Southern Africa's San

The first people - Southern Africa's San

Universally acknowledged as the first people of southern Africa, the San, or Bushmen as they are commonly known, lost increasing ground from the seventeenth century onwards to pressure and persecution from both black and white: The Xhosa and other Nguni tribes encroached as they progressed south along the east coast, and the Dutch and British as they colonised from the settlement of Cape Town in the west. Consequently, the San have always been associated with the refuges of mountains and deserts, where their rock paintings and engravings remain, and even today these aboriginal peoples lead a marginalized existence in the most remote and inhospitable areas of South Africa; Botswana and Namibia. Their historic relationship with another major ethnic group of pre-colonial southern Africa, the Khoi, was more ambiguous. The two share many cultural and linguistic features in their ‘click' languages and are sometimes conveniently grouped under the same umbrella, as the Khoisan. Most often, the San are classed as hunter-gatherers and the Khoi as pastoralists, and, while the boundaries of classification were no doubt blurred, it is as hunter-gatherers that the San are best known.

Tracking, hunting and gathering

The western notion of the ‘noble and innocent savage' has of course been applied to the San, as it has to aboriginal societies on all the settled continents, and the concept of hunting and gathering romanticised. In reality, the gathering of tubers, berries and even small items of protein (birds eggs for example) by the women played a far larger and more reliable role than the hunting carried out by the men. Even so, it is for this latter practice and its considerable tracking skills that the culture is most feted. Four methods were the most often employed in the acquisition of meat by the men - the use of snares and other traps, chasing carnivores from their kills, shooting antelope with poisoned arrows and, on a hot day, literally running an animal into the ground - all making essential use of the art of tracking. Eland, the prominent feature in the culture's acclaimed rock art, was the most highly prized species for both spiritual and practical purposes. The meat was favoured over other animals and the fat used for a variety of ceremonies and rites of passage, while metaphorically, the eland has been interpreted as an important symbol of potency for the San.

Mischievous /Kaggen

/Kaggen, the name of the San deity, and !Kung, //Xegwi, /Xam, Ju/'hoasi and G/wi, clan names, give an idea of the musical texture of this unique language group that aside from southern Africa is represented only by an isolated tribe, the Hadzi, in Tanzania. /Kaggen - the trickster - is seen as the creator and takes many different forms including the Praying Mantid which has led to a false conclusion that the San worship this insect. In addition, some San groups believe in two different gods - one associated with life and the rising sun in the east, and one with death and the setting sun in the west. A belief common across the different clans is that at some ‘early time' people and animals were indistinguishable and only after a ‘second creation' did people acquire the human qualities they have today. Another practise common across the clans is that of the trance dance, a means of clan shamans and healers (both men and women) crossing to parallel worlds in order to heal. These religious beliefs, and especially the role of the trance dance and shaman, are nowadays considered important to the understanding of rock art across southern Africa. The art, and its interpreters, have died out, but in contrast to earlier western notions of simple naïve art, rock paintings are now believed to have been representations of cosmological and spiritual beliefs and occurrences. Bongani Mountain Lodge in South Africa's lowveld is rich in San rock art, including some representations that are noted for their uniqueness by academics in the field.

Their legacy ...

While ‘pure' hunter-gatherer communities probably no longer exist year round, San communities, as they did at other times in their history, have adapted to western and other influences: Many keep goats, others work in the cash economy, some benefit from cultural and eco-tourism. Guests on CC Africa Expedition to the Central Kalahari may have the opportunity to experience the art of tracking with a San guide. Aside from their rock art, engravings and isolated remnant settlements, the legacy of the San and acknowledgement of their place in the region's history, is enshrined in the motto on the South African National Coat of Arms, !ke e: /xarra //ke, which in the /Xam language means "diverse people unite".

-Chris Roche-

Posted: Other by CC Africa, Date: 21 November 2006