ clothes in order to satisfy
the exotic taste of some naïve tourists during their desert safaris,” he
said.
Besides the daily challenges of survival, the San face another
struggle: the preservation of their culture. “Like all South Africans of
their age, San youths hear R&B music, chat on their cellphones,
watch American television shows of the moment and wear trendy clothes,”
Lo Calzo said. “The main challenge for the older generation is to
transmit the ancestral knowledge of the tradition: the collection of
plants, the traditional language of Clics, the songs and dances, the
spirituality, the tanning of the skins of antelopes, which are now
destined for the tourism market.”
Nicola Lo Calzo
Nicola Lo Calzo
Nicola Lo Calzo
Nicola Lo Calzo
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