People of the South

Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music from South Africa

Traditional Khoisan performers Sophie Sonda and Zwakina Mieser Dima at the opening of the Pan-African Parliament in Midrand. File photo Picture: ELIZABETH SEJAKESouth Africa must fully recognise the status of the Khoi and San people, President Jacob Zuma said.”As a democratic government, we cannot fail to address their challenges,” he said in the National House of Traditional Leaders, in Pretoria.Zuma said that, from the time of colonisation, occupying European governments had sought to dominate society.One of the results, not documented in history books, was the decimation of the Khoisan, Zuma said.”During the course of colonisation, they were undermined and their character and dignity almost destroyed.”Zuma said a comprehensive National Traditional Affairs Bill had been drafted to cover all aspects of traditional leadership, including the affairs of the Khoisan.”I … hope that the bill will fundamentally address the long historical challenge facing the Khoisan.”Zuma said the bill was a clear indication that the government took traditional leadership seriously.”We have moved some distance, and are determined to go far in restoring the status of traditional leaders who are revered by [many] of our people,” said Zuma.

legrandcirque:

Herero women wearing traditional turban which is put on at the age of 18 signifying readiness for marriage. Photograph by Margaret Bourke-White. Windhoek, South Africa, April 1950.

(via monochromaticblack)

Khoisan/KhoiKhoi Khoisan (increasingly commonly spelled Khoesan or Khoe-San)is the name for two of the oldest ethnic groups of southern Africa and thus the entire human race. From the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period, hunting and gathering cultures known as the Sangoan occupied southern Africa in areas. Both the San and Khoikhoi (men of men) people resemble the ancient Sangoan skeletal remains. Both share physical and linguistic characteristics, and it seems clear that the Khoi branched forth from the San by adopting the practice of herding cattle and goats from neighbouring Bantu groups. The Khoisan people were the original inhabitants of much of southern Africa before the southward Bantu migrations (starting 1000 B.C.E)—coming down the east and west coasts of Africa—and later European colonization who called them ‘Bushmen’ and Hottentots, the later is considered obsolete and offensive, while Bushmen (a pejorative Colonial impression of these people) is diminishing in use. More commonly called San ( although this can be interpreted as derogatory as it is a word from the Khoikhoi to refer to the so-called San, just as Amhara call Beta-Israeli people Falasha (foreigner) and hence the word is un-academic) The Khoisan languages are noted for their click consonants. Which have no alphabetical equivalent in any script. Over the centuries the many branches of the Khoisan peoples were absorbed or displaced by the ‘colonial’ Bantu who were migrating south in search of new lands, most notably the Xhosa and Zulu, who both have adopted some Khoisan clicks and loan words into their respective languages. The Khoisan survived in the desert or in areas with winter rains which were not suitable for Bantu crops. During the colonial era they lived in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana, and were massacred in great numbers by Dutch, British, and German settlers in acts of genocide (e.g. the Herero and Namaqua Genocide). They contributed greatly to the ancestry of South Africa’s coloured population. Today many of the San live in parts of the Kalahari Desert where they are better able to preserve much of their cherished culture. Genetically their Y-haplogroup A, the most diverse or oldest-diverging Y haplogroup transmitted purely by patrilineal descent, is today present in various Khoisan groups at frequencies of 12-44%, and the other Y-haplogroups present have been formed by recent admixture of Bantu male lineages E3a (18-54%), and in some groups, noticeable Pygmy traces are visible (B2b). The Khoisan also show the largest genetic diversity in matrilineally transmitted mtDNA of all human populations. Their original mtDNA haplogroups L1d and L1k are one of the oldest-diverging female lineages as well. However, analysis of neutral autosomal (inherited through either parent) genes finds that the Khoisan are similar to other African populations. The presence of Haplogroup A, especially the subclade A3b2, in East Africa suggests some ancient connection between those populations and the Khoisan. This may not be a simple migration in one direction, but the result of various movements of people in Eastern and Southern Africa over tens of thousands of years, followed by the recent Bantu expansion separating the two regions.One interpretation is that the Khoisan are the earliest-diverging human group, or even a group that has preserved the original human lifestyle along with genetics.

via http://www.africanholocaust.net/peopleofafrica.htm