It is a constant refrain heard in South Africa that the Zulus and the “black” Africans come from the north. This “fact” is so skewed in the way in which it is used and is poorly understood by most so I wish to clarify a few points about the arrival of the Bantu-speaking Africans in Southern Africa. Bantu here is used to refer to a broad linguistic group that belongs to the Niger-Congo group of languages.
So I will start by saying that yes the Bantu speakers did come from the north. However, they did not only arrive in the 1600s as often stated; that was apartheid myth-making. The Bantu peoples began arriving in Southern Africa at least 1 800 to 2 000 years ago and newer research keeps pushing that date back. This is shown by the archaeological record that shows Iron-Age furnaces and tools appearing at this stage of prehistory. They arrived in small probably family-based groups bringing with them cattle and hoe agriculture. They did not rush down in some horde massacring the local aboriginals. The aboriginals I refer to here are the Bushmen/San.
The Bantu peoples should not be viewed as a singular people, but a broad linguistic group that would have comprised various ethnicities, identities and means of subsistence. There is little is known of their interaction with the San in the earliest periods of contact. In all likelihood the Bantu would have been few in number, with little power over the indigenous peoples and no central organisation. These things developed in time as the larger ethno-political groups show (Zulu Kingdom for example), but the balance of power would have been originally in favour of the San. They had detailed knowledge of the land and plants, traces that reach through in the healing practices of today. The increasing population pressure and long-term interaction would have eroded the salient differences between peoples through intermarriage, alliances as they have lived side by side for two millennia. Serious conflict appears around the time of centralised power developing, which affected all the peoples of Southern Africa. By this period most San would have been assimilated, their language almost erased and coherent bands would have been relegated to the margins of the mountains and sea. Even these bands exhibited shifting allegiances and ethnicities as see in the colonial records and confusion about the nature of the ethnicity of the people they encountered. There were peoples in colonial Natal that moved between being San and being Zulu depending on circumstances. Their descendants still live in the Drakensberg and claim a San identity (they use the term Abatwa) alongside a Zulu one.
The first European settlers in the Western Cape would have encountered aboriginal and other African peoples engaged in multiple forms of subsistence, speaking a variety of languages with no central political authority and would have exhibited a blend of aboriginal hunting gathering, fishing, herding and agriculture. But make no mistake the other African peoples were already in the region and in fairly large numbers, such as the Xhosa just across the Fish River. For the majority of the San and related groups (Hottentot, Strandlopers) their languages have been lost as were many cultural practices and knowledge, even while influencing the dominant culture of which they became part of.
The Bantu language would have been modified as a result of continuous social contact of trade, marriage and so on. One of these developed into the Nguni language group of today, which contain the distinctive three “click” consonants (isiZulu, isiXhosa, iNdebele, siSwati). These are a direct legacy not of conquest, but assimilation and sharing. This of course does not mean that San people were not killed in some areas, but that the pre-historical picture is a lot more nuanced than often reported and was not just a simple massacre. There is also evidence genetically about the connection between San and Bantu peoples where contemporary populations of Zulu- and Xhosa-speaking peoples have on average almost as many Khoisan as Bantu ancestors, and about 15% of the words of both languages contain click consonants derived from Khoisan. Khoisan refers to a larger family group of related languages and not the contemporary peoples who may or may not speak a language from this family.
So next time you hear that the Zulus came from the north, please correct that fallacy. Their ancestors came from the north 2 000 years ago, and in conjunction with the local indigenous people they developed a new culture and identity and created a new language family. The Bushmen are still around in the Northern Cape, in the Kalahari and number about 110 000, but there are in fact even more descendants of various hues, shades and mixes. They are also present in the Nguni languages and people as well as the Cape coloured in an undisclosed and often unacknowledged admixture.
