Ethnographic analogy and the reconstruction of early Khoekhoe society

Alan Barnard

25 citations0/0 files storedSouthern African humanities

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Archaeology and Rock Art Studies African history and culture studies African Studies and Ethnography

Abstract

Recent thinking sees the earliest Khoekhoe as a kind of San with livestock. Eighteenth-century travellers sometimes seem to have seen San as a kind of Khoekhoe without livestock. Classic ethnographic sources saw Khoekhoe and San as related peoples, one with livestock and one without. Some in recent years have suggested that Khoekhoe and San are unstable ethnicities, shifting back and forth with the acquisition and loss of livestock. Is there a correct view? This paper attempts to answer that question. One theme of the paper is the idea that the acquisition of livestock by twentieth-century Khoe-speaking hunter-gatherers might serve as an analogy for deciphering similar processess among early Khoekhoe. The shifting lifestyles from hunter to herder and back again in the Cape are now well documented in the historical and archaeological records. Similar processes have been observed by ethnographers in the Kalahari since the 1970s. Another theme is the more theoretical concern of Khoekhoe and San social structure and social ideology. Hunter-gatherers and pastoralists do see things like accummulation and sharing differently, but comparative ethnography shows us that specific exchange practices like hxaro are not as unambiguously 'hunter-gatherer' as we might think, nor customs such as bridewealth payment as unambiguously 'pastoralist'. Comparative examination of Khoisan ethnography, coupled with the use of recent theoretical insights, can help us to build a picture of early Khoekhoe society and ideological shifts that must have accompanied the adoption of herding by the inhabitants of the Cape in past centuries. To cite this article: Barnard, A. 2008. Ethnographic analogy and the reconstruction of early Khoekhoe society. Southern African Humanities 20 : 61-75.

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References

1970Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference 2012Stone Age Economics 1969The Elementary Structures of Kinship 2003The Archaeology of Southern Africa 1982Hunter and Habitat in the Central Kalahari Desert.1993Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa. A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples 1930The Khoisan peoples of South Africa : Bushmen and Hottentots 1998The First Herders at the Cape of Good Hope

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