PART II: UNEQUAL, TRANSITIONAL CONTEXT
4. Introduction: Rendering trans-generational and lifespan inequality visible
4.3 Accounts of the Pre-colonial period
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4.3.2 Inequality through a divisive gaze
Where indigenous people were not rendered invisible, the language used by some
historians suggests a divisive gaze (by the colonists) at the indigenous populations on the one hand, while others claim a single identity on the other. At least two scholars, who are aware of their lineage, described themselves as Khoekhoe (Abrahams, 2007) and
Khoesan (Muthien, 2008) and respectively emphasise a unified identity. Muthien shows sensitivity to self determination by groups, by explicitly stating that she respects the various names surviving groups choose for themselves. Abrahams seeks to
reconceptualise an intersectional identity of the people who occupied the land before European settlers arrived. As Reitan argues (2007:17), ‘exploitation, the penetration and segmentation of identities, and marginalization and fragmentation are all forms of structural violence and can occur between individuals, societies, and regions, as well as globally’.
According to Lucas (2006) there is ambiguity over diversity in the various groups who lived at the Cape when the colonists arrived. He suggests that the term Khoisan is occasionally used to conceal this ambiguity. According to him a distinction is generally made on social and linguistic grounds between nomadic pastoralists of various tribes.
They were known jointly as Khoikhoi but at first as Hottentots. The hunter-gatherer groups were known as Bushman (p.69). Lucas does not mention who ‘knew’ them by these names – but some of the names were clearly not chosen by the indigenous people themselves. This act of naming already points to the asymmetry of power to define and limit people. Driving home the notion of a divisive gaze on the part of the historian, Lucas argues further that ‘certainly the Khoikhoi looked down on the San as socially inferior’ (p.70). Again, Lucas does not provide evidence for this assertion.
4.3.3 Inequality through asymmetry of power
One way in which asymmetry of power manifests in historical writing is through the power to define. As Muthien (who interviewed Abrahams for her 2008 study on KhoeSan women) states, she was advised by Abrahams that her Namibian uncle insisted that she spell the word ‘Khoe’ as used by her Damara ancestors - meaning people. Muthien (2008:6-7) argues that:
108 The shift in spelling over a decade between the 1990s and the twenty first
century from Khoi to Khoe, is indicative of the Khoe themselves claiming intellectual power, and naming themselves, and attempting to spell more aptly what was previously defined, and spelt, by decendants of Europe […]
when combined as in Khoekhoe or KhoeSan … or Khowesin it means
“people’s people”. (Muthien, 2008:6-7)
Generally historians seem to describe the Khoekhoe and San as distinct groups, but it is never clear what this construction is based on. According to Abrahams (2007:422), who appears not to make a distinction between Khoekhoe and San:
The Khoekhoe are the native South Africans. Our history here stretches back some 25 millennia, and yet how are we brought into white male history? The answer, in my native idiom, is unprintable and yet white academic language was not only saying it, but saying it in such a way that it legitimises the speaking of the unspeakable. By now I could see that I was not taking on Gilman alone. This was about his history, his people: my history, my people and the fight, not just to take our land and make us slaves, but to determine our identity through racial and gendered power.
(Abrahams, 2007:422).
Worden (2012) contends that Khoekhoe pastoralists were encountered by the Dutch when they arrived in 1652. He asserts that crop cultivators (black groups) moved into the territory between approximately AD 300 and 1000. Some of them mined and processed metals, for example copper and iron. According to linguistic studies, unlike the San and Khoekhoe these crop cultivators spoke African languages (p.10).
4.3.4 Inter-group inequality
According to Worden both expansions, by the Khoekhoe and African language speaking people, encroached on the San’s hunting grounds. Many San were, according to him, compelled to retreat to areas that were not environmentally well suited to livestock keeping and crop growing. He suggests that contact between herders and cultivator communities involved exchange of goods. However, conflicts also arose over grazing lands. As Worden avers, ‘the region had become both socially complex and economically diverse before colonial settlers moved in’ (2012:11).
Boonzaier’s (1996:35) description is instructive. He states: ‘the fact that the Khoikhoi were cattle and sheep herders set them apart from the hunting San’ (my italics). He suggests that ‘unlike the San, who lived in very flexible and mobile bands generally
109 numbering fewer than fifty persons, the village settlement (or kraal) of the Khoikhoi was significantly larger, with often well over one hundred persons (p.36).
In sum, by piecing together the accounts of these scholars, it is clear that indigenous people were well established on the land when the settlers arrived. It also appears, from the literature, that the Khoekhoe and Black language speaking groups were more dominant than the San who were in retreat. There are no accounts from the San
themselves as to their motivation for ‘retreating’. It is also not clear from the literature if there was any aggression from the side of the Khoekhoe and African groups.
4.3.5 ‘African/native/slave’
While Muthien uses the term KhoeSan (with San capitalised) to honour both Khoe and San people equally, she does allude to the fact that some descendants refer to themselves as San, Khomani San, !Xun and Khwe (2008:7). This suggests that these groups reject the prefix Khoe and the lowercase san. Abrahams’ move towards an intersectional analysis of a unitary African/native/slave identity, suggests that her notion of Khoekhoe might be inclusive of San – but she does not say so explicitly. The joining of the names Khoi and San with San uncapitalised, speaks volumes about attitudes towards the San and constitutes an uninterrupted form of violence which has the tacit approval of those who use the spelling without question.
The Director of SASI states that the Khoe and San are distinct from each other.
According to her, the communities she works with ‘are all very clear that they are San and not Khoe-San’. Further, in her experience, people ‘prefer to be called by their clan/language names for example !Xun, Kwe, Khomani, Ju’hoansi, Naro and so forth.
Some San, especially from the Kalahari even refer to themselves as Boesmans and are quite comfortable with that term’.14 I also take cognisance of Abrahams’ standpoint from
14Facebook inbox message from Ms Schippers, Director of South African San Institute (SASI) dated 7
July 2012.
110 which she confronts historiography on the Khoekhoe written from a mainly white, male perspective.
I now move to the colonial period to trace key antecedents and consequences of the discriminatory, ‘divide and conquer’ attitude and behaviour that sheds light on
contemporary inequality (uninterrupted structural violence) and crime/social harm (direct violence). I bear in mind Fanon’s sober admonition: ‘to those who take it on themselves to describe colonialism … it is utopian to try to ascertain in what ways one kind of inhuman behaviour differs from another kind of inhuman behaviour’ (Fanon, 1967:86).