The khoisan and bantu share a common ancestor. The deference is that the khoisani left the north earlier than bantu tribes.

“Far too often the notion of a northern descent is used to justify colonial land acquisition and excesses.” Well said…

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@siza the archaeology puts the ancestors of the contemporary san in southern africa at least 25000 years ago and humans in general all the way back to the first humans around 130000-150000 years ago.

There is also some chance that there is a direct lineage but really unproveable with current evidence. But as always people move around and mix so any search for purity is spurious. Allhumans share african ancestors check out national geographic human genome project for more information.

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Good

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The Fish River ‘border’ was a very long way away from the Western Cape back in those days.

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It is fair to say that the Bantu migration moved South around 2000 years ago. We do not know numbers because the history is not recorded. It may have been a few families it may have been many thousands setting out on a trek. There is no written record.

Liguistic transfer is by no means proof of peaceful integration. South Africans of all colours have swapped language in the last 400 years of strife.

We do not know the nature of the interaction as it too is not recorded. All we can surmise is that the Bantu eliminated and assimilated the Khoisan due to intermarriage, warfare and imported disease as all peoples through history have.

What we can say with certainty, however, is that the land of the Khoisan was certainly settled and the Nguni prevailed. The Khoisan largely did not. This may or may not have been a large scale settlement. Settlement is simply a slow invasion, ask the Palestinians.

Your piece tries to paint a quaint, peaceful process which is both misleading and pure conjecture. It is used to juxtapose the violent arrival of European settlers with a higher ethical process of settlement by Nguni tribes and in so doing elevate their methods and culture to that of the modern zeitgeist. This is quite simply opposite propaganda to the false story of a violent invasion by Northern hordes 400 years ago conveniently timed to match the arrival of white South Africans.

I suggest the truth lies in the middle.

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Your analysis (integration and assimilation) makes more logical sense than the mindlessly parroted version (plunder and distruction) we were force fed in school, regarding the Nguni and Khiosan. Thanks for giving us something to think about.

However, I would ague that one simply cannot make a direct comparison with the European settlers and their (very well documented) violent colonization of Southern Africa. Because that process of settling was recorded in history, there is no need for conjecture and speculation.

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I have just received the results of a “genetic ancestry report” of my son.

My wife, his mother, was qualified a “white” under the old regime. We found that 3 generations ago, a classified “coloured” married a classified “white” as in the marriage certificate.

The Genetic report shows a strong Bushman (khoi San) connection. Apart from being interesting, does it do anything in our relationship?

All it tells me is that inter breading has been happening for thousands of years.

I would like to query the people calling themselves black to go for a genetic test and see where they really come from.

We might be surprised.

It could put an end to this racist stuff from all quarters.

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I am inclined to agree with GrantW

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@Grant - I am not sure where I claimed a purely peaceful process and I am certain you did not read all that well other than to read into what I said. I suggest a re-reading of my blog.

Perhaps I should have kept going with my pre-history and discussed the mfecane (the crushing) where there was much violence and shifting of peoples that would have had a large impact on San populations. But this was not the point of my short piece.

I get annoyed by the oft repeated fact of a northern arrival but never portray a merry Africa until Europeans irrupted on the scene.

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ok. Now I feel better. Other than the San we are all occupiers!!!!!!! That puts all things into prospective. I feel relieved that I am acutally an African. What say you Malema?

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As he is a cultural anthropologist I would be interested in Michael’s view on why the black population of South Africa has grown exponentially since the arrival of European settlers as opposed to the indigenous peoples of Canada who live in apartheid reservations and who’s numbers have never experienced similar growth? And if “the time is past for drawing lines between peoples is past” why do Indians in Canada call themselves “First Nation” and not Canadians.
Lastly how many Indians were slaughtered by the settlers?

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@ Grant W
Could you quote the article to justify the claim of ‘ethical settlement’ that you ascribe to M Francis? I’ve just read the article, and it seems that you are merely summoning your own ghosts, rather than dealing with the text: He is speaking of Nguni ethnogenesis; where is the question of just how ethical or unethical, on the whole, the enterprise was?

