Mythologies of the Khoikhoi Tribe

Khoikhoi or Khoekhoe (/ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ KOY-koy)^[a] are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San (literally "foragers") peoples, the accepted term for the two people being Khoisan.^[2] The designation "Khoikhoi" is actually a kare, or praise address, not an ethnic endonym, but it has been used in the literature as an ethnic term for Khoe-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, particularly pastoralist groups, such as the Inqua, Griqua, Gonaqua, Nama, Attequa. The Khoekhoe were once known as Hottentots, a term now considered offensive. The Khoekhoe are thought to have diverged from other humans 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. In the 17th century, the Khoekhoe maintained large herds of Nguni cattle in the Cape region. The Khoekhoe language is related to certain dialects spoken by foraging San peoples of the Kalahari, such as the Khwe and Tshwa, forming the Khoe language family. Khoekhoe subdivisions today are the Nama people of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa (with numerous clans), the Damara of Namibia, the Orana clans of South Africa (such as Nama or Ngqosini), the Khoemana or Griqua nation of South Africa, and the Gqunukhwebe or Gona clans which fall under the Xhosa-speaking polities. The Xirikua clans (Griqua) developed their own ethnic identity in the 19th century and settled in Griqualand West. Later, they formed another independent state in KwaZulu-Natal named Griqualand East, which was annexed into the British Empire roughly a decade later. They are related to the same kinds of clan formations as Rehoboth Basters, who could also be considered a "Khoekhoe" people. The broad ethnic designation of "Khoekhoen" refers to the peoples originally part of a pastoral culture and language group to be found across Southern Africa. Mellet, citing Ehlpick,^[8] claims that a people he calls "proto-Khoe" emerged between 400 BCE and 100 CE in southern Zimbabwe in the context of engagement between the San foundation peoples Tshua and Khwe, and the slow migratory drift of herding communities from East Africa. He adds that those engagements and genetic mixing also occurred in northern Botswana, along the Limpopo River as well as in the northern parts of present-day South Africa. Between 200 BCE and 300 CE, what started as micro-communities with mixed means of sustenance including hunting, herding and farming, solidified as larger communities of herders, first of sheep and later of cattle, alongside the Bantu farmers. By 500 CE, these pastoralist groups, steadily spread southward. There is some debate among social scientists about the pace and routes of their migration, but according to Sadr, there is no evidence of widespread Khoekhoe settlements, nor of large number of sheep or cattle, south of the Orange River before 1000 CE. Khoekhoe" groups include ǀAwakhoen to the west, and ǀKx'abakhoena of South and mid-South Africa, and the Eastern Cape. Both of these terms mean "Red People", and are equivalent to the IsiXhosa term "amaqaba". Husbandry of sheep, goats and cattle grazing in fertile valleys across the region provided a stable, balanced diet, and allowed these lifestyles to spread, with larger groups forming in a region previously occupied by the subsistence foragers.

The Khoikhoi is our original name and an umbrella term, referring to the different Khoikhoi tribes mentioned above. Variations of spelling include “Khoi”, "Khoisan" or “Khoe” (singular), as well as “Khoi-khoi”. It is noticeable that all our tribe names end in -qua (for example the Namaqua or Griqua) because -qua means “people”. The prefix refers to a historical leader and the name would therefore mean “people of the leader”. Previously, we were also referred to as the “Hottentotte”. This name represents cultural and linguistic patterns among our people. Dutch Colonialists abbreviated Hottentot to “Hot Not,” but this variation of the name carries a derogatory connotation that was carried into the painful Apartheid history. We are not formally recorded in South Africa as an indigenous cultural community. The United Nations Special Rapporteur, Prof. Rodolfo Stavenhagen documented our existence as South Africa’s indigenous peoples as the following communities. “There are six large groups who identify themselves as indigenous and who claim this status. Under each of these groups there can be various sub-groups which differ from each other, either for their striking difference in demography or in the institutions they have adopted or again for differences in their subsistence economy. These ethnic groups include the three main San peoples (!Xun, Khwe and ‡Khomani), the various Nama communities (Khoekhoen), the major Griqua associations and representatives of the Koranna descendants, as well as several constituencies of so-called “revivalist Khoisan”, people reclaiming their historical heritage. According to the documentation provided to the Special Rapporteur during his visit, the various indigenous groups, known collectively as Khoi-San, are estimated to include approximately 1,000 ‡Khomani San, 1,100 Khwe San, 4,500 !Xun San and 10,00. Nama people, who are mostly resident in the sparsely populated Northern Cape Province. There are a further 300,000 Griquas, mostly located in the Northern and Western Cape Provinces, but with significant communities in the Eastern Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal. There is furthermore an unspecified number of “revivalists” Khoisan people associated with the Cape Cultural Heritage Development Council (CCHDC). Most of the indigenous peoples in the western part of the country were forced to adopt Afrikaans as their primary language. The use of Khoe-San languages was strongly discouraged under Apartheid.” These historical outlines of the broad historical communities are confirmed as such in both the Status Quo reports of 1999 and the 2018 South African Human Rights Commission report on the human rights situation of the Khoisan. The Khoikhoi peoples are known as great nomadic pastoralists, and this was our form of land economy. We were known to possess a great amount of wealth in the form of cattle, sheep, indigenous knowledge, customary resources, as well as a rich heritage. Our wealth was documented several times in colonial British, Dutch, German and Portuguese archival records. The wealth of one of the Cape Khoi tribes, the Cocoqua, is documented in one colonial record summarised from different writings as follows: “The Kochoquas are called Saldanhars by our countrymen, because they have always dwelt mostly near and in the valleys of Saldanha Bay. They settled in fifteen or sixteen different villages, about a quarter of an hour’s distance from one another. Each village consisted of thirty, thirty-six, forty or fifty huts, all placed in a circle a little distance apart. The Saldanhars for safety kept their cattle in the centre of the village at night. They also owned a large collection of cattle, well over a hundred thousand in number and about two hundred thousand sheep, which instead of wool have longish coloured hair on the body”.

