1.3 THE KHOISAN - a brief history of dispossession, subjugation and reclamation

1.3.1 The name “KhoiSan”

The name “KhoiSan”, which has been generally used in spoken and written language in post-Apartheid South Africa when referring to the country's oldest indigenous group, has been the subject of much debate around its origin, meaning and authenticity since it was first used in the late 1920s. Various contending presentations have been made, with some explaining it as

“…a general term which linguists use for the c l i ck l a n g u a g e i n S o u t h A f r i c a . P h y s i c a l anthropologists use it as a biological term to distinguish the aboriginal people of South Africa from their black African farming neighbours… The San, Sanqua and Soaqua were all names given to hunters by the KhoeKhoen of the Cape. The word means “people different from ourselves” and became associated with those without livestock… and the word KhoeKhoe / KhoiKoi / Kwena is a general name which the herding people of the Cape used for themselves… translated it means “the real people” or “men of men”, also meaning “we people with domestic animals”….

Abrahams asserts in her booklet, The Life and Times of Sarah Bartmann: An Educator's Guide, that “the problem remained for KhoeKhoe history to find a name which reflected historical realities…” and advocates the use of the word “KhoeKhoe”. Bredekamp argues for the use of the term “Khoisan” as it has indigenous roots: “Khoi” is based on a Khoekhoegewaab word meaning “person”, with “San” meaning the verb “to gather” . Some use the term to overcome the problem of there being no justification in historical records for a systematic division between people based on the way they produced goods.

Notwithstanding all the debate around the names, the term “KhoiSan” seems to be generally used and accepted in day-to-day spoken and written communication. It has been written in various ways, including “KhoeSan”,” Khoi-San” and “Khoisan”, but the more widely used term is “KhoiSan”.

The collective term KhoiSan does indeed “reflect historical realities”, as the Khoe and the San

“occupied defined, but sometimes overlapping territories, within which they often moved considerable distances according to the availability of grazing, game and seafood. Culturally the two groupings had much in common. Their language was closely related. They shared the skills associated with a hunting and gathering way of life. Some of their religious beliefs were similar.”

Abrahams concludes that “(the KhoiSan) peoples indigenous to Southern Africa shared sufficient cultural, linguistic and social cohesiveness to be considered one community.” This is also attested to in The KhoiSan Pages, a web-based educational information resource, as well as by Alan Barnard in his influential book on KhoiSan ethnography. The KhoiSan Pages makes reference to Richard Elphick's (suggestion) that “the difference between the KhoeKhoe (Khoi) and the Soaqua (San) was only of fortune, whereby in times of drought or famine, which often resulted in reduced grazing land and loss of herd, the KhoeKhoe reverted to being hunter-gatherers in order to survive” . Barnard details that the KhoiSan also share “gender relations, kinship, rituals and cosmology”.

As a community of peoples, the term KhoiSan collectively includes the Nama, Ghonaqua, Attaqua, Cochqua, Goringhaiqua, Griqua, Inqua, Hessequa, Khomani, !Xu, Hoengeyqua, /Xam and the Gamtqua and others.

In describing their ethos toward the environment and life in general, they are concerned with self-sufficiency, sustainable living and are an earth-centred community, “…whose cultural modes of survival (were of) masterly adaptation to the environment”