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So the San bushmen and Khoi were in situ 25000 years ago while the Bantu only arrived from up north a mere 2000 years ago?

So why is the statement that the Bantu arrived from the north somehow a “wrong” statement needing debunking? It all looks pretty true from where I’m sitting.

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Another expert in everything.
When it comes to Africans white people’s IQ skyrocket. They become “I know everything” and their statements become dogmas.
Why don’t you worry about where you came from yourself and leave Africans alone?
Any people near Europeans that have some amazing architecture are labelled caucasians together with europeans. Any people with glorious civilizations that have thin noses are labelled as belonging to a same community or race with europeans. Africans help you to feel superior and now you are coming up with all these artificial classifications and divisions. What is their purpose?

Your empty research is not different from a chinese observation when he commented in the Economist by saying:
“Today, everybody is a China expert. Everybody has advice on how China should manage its affairs, how it should do things differently, how it should be more like ‘us’. Well, where were all you experts 30 years ago when China was just another poor country? Was it your good advice that got China to where it is today?”

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The whole idea of migration is BS euro-centric history designed to justify the invasion, colonization and plunder of the African continent by white supremacists. Black Africans were present EVERYWHERE in the southern parts of Africa just like everywhere else on the African continent. No amount of speculation and delusional “scientific” theories can prove one iota of these BS migration theories that suggest that the land was “empty” and thus “OK” to be colonized.

This glaring contradiction in this article is its conclusion - “At core we are all one and we need to work together to find new identities, new ideas and new futures.”
Remember how the architects of apartheid were fixated on “preserving group identity”, well this statement smells like you’re peddling more of the same garbage. We South Africans, blacks (Africans, Coloreds, Indians…) and whites (European ancestry) know very well that we all belong to the SAME HUMAN RACE and we all share a COMMON destiny in the new SA - we’ve all wizened up to these divide and conquer tactics!

Anyway, I hope you and Brandon Huntley, the other white SA refugee, are huddling together, for the long Canadian winter ahead while we enjoy our endless summer.

@Grant W
“I suggest the truth lies in the middle.”
How convenient!! If only we could all seek the “truth” like this…LOL

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What about the arrival of canadians? lol just kidding. well said.

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OK, However, white people arrived in South Africa at around 1652 and since then developed South Africa to the point that it was at in 1994 when the ANC took over.
By that stage there were nearly 5 million south African whites.
My question, then, given that whites are so unwelcome in South Africa at the moment, nearly a million have emmigrated and nearly a million have been removed from the economy due to AA, BEE etc; at what point in history since 1652 were white people to decide that they were colonisers, land invaders, racists, whatever and therefore illegally in the country as we hear every day and of which this post is a proponent; and leave the country en masse?
Secondly where were they supposed to go?
As a white person, I’m sick of the rhetoric against whites in SA, I’m sick of whites like you joining the anti-white refrain, I’m sick of the daily murder of whites that the media says nothing about, and when they do, it is played down.
You all further neglect two inescapable facts about whites in this country, they did a tremendous lot of good and now that they are leaving and being murdered out the country is falling apart.
The last fact you dare not write about is that Africa was colonised for a reason, the same reason it is being re-colonised now, and Zimbabwe is a prime example of that. So let’s hear you cowboy.

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@Michael
You don´t know what you are writing.
You cannot call a Hottentot a San.
A Khoi of the Goringhaicona,(Strandloopers),Goringhaiqua,Gorachouqua tribe,who had lost his cattle becam a San and lived of the land (he became a Bushman). However, once a San, he could work for a Khoi as a herder and start to rebuild his own herd. Having a few cattle again he also would become a Khoi again

