Who the ǂKhomani are
Nigel Crawhall’s article for Cultural Survival (2010) describes the southern Kalahari San, who call themselves N||n‡e (“home people”) and speak N|u (“our language”). It says the linguist Dorothea Bleek, in 1911, linked the language to two groups, the N||n and the ǂKhomani, and that the article treats them as one language and ethnic group; many people now use the name ǂKhomani, and “San” is gaining currency among young people. The article estimates the community at about 1,000 people.
Dispossession
The article says that in 1936 a University of the Witwatersrand team studied people living in territory newly declared a national park, framed around “racial purity”, and that most of the 77 San exhibited in Johannesburg that year were never allowed to return home. It says the park’s new warden brought in other San as labourers, that apartheid policies eroded their rights, that by the 1970s relations with the park had become intolerable and that elders said they were expelled after complaining to tourists. Many San suppressed their language and hid their identity to protect their children and worked as farm labourers, shearers and gardeners.
The land claim and the language
In 1995 the lawyer Roger Chennells recognised that the San could seek restitution of land under South Africa’s new constitution, which led to the claim. In March 1999 the government awarded the southern Kalahari San 40,000 hectares outside the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park and 25,000 inside it. The community thought it had about 50 adults, but more than 300 registered within months. N|u had been thought extinct; in 1997 the South African San Institute found an elderly speaker, Elsie Vaalbooi, about 102, who listened to 1930s recordings made at Twee Rivieren and in Johannesburg and translated them back. Her son then found about 25 other elders over four years, and the article gives about 20 speakers at the time it was written.
What we have not read
This page rests on one article from 2010, about the land claim and language. We have not read Wikipedia’s article on the ǂKhomani (the address we tried was not found), the Commission on Restitution of Land Rights record, or later reports on the Kalahari settlement; we do not know what has changed in the community since 2010.
Izithakazelo and totem
The source records no clan praises or totem, so we are printing none. If you are ǂKhomani and want your family’s history or language recorded here, with your permission and credited to you, we would like to hear from you.
Sources and further reading
- Nigel Crawhall, Cultural Survival: Reclaiming Language and Identity (28 April 2010; from Cultural Survival Quarterly, The Kalahari San)
See also Xam.
Are you ǂKhomani? Tell us your family’s history and we will add it, credited to you. Share what you know or WhatsApp 065 138 8213.