Hi Selena - I didn't know much about the San people and am now very interested in learning more after reading your thoughtful and in-depth response. I wonder though, about the theory of Rutger Bregmann. I wonder if it was not the Neanderthals who were kind, and their kindness is still somewhere in us? Because humans now are ... not kind! I mean as nice as I can be personally, I would never want to go up against myself in some type of life-or-death situation. I wonder how smart Neanderthals actually were - it certainly seems like history has been written to portray them as not smart or not up to par - but Bregmann's theory may well be right. And there is Neanderthal DNA in almost all of us - so I wonder if there is also some type of inheritance there.

I'm supposed to be writing a story about mermaids and it touches on all these issues ... you know those stories with two protagonists/antagonists - a pair of mermaid sisters, one of whom has gone with our current culture and become almost "human" and the other - still a wild mermaid in nature.