Introduction
Khoisan /ˈkɔɪsɑːn/, or Khoe-Sān (pronounced [kxʰoesaːn]), according to the contemporary
Khoekhoegowab orthography, is a catch-all term for those indigenous peoples of Southern Africa who
do not speak one of the Bantu languages, combining the Khoekhoen (formerly "Khoikhoi") and the Sān
or Sākhoen (also, in Afrikaans: Boesmans, or in English: Bushmen, after Dutch: Boschjesmens; and
Saake in the Nǁng language).
Khoekhoen specifically were formerly known as "Hottentots", which was an onomatopoeic term (from
Dutch hot-en-tot) referring to the click consonants prevalent in the Khoekhoe languages, as they are
in all the languages grouped under Khoesān. Dutchmen in the early Cape settlement would ply
Khoekhoen with liquor as an inducement for them to perform a ritual dance. The
lyric accompanying the dance sounded in Dutch ears like hot-en-tot.
Sān are popularly thought of as foragers in the Kalahari Desert and regions of Botswana, Namibia,
Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Northern South Africa. The word sān is from the Khoekhoe
language and simply refers to foragers ("those who pick things up from the ground") who do not own
livestock. As such, it was used in reference to all hunter-gatherer populations of the Southern
African region who Khoekhoe-speaking communities came into contact with and was largely a term
referring to a lifestyle, distinct from a pastoralist or agriculturalist one, and not to any
particular ethnicity. While there are attendant cosmologies and languages associated with this way
of life, the term is an economic designator rather than a cultural or ethnic one.
Khoekhoen is an ethnic designator. It refers to several populations which speak closely-related
languages and are considered to be the historical pastoralist communities in the South African Cape
region, through to Namibia, where Khoekhoe populations of Nama and Damara people are prevalent
ethnicities.
These Khoekhoe nations and Sān are grouped under the single term Khoesān as representing the
indigenous substrate population of Southern Africa prior to the hypothesised Bantu expansion
reaching the area roughly between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago.
Many Khoesān peoples are the direct descendants of a very early dispersal of anatomically modern
humans to Southern Africa before 150,000 years ago. Their languages show a vague typological
similarity, largely confined to the prevalence of click consonants. They are not verifiably derived
from a common proto-language, but are today split into at least three separate and unrelated
language families (Khoe-Kwadi, ǃUi-Taa and Kxʼa). It has been suggested that the Khoekhoeǁaen
(Khoekhoe peoples) may represent Late Stone Age arrivals to Southern Africa, possibly displaced by
Bantu immigration.
The compound term Khoisan / Khoesān is a modern anthropological convention in use since the
early-to-mid 20th century. Khoisan is a coinage by Leonhard Schulze in the 1920s and popularised by
Isaac Schapera. It entered wider usage from the 1960s based on the proposal of a "Khoisan"
language family by Joseph Greenberg.
During the Colonial/Apartheid era Afrikaans-speaking persons with partial Khoesān ancestry were
historically also grouped as Cape Blacks (Afrikaans: Kaap Swartes) or Western Cape Blacks
(Afrikaans: Wes-Kaap Swartes) to rather inaccurately distinguish them from the Bantu-speaking
peoples, the other indigenous African population of South Africa who also had significant Khoe-San
ancestry.
The term Khoisan (also spelled KhoiSan, Khoi-San, Khoe-San) has also been introduced in South
African usage as a self-designation after the end of apartheid in the late 1990s. Since the 2010s,
there has been a "Khoisan activist" movement, demanding recognition and land rights from the
government and white minority which owns large parts of the country's private land.
History
Origins
It is suggested that the ancestors of the modern Khoisan expanded to Southern Africa before 150,000 years ago, possibly as early as before 260,000 years ago, so that by the beginning of the MIS 5 "megadrought" 130,000 years ago, there were two ancestral population clusters in Africa, bearers of mt-DNA haplogroup L0 in southern Africa ancestral to the Khoi-San and bearers of haplogroup L1-6 in central/eastern Africa ancestral to everyone else.