Far too often the notion of a northern descent is used to justify colonial land acquisition and excesses. The apartheid myth was a powerful one that was deeply embedded in school curriculum and its legacy is still heard today. History (and prehistory) is always contested and laced through with the politics of the times. Migration and movement of peoples may create strife and conflict, but it may also creates new identities and bring new ideas. The Bantu migration saw many languages and cultures ultimately disappear, but it also brought new crops, iron and technologies. And the same goes for the European peoples that arrived bringing strife and conflict, but also new ideas and technologies. The time for drawing lines between the peoples of Africa is well past its time. At core we are all one and we need to work together to find new identities, new ideas and new futures.
@Michael Francis
“I write about the movement of a socio-linguistic group that is well established and documented.”
Oh yeah? Who exactly “established” these migration theories? What scientific evidence do they have to prove this BS theories?
“And the Canadian winter is wonderful with…”
So why do most Canadians and immigrants prefer to emigrate to the US at the first opportunity? Why does Canada have an insatiable thirst for immigrants, so much so that they lowered the barrier to even allow people claiming “white SA refugee” status?
Hell, even the bugs cannot stand the brutal winter! btw. say hi to your roomie, Brandon Huntley.
@Grant W
If you think the “truth” can be attained by compromise then you are truly living in a delusion.
What REALLY surprises me is that believe that we can find “truth” in a court!!!
Theese hogwash theories about migration have been peddled for hundreds of years by colonialists to justify their actions.
As Martin aptly commented “The thrust of these theories are to justify ownership of land.”
Present day the white supremacists constantly use these theories to create division in populations that coexisted for centuries in relative harmony.
@Johan Meyer – I am a little perplexed at what point you are trying to make in discussing Canada on a blog about ethnogenesis in Africa. Space does not allow me to comment in detail about Canadian law and politics here and it is beyond the intention and scope of article above.
I would suggest that you research beyond some hyperbolic websites about Aboriginal issues in Canada and Canada’s involvement in the world. Some of what you raise may be valid critiques of Canada, but I still do not see their relevance here.
So what is your point of your comments?
@Dre – To quote you:
“The trouble with ethnic identities is that while we know they are situationally variable, historically malleable and politically pragmatic features of societies, those of us that carry them tend to wear and wield them as if they were the admission stamps received upon paying to enter a club, and to rhetorically bolster our right of admission we more often than not tend to treat our ethnicity as primordial and essential (not as constructed and historically variable)”.
This is an important point and I agree with you wholeheartedly. What I see in the comments is some people attempting to reject the situational nature of ethnicity as it would make their(often racially based as well) claims as socially contingent instead of ‘real’.
What I hope to do in my writing about the social construction of identities is to de-centre some of these discourses. Often we fail in that as the discourse itself is limiting or counter-claims are rejected outright based on ideological considerations (see Dave Harris’ remarks).
@Grant – I do not mean to portray some merry happy time of willing assimilation.
However, I do believe that the linguistic evidence does support that early on there would have been more peaceful assimilation. One of the things to consider is the amount of grammar and social traits shared by Nguni peoples not shared by other Bantu speakers in Africa. One such thing is inheritance patterns (youngest man inherits the father’s land) which has been suggested to be Khoisan legacy. I do think that had it been the oft stated massacre the language would not have three click sounds in over a third of the words.
One thing to remember is that the arrival of Bantu speakers was not a group of people on a trek, but a slow advance of the farming frontier with an ever-increasing population with ever-increasing demands. One demand is that of wives and their are oral legends and stories about the desirability of San women by Zulus.
There are also oral myths of the fierceness of the San of the Drakensberg who would rain down arrows on people encroaching on their land. These stories go back to the Mfecane time so a real time of turmoil with lots of peoples moving about jostling for safe spaces. When settlers arrived in the area they found hatred of San in some areas and in other areas strong allegiances and some that moved between being San and being Nguni. Boundaries were not necessarily that salient.
@David Harris – Had you followed any of the links embedded in the text above you may have found some of your answers as to the veracity of the research I portray. You so quickly dismiss anything I say yet show no other research or analysis that would show your image of a merry Africa.
Your disdain for Canada as well as your remarks are based on ignorance laced through with stupidity. Canada does not need me to defend it and at home I am a critic of my government and of the state on a range of issues.
