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Khoikhoi (/ˈkɔɪkɔɪ/ KOY-koy) (or Khoekhoe in Namibian orthography) are the traditionally nomadic pastoralist indigenous population of South Africa. They are often grouped with the hunter-gatherer San people (literally "foragers") peoples, the accepted term for the two people being Khoisan. The designation "Khoikhoi" is actually a kare, or praise address, not an ethnic endonym, but it has been used in the literature as an ethnic term for Khoe-speaking peoples of Southern Africa, particularly pastoralist groups, such as the Inqua people, Griqua people, Gonaqua, Nama people, Attequa. The Khoekhoe were once known as Hottentots, a term now considered offensive."Hottentot, n. and adj." OED Online, Oxford University Press, March 2018, www.oed.com/view/Entry/88829. Accessed 13 May 2018. Citing G. S. Nienaber, 'The origin of the name "Hottentot" ', African Studies, 22:2 (1963), 65–90, . See also .
(2026). 9781107021303, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781107021303
The Khoekhoe are thought to have diverged from other humans 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. In the 17th century, the Khoekhoe maintained large herds of Nguni cattle in the Cape region. They mostly gave up nomadic pastoralism in the 19th to 20th century.
The Khoekhoe language is related to certain dialects spoken by foraging San people of the Kalahari, such as the Khwe language and Tshwa language, forming the Khoe languages language family. Khoekhoe subdivisions today are the Nama people of Namibia, Botswana and South Africa (with numerous clans), the Damara of Namibia, the Orana clans of South Africa (such as Nama or Ngqosini), the Khoemana or Griqua nation of South Africa, and the Gqunukhwebe or Gona clans which fall under the Xhosa-speaking polities.
The Xirikua clans (Griqua) developed their own ethnic identity in the 19th century and settled in Griqualand West. Later, they formed another independent state in KwaZulu-Natal named Griqualand East, which was annexed into the British Empire roughly a decade later. They are related to the same kinds of clan formations as Rehoboth Basters, who could also be considered a "Khoekhoe" people.
Bantu languages agriculturalist culture is thought to have entered the region in the 3rd century AD, pushing pastoralists into the Western areas. The example of the close relation between the ǃUriǁ'aes (High clan), a cattle-keeping population, and the !Uriǁ'aeǀ'ona (High clan children), a more-or-less sedentary forager population (also known as "Strandlopers"), both occupying the area of Cape Town, shows that the strict distinction between these two lifestyles is unwarranted, as well as the ethnic categories that are derived. Foraging peoples who ideologically value non-accumulation as a social value system would be distinct, however, but the distinctions among "Khoekhoe pastoralists", "San hunter-gatherers" and "Bantu agriculturalists" do not hold up to scrutiny, and appear to be historical reductionism.
While there are several theories about the Damaran and their links to the rest of the Khoekhoe, it is undeniable that they were originally the first inhabitants of Namibia along with the San, as such it is dubitable that the Nama and Damara peoples both had a hand in the creation of the Khoekhoe language as it spread southward. Following the migration of Bantu groups such as the Herero, the Damaran were displaced and migrated throughout all corners of what is today Namibia, this can be noted in a word used by Damaran when referring to the country.
The local population reduced after smallpox epidemics spread through European contact. The Khoe-speaking clans suffered high mortality due to a lack of acquired immunity to the disease. This increased, as military conflict with the intensification of the colonial expansion of the United East India Company that began to enclose traditional grazing land for farms. Over the following century, the Khoe-speaking peoples were steadily driven off their land, resulting in numerous northwards migrations, and the reformulation of many nations and clans, as well as the dissolution of many traditional structures.
According to professors Robert K. Hitchcock and Wayne A. Babchuk, "During the early phases of European colonization, tens of thousands of Khoekhoe and San people lost their lives as a result of genocide, murder, physical mistreatment, and disease.". "In 1652, when Europeans established a full-time presence in Southern Africa, there were some 300,000 San people and 600,000 Khoekhoe in Southern Africa...There were cases of "Bushman hunting" in which commandos (mobile Paramilitary or posses) sought to dispatch San and Khoekhoe in various parts of Southern Africa" During an investigation into "bushman hunting" parties and genocidal raids on the San, Louis Anthing commented: "I find now that the transactions are more extensive than did at first appear. I think it not unlikely that we shall find that almost all the farmers living near this border are implicated in similar acts ... At present I have only heard of coloured farmers (known as Bastards) as being mixed up with these matters."