Due to their early expansion and separation, the populations ancestral to the Khoisan have been estimated as having represented the "largest human population" during the majority of the anatomically modern human timeline, from their early separation before 150 kya until the recent peopling of Eurasia some 70 kya. They were much more widespread than today, their modern distribution being due to their decimation in the course of the Bantu expansion. They were dispersed throughout much of southern and southeastern Africa. There was also a significant back-migration of bearers of L0 towards eastern Africa between 120 and 75 kya. Rito et al. (2013) speculate that pressure from such back-migration may even have contributed to the dispersal of East African populations out of Africa at about 70 kya.
"By ~130 ka two distinct groups of anatomically modern humans co-existed in Africa: broadly, the ancestors of many modern-day Khoe and San populations in the south and a second central/eastern African group that includes the ancestors of most extant worldwide populations. Early modern human dispersals correlate with climate changes, particularly the tropical African 'megadroughts' of MIS 5 (marine isotope stage 5, 135–75 ka) which paradoxically may have facilitated expansions in central and eastern Africa, ultimately triggering the dispersal out of Africa of people carrying haplogroup L3 ~60 ka. Two south to east migrations are discernible within haplogroup L0. One, between 120 and 75 ka, represents the first unambiguous long-range modern human dispersal detected by mtDNA and might have allowed the dispersal of several markers of modernity. A second one, within the last 20 ka signalled by L0d, may have been responsible for the spread of southern click-consonant languages to eastern Africa, contrary to the view that these eastern examples constitute relics of an ancient, much wider distribution."
The San populations ancestral to the Khoisan were spread throughout much of southern and eastern Africa throughout the Late Stone Age after about 75 ka. A further expansion dated to about 20 ka has been proposed based on the distribution of the L0d haplogroup. Rosti et al. suggest a connection of this recent expansion with the spread of click consonants to eastern African languages (Hadza language).
The Late Stone Age Sangoan industry occupied southern Africa in areas where annual rainfall is less than a metre (1000 mm; 39.4 in). The contemporary San and Khoi peoples resemble those represented by the ancient Sangoan skeletal remains.
Against the traditional interpretation that finds a common origin for the Khoi and San, other evidence has suggested that the ancestors of the Khoi peoples are relatively recent pre-Bantu agricultural immigrants to southern Africa who abandoned agriculture as the climate dried and either joined the San as hunter-gatherers or retained pastoralism.
With the hypothesized arrival of pastoralists & bantoid agro-pastoralists in southern Africa starting around 2,300 years ago, linguistic development is later seen in the click consonants and loan words from ancient Khoe-san languages into the evolution of blended agro-pastoralist & hunter-gatherer communities that would eventually evolve into the now extant, amalgamated modern native linguistic communities found in South Africa, Botswana & Namibia (e.g. in South African Xhosa, Sotho, Tswana, Zulu people.)
Today these groups represent the quantitative majority of extant admixed ancient Khoe-San descendants by the millions.
Historical Period
The Khoikhoi enter the historical record with their first contact with Portuguese explorers, about
1,000 years after their displacement by the Bantu. Local population dropped after the Khoi were
exposed to smallpox from Europeans. The Khoi waged more frequent attacks against Europeans when the
Dutch East India Company enclosed traditional grazing land for farms. Khoikhoen social organisation
was profoundly damaged and, in the end, destroyed by colonial expansion and land seizure from the
late 17th century onwards. As social structures broke down, some Khoikhoen people settled on farms
and became bondsmen (bondservants) or farm workers; many were incorporated into existing Khoi clan
and family groups of the Xhosa people.
