 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| ~ 400,000[1] (c. 2010) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Namibia,Botswana,South Africa | |
| Languages | |
| Afrikaans,[2]Khoe-Kwadi languages,Kx'a languages,Tuu languages | |
| Religion | |
| MainlyChristian andAfrican Traditional Religion (San religion) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Tswana,Xhosa,Coloured,Griqua |
Khoisan (/ˈkɔɪsɑːn/KOY-sahn) orKhoe-Sān (pronounced[kʰoɪˈsaːn]) is anumbrella term for the variousindigenous peoples ofSouthern Africa who traditionally speak non-Bantu languages, combining theKhoekhoen and theSān peoples. Khoisan populations traditionally speakclick languages. They are considered to be the historical communities throughout Southern Africa, remaining predominant until Bantu and European colonisation. The Khoisan have lived in areas climatically unfavourable to Bantu (sorghum-based) agriculture, from theCape region toNamibia andBotswana, whereKhoekhoe populations ofNama andDamara people are prevalent groups. Considerable mingling with Bantu-speaking groups is evidenced by prevalence of click phonemes in manySouthern African Bantu languages, especially Xhosa.
Many Khoesan peoples are the descendants of an early dispersal ofanatomically modern humans to Southern Africa before 150,000 years ago.[a] (However, see below for recent work supporting a multi-regional hypothesis that suggests the Khoisan may be a source population for anatomically modern humans.)[4] Theirlanguages show a limited typological similarity, largely confined to the prevalence ofclick consonants. They are not verifiably derived from a single common proto-language, but are split among at least three separate and unrelatedlanguage families (Khoe-Kwadi,Tuu andKxʼa). It has been suggested that the Khoekhoe may representLate Stone Age arrivals to Southern Africa, possibly displaced byBantu expansion reaching the area roughly between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago.[5]
Sān are popularly thought of asforagers in theKalahari Desert and regions ofBotswana,Namibia,Angola,Zambia,Zimbabwe,Lesothoand South Africa. The wordsān is from the Khoekhoe language and 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 who came in contact with Khoekhoe-speaking communities, and largely referred to their lifestyle. It made distinction from pastoralist or agriculturalist communities, and had no ties to any particular ethnicity. While there are attendantcosmologies and languages associated with this way of life, the term is an economic designator rather than a cultural or ethnic one.
The compound termKhoisan /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 byIsaac Schapera.[6] It entered wider usage during the 1960s, based on the proposal of aKhoisan language family byJoseph Greenberg.
During the Colonial/Apartheid era, Afrikaans-speaking persons with partial Khoesān ancestry were historically also grouped asCape Blacks (Afrikaans:Kaap Swartes) orWestern Cape Blacks (Afrikaans:Wes-Kaap Swartes). This was done to distinguish them from theBantu-speaking peoples, the other indigenous African population of South Africa who also had significant Khoe-San ancestry.[7]
The termKhoisan (also spelledKhoiSan,Khoi-San,Khoe-San[8]) was also introduced in South African usage as a self-designation after the end ofapartheid in the late 1990s. Since the 2010s, there has been a Khoisan activist movement, demanding recognition and land rights from the government and the white minority which owns large parts of the country's private land.[9][10][11]
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It is suggested that the ancestors of the modern Khoisan expanded to southern Africa (fromEast orCentral Africa) before 150,000 years ago and possibly as early as before 260,000 years ago.[13][14] By the beginning of theMIS 5 "megadrought" 130,000 years ago, there were two ancestral population clusters in Africa; bearers ofmt-DNA haplogroup L0 in southern Africa, ancestral to the Khoi-San, and bearers ofhaplogroup L1-6 in central/eastern Africa, ancestral to everyone else.[citation needed] This group gave rise to theSan population ofhunter gatherers. A much later wave of migration, around or before the beginning of theCommon Era,[15] gave rise to the Khoe people, who werepastoralists.[16]
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 theanatomically modern human timeline, from their early separation before 150kya until therecent peopling of Eurasia some 70 kya.[17] They were much more widespread than today, their modern distribution being due to their decimation in the course of theBantu expansion. They were dispersed throughout much of southern and southeastern Africa.[citation needed]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.[18]
Recent work has suggested that the multi-regional hypothesis may be supported by current human population genetic data. A 2023 study published in the journalNature suggests that current genetic data may be best understood as reflecting internal admixtures of multiple population sources across Africa, including ancestral populations of the Khoisan.[4]
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 ofclick consonants to eastern African languages (Hadza language).[18]
TheLate Stone AgeSangoan industry occupied southern Africa in areas where annual rainfall is less than a metre (1000 mm; 39.4 in).[19] The contemporarySan andKhoi peoples resemble those represented by the ancient Sangoan skeletal remains.
