Ward 2 Development Forum

The Khoekhoe Saga

Properties3
descriptionA documentary series on the Khoekhoe, first shown on SABC2 in January 2023. It covers their origins, the colony, the missions, the Griqua trek, and the Khoekhoe revival today. This page sets out what the series says and how the wiki uses it.
tagstheme/heritage, theme/trancraa, lang/en
aliasesKhoekhoe Saga, The Khoekhoe Saga: Africa's Indigenous Survivors, The Khoekhoe Saga: The Story of Southern Africa's Herders

12 min read

The Khoekhoe Saga is a documentary series about the Khoekhoe. It was first shown on SABC2 on 8 January 2023 [IC]. Johann Abrahams wrote and directed it, and says he is a direct descendant of the Khoekhoe [IC]. The series sets out to answer the idea that the Khoekhoe died out, and follows their story from their origins to the present day [IC]. It includes Genadendal among the mission villages it covers [MS]. This page sets out what the series covers, where it touches this valley’s story, and how the wiki uses it as a source.

What the letters in square brackets mean

Facts on this page are followed by a tag that shows where they come from.

  • [IC] Independently Corroborated. Confirmed by at least two sources that do not depend on each other, or by an official record.
  • [MS] Mission-Sourced. Comes from the series itself, from the people who speak in it, or from what its director has told the moderators. The director says the early history in the series is drawn from Dutch East India Company records and missionary diaries. Those records were written by outsiders, as the Khoekhoe page explains.
  • [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.

About the sources for this page

The full series is hard to find online. This page is based on press coverage, the series trailer, and the short promotions for its seven episodes on YouTube. The moderators hold transcripts of the trailer and promotions. Those transcripts come from automatic captions, which spell many names wrongly. Where a name was unclear, this page says so.

At a glance

Made byJohann Abrahams, writer and director [IC]
PresentersRehane Abrahams and Jolene Martin [IC]
First shownSABC2, 8 January 2023 [IC]
LengthSeven episodes [IC]. A longer version in 13 parts, called Africa’s Indigenous Survivors, runs to about 312 minutes [IC].
Sources usedHistorians, rock art, and archaeology, according to the SABC [MS]. Dutch East India Company records and missionary diaries for the early history, according to the director [MS].
Speakers named in the pressDr Willa Boezak, theologian and language activist, and Dr Diana Ferrus, writer and storyteller [TBV]

What the series covers

Episode 1: Who were the Khoekhoe?

The first episode opens in Cape Town and asks who the Khoekhoe were, where they came from, how they relate to the San, and whether they are extinct [MS]. The series traces their origins to northern Botswana and their spread across southern Africa [MS]. It shows Robben Island, where, the series says, company officials sent Khoekhoe leaders who resisted the colony [MS]. The presenters say that historical research and DNA testing show the descendants of the Khoekhoe are still living [MS].

We look at the dispersement route through interviews with historians and anthropologists such as Prof Andrew Smith and Prof Michael De Jongh. Archaeologists give us proof of the presence of Khoekhoe herders in the Cape, and a migration from Botswana that started 2000 year ago. We revisit the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck, his interpreters, Krotoa, Autshumato and Doman. The first and second Khoekhoe - Dutch war. The first colonists. Treaties and the demise of Khoekhoe tribal life, land and resources. Interviews with Prof Nigel Penn, Ron Martin, Prof Jatti Bredekamp, Dr Danny Titus and anthropologist Prof Michael De Jongh.

Episode 2: The Hessequa

The second episode films at the Hessequas River and the Hessequaskloof near Swellendam, and meets people of Hessequa descent [MS]. The presenter calls the Hessequa “the people of the trees”, and says they lived in the area west of Swellendam [MS]. The episode notes that early counts of the Khoekhoe by travellers and traders were fragmentary and sometimes wrong, and that the names of rivers and places are part of the evidence [MS].

We meet Prof Russel Viljoen who tells us the remarkable story of Jan Paerl, the rebel from Swellendam. We also hear about the fate of the former Dutch collaborator, Chainouqua Captain Klaas Dorha. Prof Michael De Jongh explains traditional fishing methods at Stilbaai and visits other communities such as Slangrivier, and Suurbraak where Hessequa descendants are still living.

Episode 3: Mamre and the cattle trade

The third episode visits the mission village of Mamre, outside Cape Town [MS]. The series says that before the missionaries were given the land, it was one of the company’s first cattle posts called Die Kleine Post, established in 1679 [MS]. A plaque there says that in 1701 Governor W.A. van der Stel set up a military post to protect farmers from “marauding Bushmen” [MS]. (“Bushmen” is an old name for the San that many people now find offensive.) The series gives another account. It says the company’s station could no longer meet the demand for fresh meat from passing ships, so it opened the livestock trade to free burghers, and that this led to widespread attacks on the Khoekhoe to take their cattle by force [MS].

We travel up the West Coast to the Langebaan area. We listen to local fishermen in Paternoster and Elandsbaai who struggle to make ends meet. We bring you both the beauty of the Cape West coast as well as the bitter struggle of Khoekhoe descendants until today.

Episode 4: Faith and the missions

The fourth episode describes Khoekhoe belief in God as creator, and as provider and protector [MS]. The series says the Khoekhoe believed God had created the land first, and that this clashed with the European view of land [MS].