What you do not understand is that critiquing a place is not done from a position of hatred but one of fondness or even love. South Africa was my home for the better part of 7 years and I left it for better opportunities and for other personal reasons. I wish to see Africa prosper and succeed and it needs people to constantly be on guard for abuses. It does not need shallow cheer-leaders with blinkered vision that allow cruel excesses by leaders and violent abuse of those who share that soil (recall the xenophobic attacks).
@Grant W
Assimilation is rarely non-violent – again, where is he claiming non-violence? Having one’s ethnic identity destroyed, not only on a personal level (and for one’s children), but also that the entire group disappears, seems hardly a non-violent ethnogenesis. Moreover, it is often achieved through wife-taking and other nasty means. Whether Francis would acknowledge that is another question – we’ll see.
@Martin Ja, I’m an arsehole – ad rem works better with some ad hominem mixed in – it is called Stockholm syndrome… As for the state of ‘public’ lands (or lands in community possession), what are the current institutions to deal with usage rights, on these lands? In KwaZulu/Natal – what is the population density? Where commons fail, you typically have two problems: 1. Too many users, and 2. wastes don’t get recycled, although the latter is a civilizational problem, aka shitting in rivers. (Raw sewage is not advised either, but it needs to be recycled (see chapter 3) – private lands can remain viable, either by underusage, or by using artificial fertilizers, which have their own harms, as the owners may make a sufficient profit to afford them, or go broke in debt buying them, and commit mass suicide, as in certain parts of northern India…)
@Harris – From the sublime (Martin) to the ridiculous (Dave) – OK, what is this? Ever hear of DNA? Did you know that there are two types of DNA, aka cellular DNA and Mitochondrial DNA? Did you know that half of your cellular DNA came from each of your parents? Did you know that the entirety of your mDNA came from your mother? Have you ever heard of language families? Do you know how they are pieced together? I’ll give you a hint: There is a language family called Indo-European, and it includes most languages of Europe, Northern India, and several of central and western Asia. Two obvious features that identify IndoEuropean languages are irregular conjugations of the (possessed) copula (in English, to be, was, were, is, am, are – why not “I be,” “you be,” “he bees,” “I beed” etc?) – some languages don’t have copulas. Another is vocabulary, as shown by common vocabulary connected through regular sound shifts – e.g. borudor (farsi – although some dialects use ‘kaka’), bhrat (sanskrit), frater (latin), brother (english) etc. Same kind of thing for Niger-Congo. See ethnologue – you might learn something. Sometimes languages borrow from each other (they may even form a ‘sprachbund’), e.g. Bengali (IndoEuropean) and the east-Asian languages, or the Turkic and Mongolian languages, or quite possibly, the Nguni (Niger-Congo sub-group) and San-related group, although that is uninformed speculation on my part – perhaps Mr Francis could comment.
@Michael Francis
“You so quickly dismiss anything I say yet show no other research or analysis that would show your image of a merry Africa”
You are spouting mindless theories about migration. Here is the paradox:
Supposing the recent DNA discoveries about the human genome suggests that mankind originated from a tribe in southen Cape is true, where does your claim of the Cape being uninhabited come from? African tribes were present EVERYWHERE in the southern parts of Africa as well as in every other part of Africa throughout human history. To deny this is to deny reality! Why is it so difficult for you to accept that African tribes had a rich culture and lived in relative peace until the arrival of the white settlers? You obviously won’t find much historical traces (books) since Africans tribes moved around from time to time, like the Arabs and Gypsies, they primarily used oral language to hand down the culture from generation to generation e.g. stories and music.
“Your disdain for Canada…”
I have only love for Canada and its people – one of my best school buddies is now Canadian. I just would not want to live there. Canada provide refuge for anti-apartheid exiles and refugees during the darkest days of apartheid, for that we are forever grateful.
“I wish to see Africa prosper and succeed”
So why do you continue to create divisions in our society with your scientifically unsubstantiated migration theories?
