The San are the hunter-gatherer peoples of southern Africa [IC]. Their ancestors have lived in the region for tens of thousands of years, and theirs is among the oldest continuous cultures in the world [IC]. In the south-western Cape, including this valley, the Khoekhoe called them the Soaqua [IC]. Their rock art survives in the Riviersonderend mountains [IC].
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 records or statements of one side only. For the peoples of the early Cape, almost every written record was made by outsiders: Dutch East India Company officials, travellers, and missionaries. None of it was written by the people it describes.
- [TBV] To Be Verified. Seems likely, but nobody has confirmed it yet.
A living heritage
Descendants of the Khoekhoe and San live in the valley today, and many hold their own knowledge of this history. This page is written from outside sources, and it will be corrected and added to as descendants give their own accounts. See Have your say below.
At a glance
| Also called | Bushmen (from the Dutch Bosjesmans), now often considered offensive; Basarwa in Botswana; Soaqua or Sonqua in the Cape records [IC] |
| Way of life | Hunting and gathering, moving with the seasons [IC] |
| In the valley | Rock art on the Riviersonderend mountain, and traces in the mountains north of Genadendal [IC] |
| Languages | Languages with click consonants, of the Khoe, Tuu, and Kxʼa families [IC] |
The names
The San have no single word for themselves in their own languages [IC]. “San” comes from a Khoekhoe word, and was taken up by scholars from the 1970s [IC]. “Bushmen”, from the Dutch Bosjesmans, is older, and many South Africans now consider it offensive, though some San use it for themselves [IC]. In 2003 San representatives said they would rather be called by the names of their own nations [IC]. This wiki uses “San” as the general name, and “Soaqua” for the San of this part of the Cape, because that is the name the records use.
Way of life
The San lived by hunting and gathering, moving through the year as water, plants, and game allowed [IC]. They did not have chiefs or clans. Decisions were made by the elders of each band [IC]. Their rock paintings, found across southern Africa, are one of the great bodies of art in the world [IC].
When Khoekhoe herders arrived in the Cape with sheep and cattle about 2,000 years ago, the San of this area moved higher into the mountains, where they lived on plants and small animals such as tortoises and dassies [IC]. See Soaqua.
The colonial frontier
When the Dutch East India Company arrived at the Cape in 1652, there were perhaps 300,000 San in southern Africa [TBV]. As colonists spread inland in the 1700s, the San lost access to land, water, game, and plants [IC]. From the 1770s to the late 1790s, violence against the San became general along the colony’s frontier. Armed commandos of colonists killed San people in large numbers, and in 1777 the company officially backed a policy of wiping them out [IC]. Khoekhoe men took part in some of these commandos, and sometimes led them [IC]. In 1686 the Chainoqua leader Dorha attacked San hunters after colonists had been killed [TBV].
Today
Most people who live as San communities today are in Botswana and Namibia [IC]. In South Africa, many people of San descent live within coloured communities, including in the Western Cape [TBV]. The Genadendal Mission Museum runs school programmes on San and Khoekhoe history [MS].
What is still open
- What San families in the valley know of their ancestors, and what names they use.
- The age and meaning of the rock art in the Riviersonderend mountains. The fourteen cave sites there have not been formally surveyed [TBV].
Have your say
If you are of San descent, or hold knowledge of this history, contact the moderators via How to Submit. Accounts are added in the words of the people who give them.
Related
References
- Wikipedia. San peoples. Names, way of life, rock art, languages, numbers in 1652, frontier violence, and communities today.
- Wikipedia. Khoisan. Khoekhoe part in the commandos against the Cape San.
- CapeNature. Riviersonderend Complex Protected Area Management Plan 2021 to 2031, section 2.5, citing Humphreys (1989), Le Roux (1984), and Clift (2001). The Soaqua, rock art, and cave sites in the mountains.