The
San Community
of South Africa
Who are the San of South Africa?
The
San are the aboriginal people of South Africa. Their distinct hunter-gatherer
culture stretches back over 20 000 years, and their genetic origins reach
back over one million years. Recent research indicates that the San are
the oldest genetic stock of contemporary humanity.
Today,
the two largest San groups in South Africa are immigrants from Angola
via Namibia. These are the !Xû and the Khwe, currently living at
Schmidtsdrift, 80 km outside the Northern Cape provincial capital, Kimberley.
There are 3 500 !Xû and 1 100 Khwe. Both groups claim an indigenous
identity on the basis of their languages and cultures.
The
next largest group is the San population of the southern Kalahari. Today,
most San in this area (Lower Orange District) describe themselves as the
‡Khomani. The group is descended from several original San groups,
including the ||Ng!u (close relatives of the !Xam who lived south of the
!Gariep River), the ‡Khomani who spoke the same language as the ||Ng!u
but had distinct lineage, the |’Auni, the Khatea, the Njamani and
probably others whose names are now lost to us. Most San of this bloodline
now speak Khoekhoegowap and /or Afrikaans as primary language. There are
23 confirmed speakers of the ancient N|u language. They constitute some
of the few surviving aboriginal South African San. Approximately 1 500
adults are spread over an area of more than 1 000 km in the Northern Cape
Province. Most people live in the northern reaches of Gordonia, at Witdraai,
Ashkam, Welkom, Rietfontein and surrounding villages. Others live in and
around Upington and Olifantshoek.
A
small pocket of aboriginal South African ||Xegwi San lives on farms in
Mpumalanga Province near Lakes Banager and Chrissie and around the towns
of Lothair and Carolina. Their numbers are not known, though estimates
run between 30 and 100 adults. These ||Xegwi San are descendants of a
displaced group of Drakensberg San, famous for the rock paintings made
by their ancestors up until the middle of the last century. Their original
language is extinct.
There
is a group of about 70 adult !Kung San living across the border from South
Africa at Masetleng and Ngwaatle Pans in Botswana. These people originally
lived next to the ‡Khomani in what became the Kalahari Gemsbok National
Park (KGNP). They were displaced by the KGNP and driven into Botswana.
They have lodged a land claim in South Africa though they have yet to
resolve the issue of their citizenship. !Kung is a Northern San language.
There
are thousands of people in the Northern Cape who are to some degree aware
that they are direct descendants of the largest South African San population
of the 18th and 19th centuries, the !Xam. In the area of Prieska there
are semi-nomadic farm labourers known as Karretjiemense (Cart People).
These people know they are of San descent and may have spoken San languages
in the previous century.
Recently,
the Khoisan Representative Council has attempted to claim responsibility
for !Xam representation. It is unclear at this stage if there are any
coherent community structures that have maintained a !Xam identity or
whether this is a form of revisionism.
SASI
works with those populations that are recognised by the Working Group
of Indigenous Minorities of Southern Africa (WIMSA) and have coherent
community structure
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