4.1 Khoikhoi

4.1 Khoikhoi 

By Peter Snyders, 15.10.2025, in association with Unison Music and Literary Publications.

The Khoi, meaning “people”, were one people with the Bushmen before the migration of the latter, some 130,000 years ago, when the mega-drought hit them. The Bushmen migrated south and entered the modern northern border of South Africa some 20,000 years ago. 

After the drought passed, the Khoi (people) began a pastoral culture with Nguni cattle. Having raised their standard, they called themselves Khoikhoi, meaning “people (of) people,”  “men of men,” or “real people.” Their extensive herding probably caused grazing problems, so the Khoikhoi (spelt Khoekhoe by the Namas in Namibia) also migrated south. 

Between 300 CE and 500 CE, they entered South Africa from Botswana in two ways: The first group came through the Kalahari, keeping west all the time, all the way down to the Cape. The second group went south-east into the Highveld and then southwards to the south coast. At the Cape, the Khoikhoi found the Bushmen who had remained hunter-gatherers. Wiki: Khoikhoi 2011 p.2

At his death, the Khoikhoi father gave everything to his eldest son, so the inheritor gave one or two sheep and/or cattle to his younger brothers. If his brothers worked for him, they could progressively build up a stock of their own, and, when they had sufficient stock, they could break away and be on their own.

Should there be discord between the brothers, the Khoikhoi's younger brother, who had the biggest respect for liberty, would go away from the clan and attach himself to the hunter-gatherer group in the area. This hunter-gatherer group, the Khoikhoi, called San (pronounced Saan), which meant hunter-gatherer, but it also meant an inferior state to their own “men of men.”

The Khoikhoi not only knew edible plants, but they could also produce salves, ointments, powders, and infusions from plants that they used to heal their people. While being secretive about their herbs, Kolb managed to learn about buchu and dagga, as well as aloes, wild sallow leaves, wild garlic, marshmallow, wild fennel, and wild figs being medicinal plants.

Before Kolb, European visitors to the Cape portrayed the Khoikhoi as being lazy, ugly, rude, stinking, and shameless people. They competed by depicting the Khoikhoi as savages endowed with nothing but bestiality [status of a lower animal] and stupidity. To this, Kolb said that they ‘wrote useless, deceitful and false things on the Hottentots and their country.’ 

Nigel Penn and Adrien Delmas: Peter Kolb and the circulation of knowledge about the Cape of Good Hope p.27

In Kolb’s The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, pp.302-3, he states that the Khoikhoi doctors succeed where the ablest doctors in Europe cannot. The Khoikhoi doctors often apply herbs and roots in very difficult cases with wonderful success. They bleed, cup, make an amputation, or relocate with the most dexterity - all with a common knife, a horn, and a bird’s bone.

On page 332 of Kolb’s The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope, he says that the mutual affection of the Khoikhoi character is that they are the most friendly, the most liberal, and the most beneficial people to one another that have ever appeared on earth. The Khoikhoi man cannot enjoy himself in anything except with his wife unless there is one or more of his countrymen to partake with him. They are all kindness and goodwill to one another.

They are charmed with opportunities of obliging one another. If a Khoikhoi’s assistance is required by one of his countrymen, he runs to give it. If his counsel is asked, he gives it sincerely. Is his countryman in want? He relieves him, according to his ability, with the utmost readiness. One of the greatest pleasures of the Khoikhoi lies in their gifts and good offices to one another. Kolb’s The Present State of the Cape of Good Hope p.333

But a traveller's tale must also be marvellous and entertaining, and so the naked truth was often garbed in quaint, fictitious fancies. These voyagers, in any case, never stayed long enough to acquire more than a very superficial knowledge of the people, with whom they could not even communicate through the medium of a common language.

General Introduction by I Shapera of Early Cape Hottentots p.ii

In and about the Cape Peninsula were the Gorachouqua and Goringhaiqua, with their offshoot the Goringhaikona. Further north along the west coast, from the neighbourhood of Table Bay to Saldanha Bay, roamed the Cochoqua, who at the time when the Dutch settlement was founded, were the strongest of the local groups. Beyond them and extending to the Olifants River were the Little and Great Chariguriqua, while still further north lived the Namaqua.

To the east, beyond the Hottentots Holland mountains, were the Chainouqua. Still further east, but known only casually or by name, were the Hessequa, Hankumqua, Chamaqua, Omaqua, Atiqua, Houtunqua, Chauqua and Chobona, all said to be very rich in cattle and some in precious stones as well.

General Introduction by I Shapera of Early Cape Hottentots p.iii-iv

Later expeditions verified the existence of some tribes known to Van Riebeeck only through hearsay, but they failed to find others, and added some new ones unknown to him. 

By the end of the seventeenth century, following on the eastward journeys of Cruse (1668), Visser (1676) and Schryver (1689), it was known with certainty that beyond the Chainouqua lay the Hessequa, in the present district of Swellendam; the Gouriqua, in the vicinity of Mossel Bay and the Gouritz River; the Attaqua, extending north of them to near the present village of George; the Houteniqua, further east as far as the Kromme River; and the Inqua to the north, in the present district of Aberdeen.

General Introduction by I Shapera of Early Cape Hottentots p.iv

All these groups cast doubt on the assumption that there were only 50 000 Khoikhoi.