Khoikhoi (also called Khoekhoe, Khoenkhoen or Koina) were close cousins of the Bushmen, but had started keeping flocks of cattle and sheep. This type of stock farming with domesticated animals began in the Middle East around 10000 years ago and slowly spread down the African continent, as receptive local tribes picked up the practice. Then, about 2000 years ago, these Khoikhoi people took their herds and moved South from Northern Botswana into South Africa. They passed through the Bushman’s realm without stopping, and headed on into the South and West. Here they chose to settle, spreading out along the Southern Cape coast from East London to Cape Town, as well as in Namaqualand – a region still named after the Nama clan of the Khoikhoi. Cattle and sheep were very important to the Khoikhoi. Their flocks gave them stability, status and security. More fundamentally, a regular supply of meat and milk greatly reduced all that inconvenient hunting and gathering, and it certainly added fuel to their physicality. For the Khoikhoi, cows had become a currency with legs. The Bushmen, for their part, didn’t really mind the implied criticism. They may have got a little annoyed when the Khoikhoi herds got in the way of their traditional hunting routes and the Khoikhoi, in turn, might have been miffed when the Bushmen got in the way of their herds. But there was still plenty of land to go around and, by some kind of general agreement, the Bushmen focussed their attention on the Natal side of the country while the Khoikhoi gravitated towards the Cape. Once they had settled down, the Khoikhoi organised themselves into an extended clan structure, headed by chieftains. There were the Cochoqua and Guriqua in the North, the Chainouqua, Hessequa, Gouriqua, Attaqua and Houteniqua in the East, the Namaqua in the North, and the Goringhaiqua, Gorachouqua and Goringhaikona around the Cape Peninsula. By all accounts, these different tribal groups spent many happy centuries tending their herds and extending their families, with only the occasional feud between the chiefs to keep things exciting. But the Khoikhoi’s fate was not to be a happy one. They were the people destined to endure the first convulsive meetings with the Europeans, who had started landing at the Cape from 1500 onwards, and they were also the first indigenous nation to allow the yoke of white supremacy to be placed around their necks.

