5.3 Khoikhoi
PS
5.3 Khoikhoi
by Peter Snyders in association with Unison Music and Literary Publications.
In our talk about the Bushmen, we referred to reliable testimony (the 6th pramana) as being the only facts we should accept as truth after we had confirmed them. We said that the testimony of people who had lived for up to a year, or intimately for some months, will be different to those who have been in the region of the indigenous folk but have never had first-hand experience. In Before van Riebeeck we will come across many writings which are concocted from tales and yarns written by people who had simply read a fabrication of someone who had not even met the people they are talking about.
We found near the end of Before Van Riebeeck two writers, Leendert Janssen and M. Proot who had been stranded at the Cape for a whole year. In The Diary of Leendert Janssen read of how on March 25th, 1647, their ship stranded. In March 1648, a year later, Willebrand Geleynsz, arrived with twelve ships at the Cape. On the ship Coninck van Polen, was Jan van Riebeeck ‘going home in disgrace to be dismissed from the Company’s service for illicit private trading.’ On the 18th day of their task of loading all the salvaged items of the wrecked ship, the Haerlem, they all left for Holland.
Before Van Riebeeck by R. Raven-Hart, Struik 1967 p172
The callers at the Cape from Bartholomew Dias in 1488 to 1649 when Willebrand Geleynesz picked up the remaining Haerlem crew and salvaged goods, gave many remarks on the Khoikhoi and Khoisan at the Cape. We mention two:
1. Brutes: by Lancaster 1591, Thomas Best 1612, Downtown 1614 and Herbert 1627.
2. Cannibals: by Houtman 1595 and Herbert 1627.
Were the local people really brutes? On 25.11.1497, Vasco Da Gama (or his secretary) wrote: “There arrived about two hundred blacks, large and small, bringing with them twelve cattle, oxen and cows, and four or five sheep; and we went ashore at once. And they at once began to play on four or five flutes, and some of them played high and others played low, harmonising together very well for blacks from whom music is not to be expected.”
Before Van Riebeeck by R. Raven-Hart, Struik 1967 pp5 – 6
On page 335 in Menán Du Plessis’s Kora (A Lost Language of the Early Cape and Gariep), in the English to Kora Dictionary section, we have:
flutes (consort of individual monotone reed-flutes) ǂ’ādi
flute names (individual) for 4-flute consort:
1 ǂōǂōs
2 ǃnamis
3 kaiǂ’ās (tonic note (1) according to some consultants)
4 tuxana
flute names (individual) for 6- or 7-flute consort:
1 ǁoǁos (~ ǂōǂōs)
2 ǁgoatoab (largest, ‘roars’)
3 gamas (~ gomas) (base, few feet long)
4 ǁhũis (higher pitch, together with gamas makes up the kai ǂ’ākua)
5 ǃaros
6a kx’āǁ’ãs (according to some consultants)
6b ǀũbis or ǃ’ulīs) (according to other consultants)
The Koraners had not only a 4-flute consort but also a 6- or 7-flute consort, and they had Kora names for each flute.
What does the Merriam-Webster Dictionary say about the word brute: of or relating to beasts: characteristic of an animal in quality, action, or instinct.
Artistes, according to the Supreme Master Ching Hai, are halfway to heaven. The musician will have to be more than an animal in quality, action or instinct.
The text continues with: “... and they danced like blacks. The Commander ordered the trumpets to be played and we in the boats danced, and so did the Commander.” If, by playing wind instruments make the Khoikhoi beastlike, then the same must be said of the Portuguese as well.
We find throughout most of Before van Riebeeck that the Europeans used themselves as the superior culture while the Africans were branded as brutes (animals). The Europeans are so ignorant they never realise that they are no better.
In Europe, there were forever wars, especially where religion and territory were the causes. They forget this and their modern warfare armour when they accuse the locals of being brutes when they get angry when a red line of theirs is crossed by the foreigners. This happened when up to eighty Khoikhoi killed 100 Portuguese, who were the flower of the spear and swordsmen.
18.9.2026