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it is not useful to look at the past for answers to todays questions, it is irrelevant who came first, how long this one has been here compared to that one etc etc…what is relevant is that we are all here now and what are going to do about it?
We need to accept that some of the wrongs of the past will never be righted, we need to move on. South Africa is full of indians, blacks, whites and coloureds, it is impossible to make sense of it all in terms of who has more historical rights, there are just too many layers and it is too complicated, for example into which ”claim” box will you put a coloured person who is both black and white all at once….and what will you tell the afrikaaner who also has bushman blood running through his veins…
We need to look for new ways to manage the past the handle the present, this business of putting people in little boxes based on historical events that go back thousands of years does not work and looking for rights and justification on the basis of timelines and ethnicity is actually just a continuation of the ”wrong thinking” of the apartheid era

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Thank you for some thought provoking reading Michael

@kizito: funnily enough, anyone presenting a balanced, considered and rational argument has a right to be heard and taken seriously. Regardless of their race; or how their race relates to the subject matter.

I’d read ‘I write what I like’, might give you some insight into what drives your thinking

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Thanks Kizito for making me feel important. Until now I thought I was just another ordinary South African.

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Let the Zulus be ok! We did what was done in that era all else is history.
We don’t colonise, massacre, bomb, displace, hang-presidents, fund coups- no more…

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Poor Michael, there he was, just trying to improve their press and everyone dumped on him from both sides! Timing’s bad for conciliatory gestures, Michael; ask that poor gentle bod who is rector of UFS. It seems that no one actually wants to get along…

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There is not a single African food crop which was cultivated by Bantu peoples before the European migrations which will thrive in the winter rainfall region of the Western Cape.There are on record many attempts by Bantu peoples to live in this area but they all failed until the Europeans bought with them winter rainfall tolerant grains such as wheat,oats,barley Etc when they introduced other crops from the Americas ( Potatoes,tobacco,tomatoes,peppers,maize,pumpkins Etc)via Europe then the Cape became even more liveable.

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Ngodoi says it all - too much for many who commented before he/she did. The history of Africa is a tragedy. We will change nothing in our desires to sate that inherent and tragic blood-lust. So much blood has flowed under the bridge - nothing but chaos will result from adding to that flow. But, judging by Zimbabwe chaos is the goal of all too many nationalist Africans. It would appear that racism is no respector of pimentation and genetic history.

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@Ngodoi: unfortunately your ranting does nothing. So instead of just continuing the use of unthinking stereotypes and generalisations, I have a few suggestions:

1. have a drink maybe
2. open your mind to the fact that our country and history is GREY. Nothing is in black and white (or Indian, or Coloured, or whatever)
3. read some Alan Paton (see 2 above)
4. stop thinking of everything in terms of race

Terms like ‘anti-insertmyrace refrain’, suggestions that the media ignore crimes against ‘insertmyrace’ are about as good for this country as Julius Malema’s ignorant utterances.

SA needs everyone in it, regardless of race. It requires us to THINK. And posts like yours (as well as from the opposite side of the same coin e.g. Simphiwo Simphiwo) illustrate that we are not doing that…

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@ Michael

You must be very old to record all of that prehistory for us! Have you been carbon-dated to justify your position?

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what we should really be asking is who arrived first on this planet and where did they come from…LOL

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@ Michael Francis
Good article, you are brave to stick your head into the South African racial hornet’s nest.

As a proven descendant of the famous Harry socalled Strandloper, I have a few ideas of my own. Firstly I agree with MLH. Nobody actually wants to get along in this country. It is just as racist now as what it ever was.

It still seems to me that the KhoiSan are the original owners of the land. Then came the colonisers from Congo, Holland, England, Nigeria in succession. All were invaders, except the Asians, who had little choice of destination.

Then know-it-all Dave Harris, always upholding the Empire flag. Now he wants to rewrite world history to suit his narrow political biases. Harris, perhaps your skinny pink posterior should ship back to mother England. Or just be quiet after yet another faux pas -like Philippa, your alter ego.

I am also missing Kitty Kat’s comments here as she always seem to want to condescendingly rant on behalf of the “Strandlopers”. Perhaps the black-(er-than-though)-power lot should trek back to the Congo as the rest of us aren’t black enough for them. Hey, things look sommer lekker over there, you may like it.

But what about the rest of us? My ancestors are all of the above. Should I chop myself in bits and return to sender? Nah. I’ll just remove myself to happy Canada, then the rest of you can fight amongst yourselves.

