Eavesdropping by John L. Locke Read Free Book Online Page A

Africa. In the mid to late twentieth century, when they were studied fairly intensively, most of the Kung lived in bands of fifty or sixty, but they periodically dispersed into smaller groups or concentrated into larger ones, as suited their needs. 5
    The typical Kung camp was laid out in concentric circles. In the center was a public gathering place. Rimming this plaza were the huts of the band members.
    Huts built for the rainy season were the most elaborate. They were circular, about five feet in height and diameter, made of branches that were set in the ground around the circumference and bent inward, then lashed together to form the peak of the roof. The frame was covered with grass. Facing inwards, towards the plaza, was the front of the hut—a small opening. This opening could easily have been confused with
an
entrance, or
the
entrance, but in reality it was not really
any
kind of entrance, at least in the normal meaning of that word.
    For the fact is that the Kung
went
in far less often than they
reached
in. The huts were places to store belongings or, less often, to seek momentary relief from the sun or rain. They were not really habitable, but this was no design flaw—the builders never expected to be occupiers. What the huts gave each family was a territorial claim—squatters’ rights in their most literal meaning—and in a more socially constructed sense, an address. This place was considered “private property” in the sense of its being one’s own. 6
    Just how a tiny piece of ground can become an address was discovered by anthropologist Jean Briggs’ who, while conducting her doctoral research in the early 1960s, shared an igloo with an

    Exhibit 10 Plan of a typical Kung village showing the central plaza (o), circle of huts and fireplaces (I), and other functional zones
    Eskimo family. Briggs chose, or was given, a tiny place to sleep that was between one of the family members and the wall. “That spot, just the length and breadth of my sleeping bag, very quickly became my home, in a real sense,” she would later write. “I possessed my spot, and from it I always looked out on the same view. The sameness of it gave me a sense of stability in a world of shifting dwellings, a feeling of belonging in a family; it even gaveme a sense of privacy, since no one ever encroached on my space without permission, and sitting there I could withdraw quietly from conversation into an inner world.” 7
    It is in no sense strange that the Kung would come to think of their grass and stick enclosures as a home base, perhaps even homes, even if they were not houses. 8 This is particularly clear in the case of huts built for the non-rainy months, which amounted to about three-fourths of the year. These huts were made with a few sticks and a little grass. It would be ridiculous to suppose that these were
dwellings
in any sense of the word, or even visual shields, and they were never used to escape scrutiny. Indeed, it was considered improper for anyone to withdraw from the sociality of camp life. The Kung “rarely spend time alone,” wrote Richard Lee, “and to seek solitude is regarded as a bizarre form of behavior.” 9
    Partly to escape anything approaching solitude, the Kung huts were spaced so closely together that people sitting at their hearths—essentially “dine out” kitchens in front of the huts—could hand utensils to each other without getting up. This arrangement made it possible for next-door neighbors to converse at a normal level of loudness. It also enabled them to eavesdrop on the latest camp gossip. Indeed, I would suggest that the huts and layout of Kung villages were designed—consciously or unconsciously—with eavesdropping in mind. To block the flow of personal information would have been unthinkable, and extremely risky.
Western Desert aborigines
    On a different continent, an Indian Ocean away, a tiny band of aborigines lives in similar huts, or at least they did in the late 1960s.