@MFrancis
First, as to the relevance of my comments: Above, you go into a superficial history of Aboriginals in Canada, and make no mention of crimes committed against aboriginals, that variously tie them to reserves.
Neither the websites I linked consider aboriginal issues in Canada. As to the matter of mass rapes, hell, even the Canadian government has admitted to that, and from what I understand, there is a growing awareness in Canada of the mass rapes that occurred. According to one researcher (who was booted out of the Canadian united church), in some residential schools, half the children did not physically survive until grade 12. I’ve actually met Canadian residential school survivors, and space and their dignity disallow me to discuss in detail what they described.
As for Canada’s involvement in the world, the first link was a peer reviewed paper that was published in the Lancet. After pressure from your government, it was withdrawn from the Lancet (certain ‘activists’ receiving grant money from your government made death threats against the authors). Finally, someone else checked the research, and found it valid. Then the Lancet editors showed some spine, and reinstated the paper. As for the last link, you are accusing the lead investigator into the assassinations of lying – are you a conspiracy theorist?
On most Canadian reserves, they are trying to reintroduce the languages that the government willfully destroyed – how many Cree would understand “Tanisigia? Nehinemontaw!”? “Tansi” some might, but that would be the end of it…
@Martin An example of how privatization destroys commons: Take the Atlantic fish stocks – you may (to some extent reasonably) argue that it was a commons destroyed by a ‘tragedy of the commons’ dynamic. On the peripheries (coastlines), there has been a privatization in the form of commercial fish farms – an ideal breeding ground for sea lice, which readily decimate fish stocks. Of course, governments and corporations far more readily behave according to the logic of ‘the tragedy of the commons’ than humans individually or as families, but that kind of harm occurs repeatedly. Or to take your example in KwaZulu/Natal – how many of the private landowners also use the commons?
@ Harris (I see you posted your comment here)
Next thing, you’ll probably deny the existence of blond Pashtuns in Kashmir. No, blondness, and the Indo-European languages come from central Asia (probably part of Russia now), and invaded what is now western China, parts of northern India, parts of western Asia, as well as parts of Europe, and in each case intermarried with locals. Other groups also adopted their language (Greeks, Romans etc) and parts of their material culture. You are actually (northern) Euro-centric to assume that blondness, blue eyes etc are European features – they still are quite common in Tajikistan. Can you say, “I’m part central Asian”? And where do I claim that the cultural advances were mostly or entirely IE? You are battling your own ghosts. Seems to be a general pattern here.
@MFrancis – another point of relevance – your stay here, was it financed by the Canadian government? I’d like my fellow Saffers to know what they are dealing with.
ngodoi sums up how us whites feel very well. well done old chap!
@ Michael. Good article, good replies.
@ Dave Harris
Dear Dave, I have been wondering if we all have been a bit too harsh on you. Based upon the nature of your comments, I picture you as an idealistic, but angry kid from a privileged background (therefore the guilt complex), somewhere between 16 and 21, who loves to spend his evenings googling, but who don’t have a lot of reality under the belt.
Heck, I was never that privileged, but I do remember what it was like at that age (except in my case it was the mid-80s, and there was a real fight going on) – it is not your fault that the ThoughLeader website doesn’t have warning buttons saying “Click here if you are under 13, then get your parents’ consent”. (Management – Hint!)
So maybe your a victim of time and place. Either that, or you are just another narrow-minded, bigoted wally with an Internet connection, too much time, but too few books.
@Johan Meyer (accidentally posted to wrong blog)
Spare the lecture. The problem with pseudo-intellectuals is that when they have a hammer in hand, everything starts looking like a nail.
Indian scholars have refuted the Aryan invasion theory – another attempt to claim the “western influence” for the deep rich civilization that existed for THOUSANDS of years in the East (India and China) while most of the west were running around in animal skins in survival mode. The British used these theories to create the north-south divide (notice how you speak of “Northern India” as something distinct from the south) and subsequent rivalry during their two century reign of their colony. Numerous British imperialist scholars, one of the main culprits being Lord Macauley who imposed the teaching of English in Indian schools, went out of their way to denigrate the Indian culture – no surprise that these days many westernized Indians are ashamed of their own culture.
