South Africa before foreign intrusion (Notes)
In this module, the history of people and how they adapted to their environment, how they evolved as society and their economic and political transformation before foreign intrusion will be discussed.
Early Southern African Societies
Humankind had its earliest origins in Africa and the story of life in South Africa has proven to be a micro study of life on the continent of Africa.
South Africa is a rich store of fossil evidence that has helped to shed much light on the evolutionary history of humankind, going back several million years.
The history of man in Africa is marked by the rise of complex societies (chiefdoms and states), migrations, agriculture and pastoralism (a way of life in which people’s livelihood depends on the herding of animals within a certain area
Before the introduction of the skill of metal-working, man was dependent in his tools on the natural materials which existed around him, notably stone tools and sticks. When the natural resources are depleted, the herders move on to the next area with similar resources, and a nomadic lifestyle is created)
The introduction of iron changed the African continent irrevocably and was a large step forwards in the development of the people.
Mainly, it created the potential for agriculture, which changed the lifestyles of the African people forever.
Population numbers rose and a pattern of migration started.
The nomadic lifestyle was no longer the only way to live and people were starting to intrude on each other’s territories.
However, while farming with implements changed the way of life in Africa, just as it did in Europe, other ways of life were equally important
Nomadic herders were successful in the central part of Africa in the great savannas.
Hunters and gatherers continued to survive in limited areas such as the Kalahari Desert in Southern Africa, where life has changed very little over the last 10000 years.
Another complication of the Iron Age was that populations grew more complex and social structures were affected.
The histories of African kingdoms, passed on by word of mouth, usually tell of a male founder who persuaded or forced people to accept his rule.
Many of these legends refer to the founder king as a blacksmith, reminding us of the great impact that iron had on African social history.
Almost all the myths also refer to the presence of supernatural authority behind the power of the ruler.
African societies were held together by social control that was tied to this supernatural force.
The masks and forms of dress unique to African societies, still serve as a reminder of their strong links to the spiritual world.
In short, the story of Africa is one of contrast and diversity, a tribute to all the people who adapted to the challenges of nature with enthusiasm and courage.
The Early Inhabitants
The history of man in South Africa covers such a vast period of time that it is difficult to know exactly where to start
A possible start could be the development of Hominidae (human race), five million years ago, or 2,3 million years ago with the development of the genus Homo.
Archaeologists have found evidence that both Homo habilis and Homo erectus inhabited southern Africa.
Archaeological evidence suggests that modern humans have lived in South Africa for over 100000 years.
Most scientists believe that the Khoisan are probably the descendants of the Late Stone Age peoples and evidence has shown that they were living in southern Africa long before either the blacks or the whites.
Among this evidence is rock art (paintings) created by the Khoisan some 26000 years ago.
The earliest distinctively Black inhabitants are believed to have arrived significantly later than the Khoisan.
The third evidence is the written records of early European travelers, traders and missionaries
The San-Hunter and gatherers
Up to as recently as 3000 years ago, all the inhabitants of southern Africa depended on hunting game and gathering wild plant foods for their survival.
However, by the middle of the 20th century A.D., the influence of pastoral, agricultural and industrial societies had caused most hunter and gatherers to become assimilated into new ways of life, to have been wiped out by their enemies in conflicts over land or to have died from the diseases brought by the new inhabitants.
Consequently, hunter-gatherers could be found only in and around the near-desert Kalahari basin.
The hunter-gatherers of Southern Africa have been called by many names: “Bushmen”, “San” or “Sonqua”, “Soaqua”, “Sarwa” or “Basarwa”, and “Twa”, all basically meaning, “those without domestic livestock”.
The San are much shorter than members of the Black group - the average height of an adult is approximately 1,5 m and their complexion is yellowish.
They probably originated on the north coast of Africa and were then driven further and further south by stronger nations.
When the San reached the southern point of Africa, the Black tribes were primarily still living in the tropical and equatorial parts of Africa
The migration of the Black tribes to southern Africa caused the San to meet up with them again after millennia of separation.
It also brought them in contact with the phenomenon of agriculture and stockbreeding (pastoral industry).
The outstanding fact of their history during this period has been the progressive collapse of their societies in the face of a variety of pressures exerted on them by intrusive European, Khoi, and Bantu-speaking pastoral and agricultural communities, and their consequent disappearance as a distinct population from most of southern Africa.
San-Economic activities and relation of production
The San were known to be excellent trackers, a skill that helped them to survive for so long on the land.
The hunters smeared poison, gathered from certain beetles or snakes on the arrowheads, which would paralyse or kill their prey.
The success of San hunting and gathering depended very closely upon mutual co-operation within the group
There was a clear division of hunting and gathering between men and women, but both were equally dependent upon each other
As hunter-gatherers, it was the women’s work to gather food and the men’s work to hunt with bows and arrows.
They lived in caves or shelters made of branches built near waterholes, so that drinking water would be near and animals could easily be hunted.
They lived foraging subsistence life based on hunting of wild animals, gathering of wild plant foods, and fishing, with no domestication of plants, and no domesticated animals
Their social structure is not tribal because they have no paramount leader and their ties of kinship are fairly relaxed.
