Their skills in traditional medicine, healing, knowledge of the wild ecology made them above the Bantu speakers.
The
San and the Khoikhoi were in conflict, but lived and depended on each
other. Apart from protection, provision of wild food adoption of arrows
and magic;
The Khoisan was displaced by the
stronger Bantu groups southwards. They acquired knowledge of cattle,
sheep herding and cultivation of food crops as well as the Bantu.
Bantu
movements displaced the San from their fertile lands southwards. The
Bantu called the San hunters while free Burghers called them men of the Bush (Bushmen), as they hunted them like animals to forcefully take their Land.
The Free Burghers looked at the San as people of no use, a nuisance to their property and treated them like animals.
For
the Khoikhoi, they moved on Bantu settlements or depended on them. Many
of the Khoikhoi clans intermarried with the Bantu, which led to a
cultural transformation and inter exchange, as well as clash of cultures.
Many Xhosa and Zulu dialect and other Nguni tribes absorbed the Khoisan click sound in their languages.
The natural hazards and disasters made the Khoikhoi to rely on the Bantu speakers especially the Xhosa people.
Many
and constant raids from the Dutch, Bantu on the San reduced them to
near extinction. External raids made the San lose their rich hunting
grounds. They now became dependent on these aliens, for example, they
hunted and herded for the Khoikhoi in return for food and protection.
During the ‘Afrikaner exodus,’ there
was occupation of their land and loss of independence, forced migration
and breakup. The Dutch took Khoikhoi cattle and water sources, as they
destroyed their economy. This led to their movement and settlement
further north.
Their contact with the Dutch wiped out their numbers due to venereal diseases and alcohol.
It
should be noted that at first the Dutch from 1652 had tried to treat
the Khoikhoi kindly and actually carried out barter trade, but external
pressure from the British made the Dutch changed their policy.
With
expansion of the Dutch Cape Colony, the San were displaced across the
Orange river to the Namib or Kalahari Desert (Namibia and Botswana),
where nearly 9,000 pure-blood San live to date. Their typical
traditional hunting grounds were lost as many of them died.
Many
San people (women and children) who were captured where either enslaved
by the white farmers or became servants of the white men.
As
for the Khoikhoi, when they lost their cattle and grazing fields to the
Dutch farmers, they now appeared to exist like the San. Many of them
were absorbed into the Dutch cultures, which led to cultural
transformation.
With contacts to the Dutch, the result was detribalization of the Khoikhoi and the San.
Indeed
the Khoikhoi women got married to the Dutchmen, which led to the birth
of the colored race (Griqua, Orlam and the Korana or Kora) of South
Africa mainly at the Cape Colony.
Many historians
and linguists believe that today there are actually no pure blooded
Khoikhoi in the whole of South Africa. This was due to external contacts
with other early inhabitants.
Many Khoisan people adopted Bantu language, culture and mode of life. For the Bantu they adopted the Khoisan click sounds and other characteristics. Bantu crops like sorghum, beans, calabashes and yams spread.
The
Khoisan depended on the Bantu for supply of raw iron and its products
in return for ivory, wild game or meat and Ostrich feathers. Many Nguni
speakers adopted the use of oxen for agriculture, transport and warfare.
The
Khoisan styles of dress creation where borrowed by the Bantu. The Bantu
mainly the Xhosa also adopted the idea of god from their Khoisan
neighbors in the East and north.
Indeed we can say
that the Bantu speakers on one hand were in a position to conquer and
dislocate the Khoisan from their fertile grazing and hunting grounds or
land.
It's for this that the Khoisan used to call the Bantu speakers on the eastern frontiers of the Cape colony as 'Xhosa '- meaning 'angry men '.
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