Remember most books you find in libraries and the web, are invariably written by western scholars – history is written by the winners and guess who colonized most of the world and remember the destruction of the great libraries during the crusades? THINK for heavens sake!
@David Harris – I really do not know why I respond to you as you clearly never read anything carefully and respond with wild inaccurate accusations.
I clearly state that there were a variety of peoples at the cape and I quote “The first European settlers in the Western Cape would have encountered aboriginal and other African peoples engaged in multiple forms of subsistence, speaking a variety of languages with no central political authority and would have exhibited a blend of aboriginal hunting gathering, fishing, herding and agriculture. But make no mistake the other African peoples were already in the region and in fairly large numbers…”
This blog is discussing a specific SOCIO-LIGUISTIC group of people based an really sound research. One can trace this linguistic group as they spread and mixed with other peoples in Africa. They were incredibly successful in their spread due to their agriculture that supported larger populations as well as a culture that readily adopted and changed to new circumstances and ideas – they picked up cattle along the way in the Sahel when they encountered another large linguistic group the Nilotic group of languages.
Discussing and documenting the spread of a lingusitic group does not mean there were not other peoples in the areas they passed through and left their mark upon. What it really shows is how ancient peoples mixed and changed.
I never state or suggest that Africa was devoid of peoples in any way shape of form.
The prehistory of Africa now shows that hominids probably developed in Southern Africa and were quite widely spread through the region. All around Kimberly one can find ancient stone tools that date back to 2.2 million years ago. Homo Sapiens (that’s us) only have been around 150,000 years (give or take) and may have evolved right in the region. So South Africa has been inhabited by humanity since the advent of our species with some gaps that may suggest everybody left for certain periods or more likely we haven’t found the evidence yet.
It is difficult due to the movements of peoples and the scant archaeological remains left by these peoples to really prove if any contemporary population groups such as the San have a direct continuity with them. Genetics is suggesting that that may be true but on one level all humans have traces of coming from the oldest known genetic lines.
@johan I am not disputing the points you make about canada even as I think they overstate certain things. My point about relevance is to what they have to do about ethno genesis in africa. Evil done elsewhere does not exclude it done in south africa.
Johan Meyer on October 30th, 2009 at 6:44 pm – Re privatisation: I accept your view, having reexamined my stance.
I have enjoyed the discourses to date. I am in awe of the knowledge you and others have of language and anthropology.
But I continue to wonder – Is there an absolute workable economic theory? Are Marx,Engels spinning in their graves?
Johan Meyer on October 29th, 2009 at 8:45 pm In KwaZulu/Natal – what is the population density? Where commons fail, you typically have two problems: 1. Too many users, and 2. wastes don’t get recycled, although the latter is a civilizational problem, aka shitting in rivers. (Raw sewage is not advised either, but it needs to be recycled (see chapter 3) – private lands can remain viable, either by underusage, or by using artificial fertilizers snipped)))
I do have a conmpost heap and veggie garden but when I descrbed recycling human crap to my wife, she said she wouldn’t eat the veggies. So I now have another cultural divide. She doesn’t object to dog land mines or chicken manure in the compost?
Anyway thanks for the references Johan and thank you Michael for a very thought provoking and interesting article.
To all (except Harris) Sorry for being a drol. I’ll try to behave from now on…
@Harris – try reading my response to you above – as for the Indian scholars, they come in two varieties: 1. Those who take issue with specific Aryan invasion theories (there are several, and they’ll usually point to a specific German scholar, whose name I forget), with the whole Aryan-invented-the-world (or India) notions, and 2. Hindutva thugs – watch who you are associating with – although in fairness, they are not so much scholars as propagandistic interpreters of scholarship.
