History - Did you know? The grasslands of Southern Africa have been occupied by hunter-gatherers and herders for thousands of years. Archaeologists have discovered human remains and artifacts in caves inhabited by Stone Age people who lived 30 000 or 40 000 years ago. They were probably the ancestors of the San (Bushmen) nation. The Khoikhoi were originally part of a pastoral culture and language group found across Southern Africa. Originated in the northern area of modern Botswana, the ethnic group steadily migrated south, reaching the Cape approximately 2,000 years ago. Khoikhoi subgroups include the Korana of mid-South Africa, the Namaqua to the west, and the Khoikhoi in the south. Husbandry of sheep, goats and cattle provided a stable, balanced diet and allowed the related Khoikhoi peoples to live in larger groups than the regions previous inhabitants, the San. Herds grazed in fertile valleys across the region until the 3rd century AD when the advancing Bantu encroached into their traditional homeland. The Khoikhoi were forced into a long retreat into more arid areas. Today, in the southwest country of Namibia, the majority of the Khoikhoi people are mixed with one of the Bantu groups known as the Damara - today, they have a mixed-light skin tone, resulting from the light color of the Khoikhoi people and the darker color of the Bantu people. This people group—known as either Damara or Khoikhoi—live around the Erongo region of Namibia. They speak the language known as Khoikhoigobab or simply (the more wide spread term) Damara. Migratory Khoi bands living around what is today Cape Town intermarried with San. However the two groups remained culturally distinct as the Khoikhoi continued to graze livestock and the San subsisted as hunter-gatherers. European sailors and explorers visited the southern tip of Africa (between Walvis Bay on the West coast and the Kei River on the Eastern shores), as early as the 15th century. The first inhabitants with whom they made contact were the Khoikhoi. Their name Khoikhoi means, men of men, or true people. The early European visitors found their language, with its click sounds to be both unpronounceable and incomprehensible. The Khoikhoi loved to dance and chant and one of the words used while dancing was hautitou which sounded like Hottentot, hence their European name. The Khoikhoi were small yellowish people. They owned sheep and cattle and lived in kraals, each with a leader or minor chief. The inhabitants of several kraals formed a clan with a chief as their leader. A number of clans had a paramount chief. Each clan had its own territory or grazing area in which they moved around from time to time to find better grazing. They spend much time along the coast where they found an easy food source in the form of fish, shellfish and seals. Their grass or reed huts were easily pulled down and re-erected and were transported on their oxen. This facilitated their nomadic lifestyle. The Europeans found that they were used to the practice of bartering for they bartered goods like dagga, ostrich-egg shells, beads and occasionally metals such as copper amongst themselves and other groups. The Khoikhoi were reluctant to barter cattle and sheep with the Europeans since the size of their herds reflected their personal wealth and provided them with an important source of food. Next to the Khoikhoi, the Dutch also came into contact with the San whom they called Sonqua (Bushmen). They were brown people, somewhat smaller than the Khoikhoi who also spoke a language with click sounds. They were not stock owners but only hunter-gatherers living on game, wild roots and berries. Being to such a great extend dependent on nature, they were more nomadic than the Khoikhoi. They built crude huts from branches which they covered with grass and skins although they sometimes also lived in reed huts. In earlier times they lived nearer to the Cape, but the Dutch first came across them along the Oliphant’s River and further inland up to the Orange River.nt Some Khoikhoi people settled on farms and became bondsmen or farm workers; others were incorporated into existing clan and family groups of the Xhosa people. The first mission station in southern Africa, Genadendal, was started in 1738 among the Khoi people in Baviaans kloof in the Riviersonderend Mountains by Georg Schmidt a Moravian Brother from Herrnhut, Saxony, now Germany. Early European settlers sometimes intermarried with the indigenous KhoiKhoi, producing a sizeable mixed population known at the time as Basters and in some instances still so-called, e.g.: the Bosluis Basters of the Richtersveld and the Baster community of Rehoboth, Namibia. Like many KhoiKhoi and mixed race people, the Griqua left the Cape Colony and migrated into the interior. Responding to the influence of missionaries they formed the states of Griqualand West and Griqualand East which were later absorbed into the Cape Colony of the British Empire. After the war and the defeat of the rebellion, the new Cape Government endeavored to grant the Khoi meaningful political rights to avert any future racial discontent. William Porter, the Attorney General, was famously quoted as saying that he ...would rather meet the Hottentot at the hustings, voting for his representative, than meet him in the wilds with his gun upon his shoulder, and so the beginnings of the multi-racial Cape franchise was born in 1853. This law decreed that all citizens, regardless of colour, had the right to vote and to seek election in Parliament. This non-racial principle of franchise was later eroded in the late 1880s, and then finally abolished by the Apartheid Government. The Cape Colony was the first European colony in South Africa, which was initially controlled by the Dutch but subsequently invaded and taken over by the British. After war broke out again, a British force was sent once more to the Cape. After a battle in January 1806 on the shores of Table Bay, the Dutch garrison of Cape Castle surrendered to the British under Sir David Baird, and in 1814, the colony was ceded outright by the Netherlands to the British crown. At that time, the colony extended to the mountains in front of the vast central plateau, then called Bushmansland, and had an area of about 194,000 square kilometres and a population of some 60,000, of whom 27,000 were white, 17,000 free Khoikhoi, and the rest slaves. These slaves were mostly people brought in from other parts of Africa and Malays.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 08:33:20 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015