"Khoekhoe" social organisation was thus profoundly damaged by the colonial expansion and land seizure from the late 17th century onwards. As social structures broke down, many Khoekhoen settled on farms and became bondsmen (bondservants, serfs) or farm workers; others were incorporated into clans that persisted. Georg Schmidt, a Moravian Church Brother from Herrnhut, Saxony, now Germany, founded Genadendal in 1738, which was the first mission station in southern Africa, among the Khoe-speaking peoples in Baviaanskloof in the Riviersonderend Mountains.
The colonial designation of "Baasters" came to refer to any clans that had European ancestry in some part and adopted certain Western cultural traits. Though these were later known as Griqua (Xirikua or Griekwa) they were known at the time as "" and in some instances are still so called, e. g., the Bosluis Basters of the Richtersveld and the Baster community of Rehoboth, Namibia, mentioned above.
Arguably responding to the influence of missionaries, the states of Griqualand West and Griqualand East were established by the Kok dynasty; these were later absorbed into the Cape Colony of the British Empire.
Beginning in the late 18th century, Oorlam communities migrated from the Cape Colony north to Namaqualand. They settled places earlier occupied by the Nama. They came partly to escape Dutch colonial conscription, partly to raid and trade, and partly to obtain herding lands. Some of these emigrant Oorlams (including the band led by the outlaw Jager Afrikaner and his son Jonker Afrikaner in the Transgariep) retained links to Oorlam communities in or close to the borders of the Cape Colony. In the face of gradual Boer expansion and then large-scale Dorsland Trek away from British rule at the Cape, Jonker Afrikaner brought his people into Namaqualand by the mid-19th century, becoming a formidable force for Oorlam domination over the Nama and against the Bantu languages Herero people for a period.Omer-Cooper, 263-64.
Khoekua were known at the time for being very good marksmen, and were often invaluable allies of the Cape Colony in its Xhosa Wars with the neighbouring Xhosa people politics. In the Xhosa Wars (1846–1847) against the Gcaleka, the Khoekua gunmen from Kat River distinguished themselves under their leader Andries Botha in the assault on the "Amatola fastnesses". (The young John Molteno, later Prime Minister, led a mixed commando in the assault, and later praised the Khoekua as having more bravery and initiative than most of his white soldiers.)
However, harsh laws were still implemented in the Eastern Cape, to encourage the Khoena to leave their lands in the Kat River region and to work as labourers on white farms. The growing resentment exploded in 1850. When the Xhosa people rose against the Cape Colony, large numbers Khoeǀ'ona joined the Xhosa rebels for the first time. After the defeat of the rebellion and the granting of representative government to the Cape Colony in 1853, the new Cape Government endeavoured to grant the Khoena political rights to avert future racial discontent. Attorney General William Porter was famously quoted as saying that he "would rather meet the Hottentot at the hustings, voting for his representative, than meet him in the wilds with his gun upon his shoulder". Thus, the government enacted the Cape franchise in 1853, which decreed that all male citizens meeting a low property test, regardless of colour, had the right to vote and to seek election in Parliament. However, this non-racial principle was eroded in the late 1880s by a literacy test, and later abolished by the Apartheid Government.
Some Khoekhoe in South Africa were classified as "Coloured" under Apartheid. While this meant that they were offered a few privileges not given to the population deemed "black" (such as not having to carry a passbook), they were still subject to discrimination, segregation, and other forms of oppression. This included the forced relocation caused by the Group Areas Act, which broke up families and communities. The destruction of historical communities and the blanket designation of "coloured" (ignoring any nuances of the Khoekhoe peoples' specific cultures or subgroups) contributed to an erasure of Khoekhoe identity and culture, one which modern Khoekhoe people are still working to undo.
Apartheid ended in 1994 and so too did the racial "Coloured" designation.
The International Astronomical Union named the primary component of the binary star Mu¹ Scorpii after the traditional Khoekhoe language name Xami di mûra ('eyes of the lion').
Among the Nama are also the Oorlam people who are a southern Khoekhoe people of mixed-race ancestry that trekked northwards over the Orange River and where absorbed into the greater Nama identity. The Oorlams themselves are made up of five smaller clans:
These Nama inhabit the Great Namaqualand region of Namibia. There are also minor Nama clans that inhabit the Little Namaqualand regions south of the Orange River in north western South Africa.
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