Khoisan
- This article is about the Khoisan ethnic group. For the Khoisan language group, see Khoisan languages.
Khoisan is the name for two major ethnic groups of southern Africa. From the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period, hunting and gathering cultures known as the Sangoan occupied southern Africa in areas where the rainfall is less than 40 inches--and today's San and Khoi 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 neighboring Bantu tribespeople. The Khoisan people were the original inhabitants of much of southern Africa before the southward Bantu migrations--coming down the east and west coasts of Africa--and later European colonization.
Culturally they are divided into the hunter gatherer San (or Bushmen) and the pastoral Khoi (formerly known as Hottentots). The Khoisan languages are noted for their click consonants.
Over the centuries the many branches of the Khoisan peoples have been absorbed or displaced by Bantu peoples migrating south in search of new lands, most notably the Xhosa and Zulu, who both have adopted the Khoisan clicks and some loan words. 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 to genocidal proportions by Dutch and English settlers. They contributed greatly to the ancestry of South Africa's coloured population.
Today it is in portions of the Kalahari Desert where San people live most nearly as their hunter-gatherer ancestors did.
According to neutral gene analysis, the Khoisan are similar to other sub-Saharan African populations. Physically, however, the Khoisan, with their short frames, yellow-brown skin, "peppercorn" hair, epicanthic eye folds and small arms and feet, are quite distinct from the darker-skinned peoples who constitute the majority of Africa's population. Two distinguishing features of Khoisan women are their elongated labia minora and tendency to steatopygia,[1] features which contributed greatly to the European fascination with the so-called Hottentot Venus. However, the physical differences between Khoisan and other Africans are fading due to intermarriage.
The Khoisan show the largest genetic diversity in mtDNA of all human populations. Y chromosome data also indicates that they were some of the first lineages to branch off of the main human family tree. The San people themselves say they came first of all human beings, and not only genetic but archaeological evidence bears them out. The distinct characteristics of all human varieties, from those of Eastern Asia to those of Northern Europe and the American continents all have beginnings in the physiology of the Khoisan people.
Bibliography
- Barnard, Alan (1992) Hunters and Herders of Southern Africa: A Comparative Ethnography of the Khoisan Peoples. New York; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
- Lee, Richard B. (1976), Kalahari Hunter-Gatherers: Studies of the !Kung San and Their Neighbors, Richard B. Lee and Irven DeVore, eds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
- Lee, Richard B. (1979), The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Smith, Andrew; Malherbe, Candy; Guenther, Mat and Berens, Penny (2000), Bushmen of Southern Africa: Foraging Society in Transition. Athens: Ohio University Press. ISBN 0821413414
- Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall. The Harmless People.
de:Khoisan gl:Khoisan nl:Khoisan pt:Khoisan sr:Козијанци sv:Khoisan