Georg Schmidt, a Moravian Brother from Herrnhut, Saxony, now
Germany, founded Genadendal in 1738, which was the first mission station in southern Africa,
among the Khoi people in Baviaanskloof in the Riviersonderend Mountains. Early European settlers
sometimes intermarried with Khoikhoen women, resulting in a sizeable mixed-race population now known
as the Griqua. The Griqua people too would migrate to what was by that time the frontierlands of the
Xhosa native reserves and establish Griqualand East, which contained a mostly Xhosa population.
Andries Stockenström facilitated the creation of the "Kat River" Khoi settlement near the eastern
frontier of the Cape Colony. The settlements thrived and expanded, and Kat River quickly became a
large and successful region of the Cape that subsisted more or less autonomously. The people were
predominantly Afrikaans-speaking Gonaqua Khoi, but the settlement also began to attract other Khoi,
Xhosa and mixed-race groups of the Cape.
The so-called "Bushman wars" were to a large extent the response of the San after their
dispossession.
At the start of the 18th century, the Khoikhoi in the Western Cape lived in a co-operative state
with the Dutch. By the end of the century the majority of the Khoisan operated as 'wage labourers',
not that dissimilar to slaves. Geographically, the further away the labourer was from Cape Town, the
more difficult it became to transport agricultural produce to the markets. The issuing of grazing
licences north of the Berg River in what was then the Tulbagh Basin propelled colonial expansion in
the area. This system of land relocation led to the Khoijhou losing their land and livestock as well
as dramatic change in the social, economic and political development.
After the defeat of the Xhosa rebellion in 1853, the new Cape Government endeavoured to grant the
Khoi political rights to avert future racial discontent. The government enacted the Cape franchise
in 1853, which decreed that all male citizens meeting a low property test, regardless of colour, had
the right to vote and to seek election in Parliament. This non-racial principle was later abolished
by the apartheid Government.
In the Herero and Namaqua genocide in German South-West Africa, over 10,000 Nama are estimated to
have been killed during 1904–1907.
The San of the Kalahari were described in Specimens of Bushman Folklore by Wilhelm H. I. Bleek and
Lucy C. Lloyd (1911). They were brought to the globalised world's attention in the 1950s by South
African author Laurens van der Post in a six-part television documentary. The Ancestral land
conflict in Botswana concerns the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR), established in 1961 for
wildlife, while the San were permitted to continue their hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
In the 1990s,
the government of Botswana began a policy of "relocating" CKGR residents outside the reserve. In
2002, the government cut off all services to CKGR residents. A legal battle began, and in 2006 the
High Court of Botswana ruled that the residents had been forcibly and unconstitutionally removed.
The policy of relocation continued, however, and in 2012 the San people (Basarwa) appealed to the
United Nations to force the government to recognise their land and resource rights.
Following the end of Apartheid in 1994, the term "Khoisan" has gradually come to be used as a
self-designation by South African Khoikhoi as representing the "first nations" of South Africa
vis-a-vis the ruling Bantu majority. A conference on "Khoisan Identities and Cultural Heritage" was
organised by the University of the Western Cape in 1997. and "Khoisan activism" has been
reported in the South African media beginning in 2015.
The South African government allowed Khoisan families (up until 1998) to pursue land claims which
existed prior to 1913. The South African Deputy Chief Land Claims Commissioner, Thami Mdontswa, has
said that constitutional reform would be required to enable Khoisan people to pursue further claims
to land from which their direct ancestors were removed prior to 9 June 1913.
Discoveries
In 2019, scientists from the University of the Free State discovered 8,000-year-old carvings made by the Khoisan people. The carvings depicted a hippopotamus, horse, and antelope in the 'Rain Snake' Dyke of the Vredefort structure, which may have spiritual significance regarding the rain-making mythology of the Khoisan.
Violence against the Khoisan
Herero and Namaqua Genocide
In the Herero and Namaqua genocide, about 10,000 Nama, a Khoekhoe group, and an unknown number of San people were killed in an extermination campaign by the German Colonial Empire between 1904 and 1908.