Speakers in the episode judge the missions in two ways. Critics say the missionaries saw Khoisan faith as heathen and uncivilised, and may have helped destroy Khoekhoe culture without meaning to [MS]. Dr Willa Boezak who wrote about the Khoekhoen beliefs in his book “Struggle of an Ancient Faith” unpacks the complexity of Khoekhoe religion and says a person could not be baptised and keep a Khoi identity, so that baptism was a political act that stripped people of who they were [MS]. Others say the missions gave hope and a new way of life to people who had lost their land, and taught them to read and write [MS]. One speaker says that at the time more Khoisan people could read than Trekboers [MS]. Another says their village has the oldest existing primary school in South Africa, which is now Genadendal’s primary school, L.R. Schmidt Primary School [MS].

The series says that by the 1900s the mission stations had become reserves for Khoekhoe descendants and freed slaves, keeping small pieces of land while colonists registered more farms around them [MS]. It says more than 20 of these reserves remain [MS]. Genadendal’s mission land, Farm 39, is one of the 23 former “coloured rural areas” now covered by the TRANCRAA law [IC]. See TRANCRAA and Farm 39.

We follow the work of the missionaries in Steinkopf, Pella, Leliefontein, Campbell and Bethelsdorp. We also hear about the work of Dr JT van der Kemp and Reverend James Read who were very critical of the government’s treatment of the indigenous Khoekhoe.

Episode 5: The Griqua trek

The fifth episode retraces the treks of the Griqua [MS]. At Ongeluksnek in the Drakensberg, the presenter tells how Adam Kok III led about 2,000 followers from Philippolis across the mountains [IC]. The series says they took 300 ox wagons and 20,000 cattle and sheep, and lost nearly half their livestock and wagons in the ravines before they reached their new land [MS]. It calls the trek “a migration of epic proportions” that South African historians have treated as a footnote [MS]. The trailer also tells of the earlier move by Adam Kok I and his followers, who went north into Little Namaqualand as frontier farmers took their grazing land [IC].

Episode 6: The Nama

The sixth episode follows the Nama [MS]. It says that, according to some historians, one group of herders moved west after reaching a great river, and then split: one group went into Namibia and the other south into Namaqualand [MS]. The captions give the river’s name unclearly, and it is probably the Gariep (Orange River). The series says the Nama are one of the few Khoekhoe peoples that stayed largely together as a group, that their language is still spoken, and that several of their customs remain [MS]. It says Nama people today live in reserves that grew up around the mission stations [MS]. The SABC names Kommaggas, in Namaqualand, as one of the places filmed [MS].

Episode 7: Revival

The last episode looks at Khoi and San revival [MS]. The series says that over the past three decades, people still classified as coloured have increasingly rejected the term and begun to identify with their Khoi and San roots [MS]. Speakers call for recognition of the Khoi and San as the foundational people of the country [MS]. One speaker says that responsibility for taking Khoi land lies with the Dutch crown and government, and, for the years after the British arrived, with the British crown and government [MS]. The episode shows a cleansing ritual performed on land the Khoekhoe lost more than three centuries ago [MS].

Other material in the trailer

  • The loan farm system, which from 1714 let colonists take up grazing land for a yearly fee [IC]. A speaker in the series says that all the treaties signed in the colonial era were null and void [MS]. See Land as Property.
  • Stone fish traps along the shore, built long ago by the Khoekhoe [MS].
  • Fishers at Paternoster who say the fishing quota system ignores their birthright to live from the sea [MS].
  • A speaker who says that Sara Baartman gave women a spiritual connection they did not know existed, and became its symbol [MS]. Her story is told on the Khoekhoe page.
  • A speaker who says the full stories of early Khoekhoe leaders are not told [MS]. The captions give the leaders’ names unclearly.

Where the series touches this valley

  • Genadendal. The series includes Genadendal among the mission villages it covers, and repeats the claim that the village has the oldest primary school in the country [MS]. See History of the Valley.
  • The Hessequa. The series places Hessequa land west of Swellendam [MS]. How far west the Hessequa lived is an open question on the Hessequa page.
  • The cattle trade. The series’ account of attacks after 1700 fits with the story on The Cattle Trade, where the Chainoqua and Hessequa were the colony’s main suppliers from 1662 to 1713 [IC]. Whether those attacks reached this valley has not been researched.
  • The missions. The two views of the missions given in episode 4 are set out on the Moravian Church page.
  • The mission land. The series’ account of mission stations becoming reserves is part of the background to TRANCRAA and Farm 39.

How the wiki uses this series

  • The series is cited as one source. What it says is tagged [MS], unless another source that does not depend on it says the same thing.
  • The director told the moderators that the claims in the trailer and promotions are accurate, and that the early history in the series comes from Dutch East India Company records and missionary diaries [MS]. This is the makers’ own account of their work, so claims that rest on it stay [MS]. A claim moves to [IC] when the record behind it (a named company journal or missionary diary, for example) is found and listed under References.
  • Words from the automatic captions are used only where they are clear.
  • Speakers’ views, such as who is responsible for taking Khoi land, are given in their words and tagged [MS]. The Forum takes no position on them.

What is still open

  • Which episode shows Genadendal, what it shows, and who speaks there.
  • The names the captions garble: the village in the episode 4 promotion, the cattle post in episode 3, the river in episode 6, and the early Khoekhoe leaders named in the trailer.
  • Which company records and missionary diaries the series drew on.
  • Where the Hessequas River and the Hessequaskloof shown in episode 2 lie.
  • Who the speakers in each episode are.
  • Whether the full series can be shown in the valley, and who holds the rights.

Have your say

If you have seen the full series, took part in it, or know the places and people it shows, contact the moderators via How to Submit.

References

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