Long before the first settlers arrived on South African shores, various groups of people spread out sparsely across the land. They were the largest group of humans on earth: the Khoisan, a tribe of skilled hunter-gatherers and nomadic farmers who lived off the land. The San and Khoikhoi people from South Africa are considered to be one of the oldest cultures in the world. The name Khoisan is a blend of Khoikhoi and San, two groups who share similar cultures and languages. They were, however, two distinct cultural groups. The former chose the name Khoikhoi to show pride in their past and culture and to distinguish themselves from other groups such as the San (SoaQua or SonQua). These were smaller groups of hunter/gatherers who lived off the veld and had no cattle. The Khoikhoi, on the other hand, were nomadic herders who owned vast herds of cattle and sheep and lived in large groups. Khoikhoi means “men of men” or “people of people,” while Khoisan refers to the linguistic and genetic heritage of the Khoikhoi and San people. The Khoikhoi, also known as the Khoi, Khoekhoe, or Khoekhoen people, are said to be one of the oldest indigenous groups in Southern Africa. This ancient ethnic group has a long and fascinating history that deserves recognition. According to South African History Online, the Khoikhoi were the first native people to come into contact with the Dutch settlers in the mid-17th century. The arrival of European settlers had a devastating impact on the Khoikhoi as they were dispossessed of their lands. Not only were their lands taken, but they were also enslaved and persecuted, causing their numbers to decrease. Following the European settlements, Khoikhoi groups settled in various regions: the Nama people (the largest group of Khoikhoi) occupied modern-day Central Namibia and northeastern Cape; the Gonaqua people in Eastern Cape; the nomadic Korana people settled along the Orange River initially called the Gariep River. But the largest concentration of Khoikhoi, numbering in the tens of thousands inhabited the well-watered pasture lands of the south-western Cape. These ‘Cape’ Khoikhoi were the first African population to face the brunt of European settlement. European settlers called them ‘Hottentots’ because of the sound of their language, which they found difficult. One of the words that the Khoikhoi used when they danced sounded like “Hottentots”, and that’s how the name came about. However, this term is now widely considered derogatory or offensive.

The Khoikhoi (or Khoekhoe) are one of the oldest ethnic groups to have settled in southern Africa, and along with the San, they represent the earliest anthropological roots of the region. They are called Khoi, a term meaning “real people” or “men among men” in their language. The Khoikhoi have inhabited the southern and western parts of the African continent for thousands of years. Linguistic and genetic studies indicate that they diverged culturally from the San around 2,000 years ago, when they began adopting cattle herding as their primary economic activity instead of relying solely on hunting and gathering. Historically, the term “Hottentot” was used by Dutch colonists to refer to them, a term now considered offensive and racist, as it mimicked the sounds of their language, which included silent “clicks”. The currently accepted scientific and political term is “Khoikhoi” to distinguish them from the San, or “Khoisan” when referring to the two groups as a single linguistic and ethnic group. The Khoikhoi established larger, pastoral societies. Cattle (cattle and broad-rumped sheep) were the backbone of their economy and social standing. Cattle were not only a source of food (milk and meat) but also a store of value and a medium of exchange. The Khoikhoi moved their herds according to the rainy seasons and grazing availability, giving them a deep understanding of the geography and geology of South Africa. They had a concept of “private ownership” of cattle, while land was considered communal property of the tribe or clan, which later clashed with the European concept of land ownership. Besides, Khoikhoi society was more centrally organised than other nomadic groups. Society was divided into tribes, each tribe consisting of several clans related by blood. Each tribe had a chief with limited political and judicial authority. Major decisions were made in consultation with a council of clan elders. They lived in villages known as “kraals”, which were clusters of circular leather tents (matjieshuise) arranged in a circle to protect livestock in the centre from predators or raids. Also, women were responsible for gathering wild plants and managing the tents, while men were responsible for herding livestock, providing protection, and hunting. The Khoikhoi languages belong to the Khoisan language family and are unique globally due to their use of click sounds.

We are a people with an intimate knowledge of all the watering holes, a resource we will expertly conserve for thousands of years. We are the ultimate recyclers, the people who repurposed way before repurposing would become a word. We are people at one with the oceans, who by only smelling the ocean breeze and feeling the temperature of the water, can immediately know whether today we can enter her domain or not. We call this ocean a woman because in all KhoeSan cultures, our women are respected and loved but equally feared for her power to give and take. We are a people who have lived in harmony with nature for thousands of years and whose “signatures” can be seen throughout Southern Africa in rock paintings. Our rock paintings are not just paintings. They are ancient text that talks to cultural practices, rituals and beliefs. It’s a cinema of sorts, that moves you when you allow it to. It makes a sound, but only if you open your spiritual ears. Thousands of KhoeSan rock paintings exist in Southern Africa and one of the most famous finds is the Blombos Cave in Blombosfontein Nature Reserve, about 300km outside of Cape Town on the Southern Cape coastline. There’s a community public rock art project, Wildebeest Kuil Rock Art Centre, on the outskirts of Kimberley, and here more than 400 engravings are conserved. The Iziko Museum in Cape Town also hosts a wonderful permanent rock art exhibition. A few weeks ago I discovered a set of murals tucked away in the parking lot of the Artscape Theatre, that speaks to our KhoiSan history.