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Michael,

I think this is a brilliant peace. Any ideas on the Batswana, coz I am one?

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The thrust of these theories are to justify ownership of land. We need to get away from the idea of land as a resource and rather look at people as our prime resource.

We need to distinguish between land and enterprise. Between ownership and entrepreneurship.

Giving an enterprise to a community is unthinkable. Why then give land to communities on which a flourishing enterprise exists?
True, allowing local communities to benefit from the use or letting of land makes some sense. But handing over land to a community because their ancestors whether Bantu, Boer or Brit were buried there will just deplete whatever potential the land held for some enterprise.

The “Tragedy of the Commons” in Enland is an example of creating common ownership. The exploitation was immediate and disasterous.

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Could anyone imagine citizens of a European country say France or UK demanding more or any advantage because they were original French or English stock.They would be rightly castigated as fascist racist scum.

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@David

You asked me “why the black population of South Africa has grown exponentially…as opposed to the indigenous peoples of Canada who live in apartheid reservations…why do Indians in Canada call themselves “First Nation”…how many Indians were slaughtered by the settlers?”

Space does not allow a full answer, but one difference would be that of cultural norms and ideals about family size and number of children. First Nations would better be compared to the San perhaps?

Canada never had any ‘Indian Wars’ (as in the USA) and their was no wholesale slaughter across Canada. Populations were quite sparse, but there was devastation due to small-pox and influenza as well as much assimilation and intermarriage.

The term First Nations was coined to acknowledge that they were the first peoples to settle in Canada and that they were actually organised into nations and not just some random groups of hunter-gatherers with no organisation. And they do call themselves Canadian as well.

And the reserves are a funny legacy that we cannot simply erase and they cannot be compared to the homelands system even as they once stood as a model for Apartheid architects. We in Canada are stuck in a historical bind where the treaties stand as legal documents with enshrined rights that would not be willingly conceded by those that live there. Nobody is forced to stay on the reserve, but to leave is not easy due to family ties etc. Out of space for now.

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@Kizito - I actually wrote part of my PhD thesis on the topic of assimilation of the Southern San so yes in this area I am an expert.

If you wish to visit them go to the Drakensberg and talk top the locals there who identify as Abatwa.

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@Dave Harris - I write about the movement of a socio-linguistic group that is well established and documented. Where do I mention their race? You read into that your own bias and prejudice.

And as for the endless summer of South Africa have you ever been to Johannesburg in July? Or the Kalahari where your water freezes each night?

You can’t even get simple facts straight.

And the Canadian winter is wonderful with the skiing, snowshoeing, snowboarding, hot chocolate, and central heating. Also no bugs eating you or your house out form under you.

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@Ngodi - Where is my “rhetoric against whites in SA”?

I have merely outlined the prehistory based on archaeological findings and linguistic data. No bashing of any race at all. Perhaps you should read slower?

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@Akanyang Mermentsi - The peoples of Botswana would have followed a similar pattern with the Kalahari being a large limiting factor on agriculture. So many of the original Bantu language speakers would have dropped agriculture and just get livestock on the edges where water can be found (such as the Bgalakadi). The languages found in Botswana are either Bantu or Khoisan family group. Click the blue links in the article above to see how they relate to one another if interested.

Setswana and isiZulu are closely related languages with simialr grammatical construction and some words that overlap (etymologically speaking).

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@noname - I actually do not call a Hottentot a San but call them a related group (see above). They were clearly an indigenous people but engaged in another form of subsistence - pastoralism. What little is known of their language marks them as belonging to the khoisan group of languages.

I do like your point that people could shift identities as they moved between ways of living. None of the ethnic groups were so salient that they could shift and change and be appropriated by others.

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@dre - This Canadian arrived in January 2002 and stayed on till September 2009. I’ll be back in December and again in June/July.

