Nisa characters

Marjorie Shostak

Nisa's interviewer. Shostak accompanies her anthropologist husband to Africa, where he is conducting his own studies, and sets out to understand !Kung life, particularly the lives of !Kung women, more deeply than previous researchers.

Nisa

The pseudonym Shostak gives to the !Kung woman whose interviews constitute the bulk of the book.

Bau 1

A !Kung woman Shostak interviews prior to Nisa. Bau tells Shostak particularly intimate details from her life, including incidents of childhood sex play, an extramarital affair, and domestic abuse.

Kxoma and Tuma

Two !Kung men who accompany Shostak and her husband to their campsite after their arrival in Africa.

Gau

Nisa's father. Gau sometimes exhibits a fiery temper, threatening to hit Nisa or his wife or actually hitting one or both of them. But he is also very protective of Nisa and his other children. Gau is a medical healer and is able to enter trance states and heal sick members of the village. Gau dies while Nisa is living near a Tswana village with her husband, Besa.

Chuko

Nisa's mother. As !Kung children are brought up in almost constant contact with their mothers in their early years. Chuko is an important presence in Nisa's life. Many years later, after Chuko dies, Nisa goes into an intense period of mourning.

Dau

Nisa's older brother.

Kumsa

Nisa's younger brother

Kxamshe

Nisa's sister, who dies in childhood after a "trembling sickness."

Tikay

Nisa's young boyfriend with whom she begins to learn about sex, like all young !Kung children do.

Tuma

Nisa's cousin, who wants to engage in sex play with her, though Nisa refuses.

Kantla

Nisa's first real love and one of the "important men" in her life.

Dem

Kantla's younger brother. he and Kantla get into a fight over Nisa.

Bo (husnband 1)

Nisa's first husband. sleeps with Nukha while they are in the marriage hut. Nisa hears them and tells her parents, who scold Nukha sternly and dissolve the marriage.

Tsaa

Nisa's second husband.

Tashay

Nisa's third husband

Saglai

Gau's co-wife, briefly.

Tiknay

Nisa's co-wife, briefly, during her marriage to Tashay.

Lil chuko

Nisa's first daughter. Nisa conceives her first child out of wedlock, and she tries to conceal this fact from her husband at the time, Tashay.

Nai

Nisa's second daughter and her only daughter to survive infancy. dies when she is sixteen or seventeen, by Shostak's estimate, after a physical brawl with her husband that results in a broken neck.

Bau (child)

Nisa's fourth child, a daughter, who does not survive infancy.

Kxau

Nisa's son and last born. dies as a teenager from a disease that strikes him as a result of eating some honey from a hive that has been partially consumed by a honey badger.

Besa

Nisa's fourth husband. Nisa comments several times on sexual demands, and she calls him "very bad." He leaves Nisa while she is pregnant with their child, and the marriage eventually dissolves.

Kashe

One of Nisa's lovers. Besa chases him with a knife, and eventually, Nisa's father drives him away.

Debe

Another of Nisa's lovers. When Bo finds out that Nisa and him have stolen away into the bush for a tryst, he kicks Nisa in the chest, almost killing her.

Bo (husband 5)

Nisa's fifth husband. Nisa is married to him during the initial fifteen interviews, and she is still married to him four years later, when Shostak returns to Africa.