Hoodia and the San

Hoodia has been used by the San people of Southern Africa as an appetite suppressant and cure for indigestion for ages. The San people are perhaps better known as the Bushmen, and were shown to the world in the movie “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” There are today approximately 85,000 San in the world today, and about half still live as nomadic hunters and gatherers. They are generally short in stature; their skin is yellowish brown in color; and they have broad noses, flat ears, bulging foreheads, and prominent cheekbones.

The San were the original inhabitants of Southern Africa. They were hunters and gatherers, and while they did not have a system of writing, they developed a complex language that makes use of many click sounds. The San lived a nomadic lifestyle, with small hunting bands wandering the land in search of food. They used poison arrows to hunt game, and ostrich eggs as a means of carrying water. Their knowledge of local plants and animals, and of uses for them, remains unsurpassed to this day. Caves and rock shelters are used as dwellings. They possess only what they can carry. The San have a rich folklore and are known for the history of cave drawing.

The San once ranged over all of Southern Africa. However, with the coming of the Bantu people, who were farmers and herders, the San were gradually pushed into the interior. With the arrival of Europeans in the 18th and 19th centuries, the San were further marginalized, relegated to living in the arid and hostile Kalahari and Namib deserts.
The San have used Hoodia for centuries to combat hunger on long trips in the desert. Hoodia is a cactus, and the San would cut a piece of the plant and eat it fresh. Hoodia is native to a narrow region of Namibia, on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Hoodia is also known as Bushman's Hat and Queen of the Namib. The San call Hoodia Xhoba, with various spellings used to represent it in English.

The modern use of Hoodia by the pharmaceutical and nutritional supplement industries got its start in 1997 when the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) isolated the active ingredient. Subsequent agreements promise to share a certain percentage of the profits that CSIR receives with the San people. Currently, there is no licensed Hoodia-based product, which means that any product containing Hoodia was harvested illegally at no benefit to the San.

The San are among the poorest people in the world. Development of Hoodia resources could potentially bring in millions of dollars to their community. The illegal harvesting of Hoodia runs the risk of wiping out a plant that the San have relied on for centuries.