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@ Martin: Are you on boom? The tragedy of the commons an instant ‘exploitation … immediate and disasterous’? The commons lasted until 200 years ago, and were only privatized with the governmental procapitalist program of enclosure. The article ‘tragedy of the commons’ was written by a eugenicist, and moreover cited no evidence. Someone just one a Nobel prize for amassing evidence of the success of the commons. But don’t let science and evidence get in your way - continue asserting that the failure of the commons is what causes ecological collapse.

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Oops - that should be ‘won a Nobel prize’, not ‘one a Nobel prize’…

@MFrancis
The Blackfoot are accusing the Canadian government of genocide, however it is illegal in Canada to accuse the Canadian government of genocide. Interesting law (by judicial fiat, but law no less) you have up there. BTW want to tell us about the laws that determine who is and is not an aboriginal (at least until the 80s)? How’s about the recent (last few months) Canadian government’s attempt to reclassify an Iroquoian speaking reserve (Mohawk-related speakers) to Algonquian, to strip them of certain treaty rights? How about Canadian eugenics, which was only ceased in the late 70s, especially on the prairies? And residential schools - wow - want to tell us how many ‘aboriginal’ children were raped by Canadian clergy (protestant too)? How about current Canadian involvement in Haiti, including the mass rape of Haitians of all age groups, due to the training, by the Canadian police (RCMP) of such known pedophiles and other rapists as the former Haitian national army officers? How about your genocidal psychopath Romeo Dallaire, and the genocide he set off in DRC with his assassinations in Rwanda?

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@ David,
Ranting? - where did I rant, or is staement of fact in the new SA a rant these days?
Anti-white sentiment in SA - I must have a drink to deal with the anti-white genocide taking place in SA at the moment, so I should just trivialise this as you do?
BTW -Paton’s wife left SA after writing a heart rending letter to the MSM about why she was leaving, maybe you should read it!
And yes, everything in SA is about race - BEE, AA crime, corruption, greed, incompetence, decay, destruction - but I do suppose it depends on which race is applicable.
If SA needs everybody here to make it work, you’re obviously not including whites who have been disenfranchised, marginalised, disarmed and systematically annihilated as revenge for something called Apartheid which was apparently abolished in 1990 - some 20 years ago.

And finally, despite so-called freedom of speech in SA, I’m not going to call you all the names and associated yet hoplessly inadequate expletives that you have exposed yourself to be with this particulalry liminary comment of yours because it won’t get posted - UFAO - go figure!!

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I keep re-reading Ngodoi’s comments and find them to be the best characterization of our situation as whites. At the very least, he did not attack anyone, refrained from name calling and the use of standard racist cliches.

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I long ago came to see that attempting to sort out current conflicts through deciding which particular group came to place ‘A or ‘B’ or whatever first was a source of endless conflict. Anyway modern genetics shows that our species, homo sapiens, evolved in Africa and then spread out across the whole world. Consequently all humans are Africans and following the ‘who got here first’ type of thinking have every right to return here. Now that would actually be impossible so it is far better to see how we, collectively, can make the best of where we are because all human wealth is the product of human enterprise.

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An interesting article Michael. Of course I must ask the question which nobody appears to have asked which is where the San came from, never mind the various tribes mentioned like the Goring…. etc. I think that if we look back far enough we will find that the Cradle of mankind was the Mesopotamian area (I read today perhaps Malawi). Everything hinges on land and agriculture and animals which could be domesticated in a climate which would allow these things to flourish and develop and Africa has much of those things. But as with any society which flourishes groups do break away and I believe they follow traditional resources such as the water courses and one must bear in mind that Mother Nature does wreak havoc and break apart continents etc thus stranding some people on different continents where conditions dictate change and evolution or devolution in both human and animal species. Pigmentation is dependent on environmental factors and the mutation and concentration of certain genetic traits. At the end of the day one could probably safely say that the first colonisers were Africans who went North and East into hostile environments where they had to make radical adaptations in order to survive. Those who came South had a far less hostile environment to deal with and thus lived closer to nature and the elements. This does not make either group necessarily better than the other, simply different in their values and cultures. Under pigmentation our blood groups are the same.