Against the traditional interpretation that find 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.[20]
With the hypothesised arrival of pastoralists and Bantoidagro-pastoralists in southern Africa around 2,300 years ago, linguistic developments later became evident in the adoption ofclick consonants and loanwords from ancient Khoe-San languages. These influenced the evolution of blended agro-pastoralist and hunter-gatherer communities, which would eventually give rise to the modern, amalgamated native linguistic communities found today in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia (e.g., in South AfricanXhosa,Sotho,Tswana,Zulu people).[21]
Today these groups represent the quantitative majority of extant admixed ancient Khoe-San descendants by the millions.[22]
TheKhoikhoi entered 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 tosmallpox from Europeans. The Khoi waged more frequent attacks against Europeans when theDutch East India Company enclosed traditional grazing land for farms. Khoikhoi social organisation were 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 Khoikhoi people settled on farms and became bondsmen (bondservants) or farm workers; many were incorporated into existing Khoi clan and family groups of theXhosa people. Georg Schmidt, aMoravian Brother fromHerrnhut, Saxony, now Germany, foundedGenadendal in 1738, which was the first mission station in southern Africa,[23] among the Khoi people in Baviaanskloof in theRiviersonderend Mountains. Early European settlers sometimes intermarried with Khoikhoi women, resulting in a sizeablemixed-race population now known as theGriqua. The Griqua people would migrate to what was at 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 predominantlyAfrikaans-speakingGonaqua Khoi, but the settlement also began to attract other Khoi, Xhosa and mixed-race groups of the Cape.
The so-called "Bushman wars" 1673–1677 were to a large extent the response of the San after their dispossession.[citation needed]
At the start of the 18th century, the Khoikhoi in the Western Cape lived in a state dominated by 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.[24]
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 theCape 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. The property test was an indirect way by the British Cape Government (who took over from the Dutch in 1812) to retain a racist based system of governance because on average only white people owned property adequate to meet the test.[25]
In theHerero and Nama genocide inGerman South-West Africa, over 10,000 Nama are estimated to have been killed during 1904–1908.[26][27]
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TheSan of theKalahari were described inSpecimens of Bushman Folklore byWilhelm H. I. Bleek andLucy C. Lloyd (1911). They were brought to the globalised world's attention in the 1950s by South African authorLaurens van der Post in a six-part television documentary. TheAncestral land conflict in Botswana concerns theCentral 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 ofapartheid 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 theUniversity of the Western Cape in 1997.[28] and "Khoisan activism" has been reported in the South African media beginning in 2015.[9]
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.[29]
In 2019, scientists from theUniversity 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 theVredefort impact structure, which may have spiritual significance regarding the rain-making mythology of the Khoisan.[30]
During theHerero and Nama genocide, about 10,000Nama, a Khoekhoe group, and an unknown number of San people were killed in an extermination campaign by theGerman Colonial Empire between 1904 and 1908.