Forced relocation in Botswana
In Botswana, many of the indigenous San people have been forcibly relocated from their land to reservations. To make them relocate, they were denied access to water on their land and faced arrest if they hunted, which was their primary source of food. Their lands lie in the middle of the world's richest diamond field. Officially, the government denies that there is any link to mining and claims the relocation is to preserve the wildlife and ecosystem, even though the San people have lived sustainably on the land for millennia. On the reservations they struggle to find employment, and alcoholism is rampant.
Languages
The "Khoisan languages" were proposed as a linguistic phylum by Joseph Greenberg in 1955. Their genetic relationship was questioned later in the 20th century, and the term now serves mostly as a convenience term without implying genetic unity, much like "Papuan" and "Australian" are. Their most notable uniting feature is their click consonants. They are categorized in two families, and a number of possible language isolates.
Kxʼa family
The Kxʼa family was proposed in 2010, combining the ǂʼAmkoe (ǂHoan) language with the ǃKung (Juu) dialect cluster. ǃKung includes about a dozen dialects, with no clear-cut delineation between them. Sands et al. (2010) propose a division into four clusters:
Northern ǃKung (Sekele), spoken in Angola around the Cunene, Cubango, Cuito, and Cuando rivers (but with many refugees now in Namibia), North-Central ǃKung (Ekoka), spoken in Namibia between the Ovambo River and the Angolan border, Central ǃKung, spoken around Grootfontein, Namibia, west of the central Omatako River and south of the Ovambo River Southeastern ǃKung (Juǀ'hoan), spoken in Botswana east of the Okavango Delta, and northeast Namibia from near Windhoek to Rundu, Gobabis, and the Caprivi Strip.
Khoi (Khoe) family
The Khoi (Khoe) family is divided into a Khoikhoi (Khoekhoe and Khoemana dialects) and a Kalahari (Tshu–Khwe) branch. The Kalahari branch of Khoe includes Shua and Tsoa (with dialects), and Kxoe, Naro, Gǁana and ǂHaba (with dialects). Khoe also has been tentatively aligned with Kwadi ("Kwadi–Khoe"), and more speculatively with the Sandawe language of Tanzania ("Khoe–Sandawe"). The Hadza language of Tanzania has been associated with the Khoisan group due to the presence of click consonants.
Physical characteristics and genetics
Charles Darwin wrote about the Khoisan and sexual selection in The Descent of Man in 1882,
commenting that their steatopygia, seen primarily in females, evolved through sexual selection in
human evolution, and that "the posterior part of the body projects in a most wonderful manner".
Historically, some females were observed by anthropologists to exhibit elongated labia minora, which
sometimes projected as much as 10 cm below the vulva when standing. Though well documented, the
motivations behind this practice and the voices of the women who perform it are rarely explored in
the research.
In the 1990s, genomic studies of the world's peoples found that the Y chromosome of San men share
certain patterns of polymorphisms that are distinct from those of all other populations. Because
the Y chromosome is highly conserved between generations, this type of DNA test is used to determine
when different subgroups separated from one another, and hence their last common ancestry. The
authors of these studies suggested that the San may have been one of the first populations to
differentiate from the most recent common paternal ancestor of all extant humans.
Various Y-chromosome studies since confirmed that the Khoisan carry some of the most
divergent (oldest) Y-chromosome haplogroups. These haplogroups are specific sub-groups of
haplogroups A and B, the two earliest branches on the human Y-chromosome tree.
Similar to findings from Y-chromosome studies, mitochondrial DNA studies also showed evidence that
the Khoisan people carry high frequencies of the earliest haplogroup branches in the human
mitochondrial DNA tree. The most divergent (oldest) mitochondrial haplogroup, L0d, has been
identified at its highest frequencies in the southern African Khoi and San groups.
The distinctiveness of the Khoisan in both matrilineal and patrilineal groupings is a further
indicator that they represent a population historically distinct from other Africans.