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Michael - “These are a direct legacy not of conquest, but assimilation and sharing.” This and other similar statements constitute the only problem I have with your piece. In essence I agree with everything except the theory that the integration was largely peaceful until a time of centralised power. Why should it have been? In stating your theory in this way, you effectively absolve the Nguni from the Europeans’ great crime - the settlement and colonising of other people’s land. Human history does not generally reflect a caring, sharing assimilation model.

Europeans came, saw and conquered. They too did not simply slaughter. They traded, settled open areas and fought wars and won them. They too assimilated locals and they too assimilated language just as the Nguni probably did.

Yet the Europeans are considered criminal for their actions while the descendents of the Nguni tribes consider themselves the victims. The irony is that they did precisely the same thing 1400 years earlier. But of course we only choose to go back far enough in history to allow those in power to justify their actions.

Academic fairness dictates that on the evidence available, both the Nguni and the Europeans are effectively guilty of precisely the same crime.

I quite agree with your last line. In fact if anything, the fact that both black and white South Africans are colonists and chose to stay in this country is something that we actually have in common, a bonding point, if only we realised it.

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Dave Harris - Unfortunately for you the truth often does lie in the middle Dave. Thats why we have a prosecution and a defense in our courts. To hear both sides of the story, eliminate the emotional stuff, focus on the facts and to weigh up who has a stronger case so that on balance we can decide which side of the line the truth lies. Thats just one little example for your pipe.

You also decry Michael’s article as “deluded” science. Since his article neatly sums up what we currently know from some very good linguistic, genetic and archeological science and compares virtually exactly to the views of world experts like Jarred Diamond and Basil Davidson, I would suggest you have some reading to do before you fire off your next wild comment.

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Does it matter who got here first? Are Americans who arrived on the Mayflower more American than sons of slaves that arrived 200 years later?

My family have been in SA for three generations; when do we earn the right to be as South African as anybody else, or is it only a question of skin tome?

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As i said earlier, i think Michael’s piece is a good one. Many of the responses are not good ones, and perhaps in the current conjuncture contributions like Michael’s ought to be judged according to what they contribute and not solely on the merits of their argument. 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).

Michael, I think you do a great job of showing up the historical and social construction and variability of SA identities, however, I think this approach fails to bring about the type of reflection required to facilitate the ‘politics without guarantees’ that is needed to produce a SAness in process. I think you inadvertently fall into a mire of entitlements as one of the things evident from reading the responses to your piece is the extent to which you are unwittingly part of a discourse behind which lurks the specter of legitimate claim in a place characterized by a politics that has for the longest time denied or granted claim to belonging on the basis of identity. Have to wait for more. Cant double post

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(Johan Meyer on October 28th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Oops - that should be ‘won a Nobel prize’, not ‘one a Nobel prize’…
Plus:
Martin: Are you on boom? The tragedy of the commons an instant ‘exploitation … immediate and disasterous’?

Hi Johan, I almost decided to ignore your references due to your ad-hominem question. LOL but then decided through to check out the pages you suggest through the dagga smoke haze surrounding my office and - yes you and the Nobel prize winners have a point although the Nobel prize seems diminished by the latest peace prize winner.
But it seems something I need to re-examine.
Have you contrary information re destruction of viable farming enterprises in SA given to communities? The evidence seems overwhelmingly in favour of the views I gave notwithstanding the Nobel critics of Hardin.
I could invite you to Kwa-Zulu to stand on a hill near Weenen and examine the landscape and you woiuld easily be able to see the difference of land in private hands and those belonging to a local community. See the evidence for yourself.

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@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.

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@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?

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@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).

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@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.

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@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).

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@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…)

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@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.

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@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?

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@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…

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@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?

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@ 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.

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ngodoi sums up how us whites feel very well. well done old chap!

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@ 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.

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@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!

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@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.

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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.

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@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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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@ 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…

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@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.

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@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.

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Micheal Francis…you are too intelligent, thank you for the enlightening piece, well writ I say.

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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!

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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!

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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.

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@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.

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@ngodoi - you are the most sensible commentator on this issue! Well done.

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