InBotswana, many of the indigenous San people have beenforcibly 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.[31] Their lands lie in the middle of the world's richestdiamond 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.[31] On the reservations they struggle to find employment, andalcoholism is rampant.[31]
The "Khoisan languages" were proposed as a linguistic phylum byJoseph Greenberg in 1955.[32] Theirgenetic 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.[33] Their most notable uniting feature is theirclick consonants.
They are categorised in two families, and a number of possible language isolates.
TheKxʼa family was proposed in 2010, combining theǂʼAmkoe (ǂHoan) language with theǃKung (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:
TheKhoi (Khoe) family is divided into a Khoikhoi (Khoekhoe andKhoemana dialects) and a Kalahari (Tshu–Khwe) branch. The Kalahari branch of Khoe includesShua andTsoa (with dialects), andKxoe,Naro,Gǁana andǂHaba (with dialects). Khoe also has been tentatively aligned withKwadi ("Kwadi–Khoe"), and more speculatively with theSandawe language ofTanzania ("Khoe–Sandawe"). TheHadza language ofTanzania has been associated with the Khoisan group due to the presence of click consonants.
The Khoisan are one of the only populations withepicanthic folds outside of East Asia. They typically have hair texture of the tightest possible curl, a form ofkinky hair sometimes referred to as "peppercorn" because of how it can roll into separate rounds on the scalp.
Charles Darwin wrote about the Khoisan andsexual selection inThe Descent of Man in 1882, commenting that theirsteatopygia, seen primarily in females,evolved throughsexual selection in human evolution, and that "the posterior part of the body projects in a wonderful manner".[35] Historically, some females were observed by anthropologists to exhibitelongated labia minora, which sometimes projected as much as 10 centimetres (3.9 in) below the vulva when standing.[36] Though well documented, the motivations behind this practice and the voices of the women who perform it are rarely explored in the research.[37]
In the 1990s, genomic studies of the world's peoples found that theY chromosome of San men share certain patterns ofpolymorphisms that are distinct from those of all other populations.[38] 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 themost recent common paternal ancestor of all extant humans.[39][40][needs update]
Various Y-chromosome studies[41][42][43] since confirmed that the Khoisan carry some of the most divergent (oldest)Y-chromosome haplogroups. These haplogroups are specific sub-groups of haplogroupsA andB, the two earliest branches on the human Y-chromosome tree.[needs update]
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.[41][44][45][46] 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.[47]
Some genomic studies have further revealed that Khoisan groups have been influenced by 9 to 30% genetic admixture in the last few thousand years from an East African population who carried a Eurasian admixture component.[48] Furthermore, they place an East African origin for the paternal haplogroupE1b1b found in these Southern African populations,[49] as well as the introduction of pastoralism into the region.[50] The paper also noted that the Bantu expansion had a notable genetic impact in a number of Khoisan groups.[49] On the basis of PCA projections, the East African ancestry identified in the genomes of Khoe-Kwadi speakers and other southern Africans is related to an individual from the TanzanianLuxmanda.[51]
Geneticists in 2024 sampled ancient 10,000 year old remains from South Africa, Oakhurst Rockshelter. The examined population had a strong genetic continuity with the San and Khoe. The later advent of pastoralism and farming groups in the last 2,000 years would transform the genepool of most parts of Southern Africa, but many Khoisan preserve, and are identical to the genetic signature of the older hunter-gatherers.[52]
On 21 September 2020, theUniversity of Cape Town launched its new Khoi and San Centre, with an undergraduate degree programme planned to be rolled out in the following years. The centre will support and consolidate this collaborative work on research commissions onlanguage (includingKhoekhoegowab), sacred human remains, land and gender. Many descendants of Khoisan people still live on theCape Flats.[53]
Most [Khoisan people] now speak Afrikaans as their first language.
Both the tree phylogeny and coalescence calculations suggest that Khoisan matrilineal ancestry diverged from the rest of the human mtDNA pool 90,000–150,000 years before present (ybp)
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