@ Martin – I’m not a Marxist, and I’d say that Marx and Engels are useful only as critics, i.e. they have no useful alternatives. People build alternatives experimentally, after all, that is how cultures arise, much as any science – you try something, see what happens, and incorporate the insights into a practice. Someone once said that religion until about 150 years ago was generally more a question of practice than belief – if you asked the average religious person what they believed, you’d get a blank stare… Religion was very successful in the middle ages because it kept people away from a near certain death at the hands of doctors, and had reasonably good doctrines on sanitation given the technology of the day. Hope that’s meaningful…
@Martin As for composting human wastes, I have this recurring fantasy of the people on the cape flats recycling their wastes 1. to grow food and 2. to grow Fynbos – Kirstenbosch is for rich people.
@Johan Youi wish to know how I funded my stay in SA? I started here as a graduate student and I took out student loans and sold two horses to finance my initial foray in SA. I then worked part-time as a tutor at UKZN and continued to draw on student loans from Canada. I was also awarded a PhD fieldwork grant from the Wenner-Grenn Foundation for Anthropological Research. After that I ran out of money and left for the UK where I spent the year sending tourists to South Africa while completing my PhD. I then was awarded a Post-Doctoral research Fellowship at UKZN and worked for the last two teaching and writing. I now have left for Canada and as you can see work at Athabasca University.
So now you know.
Micheal Francis…you are too intelligent, thank you for the enlightening piece, well writ I say.
We should all be thankful for the contribution of an intelligent scholar like Michael who came to our country with nothing but curiosity and good intentions, and has grown to love South Africa with all its idiosynchrocies. The purpose of scholarly practice is to analyse and grow solutions, not to inflame the debate and bring about further animosity. Good job Michael! We are all citizens of planet earth and as such land ownership, ethnicity, precidence, intellectual vooma and politics pale into insignificance when it comes to peace and harmony. We need a new way of looking at ourselves, and this comes through creative analysis as demonstrated in the article above. Thanks Canadian/South African dude!
Thanks Michael for an informative piece.
@Kizito – if you stopped to think for a moment – the argument that you are making is exactly the same argument that the apartheid state used to justify the prevention of black people from governing! Moreover – by YOUR own logic – if a Canadian cannot comment on Africa (for no other reason because he is Canadian) you are also claiming that an African cannot comment on Canada, or America or any other country… even China! How far do we take this – can only San people comment on the San, can only women comment on women’s issues, can only black Xhosa speakers comment on Julius malema??! So Kizito – I suppose we won’t be seeing you comment on any blog site where the content doesnt match your immediate physical characteristics!
How convenient it is to portray the San as the indigenous people of just this part of Africa (which, unfortunately, is loved so much by ‘white settlers’) and label the rest as having ‘moved south from north.
Europe has proof of the movement of that race across the entire European continent, foraging for resources and better living conditions (A natural behavior of all living things).
The strange thing is all this crap about which group of Europeans got where first in Europe is never heard of simply because the Europeans consider themselves as a single race and the non- Europeans as different species that cannot co-exit among themselves. Hence this distorted notion of most whites that their presence in Africa has saved the day
Little wonder therefore that every white guy will be an expert on Africa, particularly where there seems to be gains for such interest (e.g. mineral resource)
I have no doubts that if a fair and unbiased research is conducted, that a conclusion will be that this was merely the dynamics of human movement, up and down a free and boundary less Africa, looking for better resources, and not an arrival
There are historical instances that stained the image of whites who professed to be extraordinarily knowledgeable about Africans. Most white scholars were not shy to deny archeological discoveries such as Zimbabwe ruins as being part of the Bantu race. It is such historical facts that render whites not the authority to talk about Africa.
@Man G – It is funny that you mention the denial of the archaeological evidence of great Zimbabwe in a comment that denies the archaeological evidence of a bantu expansion form the north. It is sound archaeology and ethno-linguistics that outlines the Bantu movement across Africa. How you take this to be about race and who has rights in South Africa is strange and twisted logic. And I have no mineral resources to gain from writing about Africa.
@ngodoi – you are the most sensible commentator on this issue! Well done.