You're listening to Nocturne. I'm Phinesse Lowe.

It's summer here in Northern California, and for me, that usually involves being outside

in nature, and as much as possible, gathering around a fire in the still-night, with friends

and family. Clustering around the warmth and power of a campfire, it's always felt like

the edges of people get softened. We speak and listen to each other differently. There's a deepening

that doesn't happen in many other settings. Anthropologist Polly Weasner has studied the

Kuhn Bushmen of Southern Africa for over 40 years. That's my best pronunciation, I'm sure it could

be better. The Kuhn War, up until recently, hunter-gatherers, who lived much as our ancient ancestors

did, so Weasner's study of them offers some insight into our human past. Weasner observed that

when the day work ended, the Kuhn would naturally gather around a communal fire in a nighttime extension

of social interaction. Her paper entitled Embers of Society, published in proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences, focuses on firelight talk among the Bushmen. Notably, Weasner found major

differences between the things the Bushmen talked about during the day and the night. While

day talk centered on practicalities, economics, and gossip, the talk at night around the fire

steered away from tensions of the day and toured more intimate conversations, imagination,

and stories, often about known people. Importantly, this different way of interacting formed the

basis for trust, cooperation, and internalizing culture. Weasner wrote of the fireside gatherings,

body language is dimmed by firelight, and awareness of self and others is reduced,

and stories told by firelight put listeners on the same emotional wavelength,

and elicited understanding, trust, and sympathy.

There's a lot known about how humans learning to control fire and cook food

led to big changes in anatomy, including brain size, and also how the act of cooking with fire

...