They are a loosely knit family culture where decisions are made by universal discussion and agreement by consensus i.e. pattern of flexible and relatively egalitarian band organization
The San are generally nomadic within fairly limited boundaries, governed by the proximity of other families and clans
Their internal sociopolitical organization they tended to be far less rigid and hierarchical than the norm of their agricultural and pastoral neighbors
Religion
They believed every valley, hill and stream was inhabited by a guardian spirit
Sickness traced to spiritual world and believed every living creature possessed a spirit of its own.
The San people have left us an invaluable legacy of rock art and their paintings, depicting their way of life and their religious beliefs, can still be found all over the country.
They give us a glimpse into the lives of these tough little people, capable of such courage and compassion that they could survive on the land for such a long time, without destroying all they touched.
There is a small group of San in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa, today, who are trying to live as their predecessors did.
It has, however, become increasingly difficult for them and most of them have turned to either agriculture or stockbreeding to make a living.
The Khoikhoi (Hottentots): Pastoralists
The Khoikhoi appear to have originated from the dry grasslands of Northern Kalahari desert in Botswana.
They were probably branch of San hunter-gatherers who added pastoralism to their way of life
Language studies have proven that certain languages spoken by the San are remarkably similar to certain Khoikhoi dialects and some linguists have even mentioned the possibility that the Khoikhoi language developed out of a San language.
This is another reason for combining the words “Khoi” and “San” into “Khoisan”.
But the word also refers to the deeper connection between the two peoples, which originated when they started to marry into each other’s tribes and, in this way, became one people.
The Khoikhoi adopted a pastoralist lifestyle (a nomadic lifestyle based on herding of cattle) some 2000 years ago and adapted their cultural lives accordingly.
Like the San, the Khoikhoi also had a yellowish complexion but they were bigger in size. This can be attributed to the fact that their staple diet was protein.
Their whole lives revolved around their cattle and they were constantly on the move in search of better grazing for their cattle and sheep.
The Khoikhoi had perfected their nomadic way of life to a fine art.
They slept on reed mats in dome shaped huts made from stripped branches which could be taken apart easily to facilitate moving.
The Khoikhoi way of life
The adoption of pastoralism by late stone age peoples brought many changes to their way of life. The most obvious change was diet brought by full control of an important source of food domestic animals
They were still dependent upon hunting and trapping animals for their meat
It was perhaps this improvement in diet and changes in lifestyle that led to more settled communities
Livestock provided them with steady supply of food
The Khoikhoi’s ownership of livestock and other possessions meant that some of their sharing ideal of the San community was lost
The role of men and women became more marked and men, controlled livestock
The increase of cattle ownership led some people become more richer and increase of large families
The development of metalworking skills promoted specialization of products and trade between regions followed.
The different chiefdoms settled in different patterns; dispersed homesteads were found in the fertile coastal regions to the east, and concentrated in towns in the desert fringes to the west.
In the western half of the country, rainfall was low and desert conditions prevailed and the African farmers were not interested in settling there.
These dry regions remained a safe haven of the Khoikhoi and the San.
The Khoikhoi settlement patterns had the effect that, for the first century and a half of European settlement, the African farmers were hardly affected by the white presence at all.
Interactions between Khoikhoi and San
The term “Khoisan” has been used to describe a broad similarity in cultural and biological origins. It is derived from the names “Khoikhoi” and “San”.
“Khoikhoi” was the original name used by the Hottentots in reference to themselves and “San” was the name the Bushmen used when they referred to themselves.
Khoikhoi and San
This term was invented because it is often difficult to distinguish clearly between both the past and present “San” and their “Khoikhoi” neighbours, especially after significant changes had occurred in their lifestyles.
The Khoisan and the Black peoples are believed to have merged from common gene pools but to have developed separately.
The languages of the Khoikhoi were of the same basic family as those of the San. Their grammatical structure was similar and both contained characteristic consonantal “clicks”
Because of this frequent intermixing, historians sometimes prefer to apply the joint name Khosan to all those who spoke the “click’ languages of Southern Africa
The Bantus
Until the 1960s South African historians and white politicians had a very distorted view of their region’s early history.
They believed that black, Bantu speaking were fairly recent immigrants into Southern Africa.
The Blacks were said to swept into the region from the north in successive, conquering waves of migration
Furthermore, it was claimed, these Bantu migrations first crossed the Limpopo between 1500 and 1600, and certainly not earlier than 1000 AD.
Since 1970s archaeological findings totally overturned this distorted history. It is known that Southern Africa had far-reaching evidences of iron technology and agriculture.
Iron provided the tools for cutting trees, clearing the land, then cultivation of crops
With the development of the iron blade, reaping became easier and agriculture took on a whole new meaning.
Populations grew faster than before and people were encroaching on each other ’s land.
This necessitated an enlargement of territory, which led to the migration of African peoples from the Great Lakes in central Africa, to the North, East and South of Africa.
Some anthropologists believe that this migration process could have taken up to 2000 year
Some 2000 years ago, when the first waves of Bantus began arriving in southern Africa, they brought with them the advantages of an Iron Age culture, farming skills and domesticated crops.
After they had settled in the eastern parts of South Africa, they eventually spread out across the high veld some 1000 years ago, because of their need for more land on which to practise their growing cattle culture
The first African settlements in South Africa were mainly in the Transvaal and Natal areas
In the African culture, chiefdoms were based on control over cattle, which gave rise to social systems of protection (patronage) and hierarchies of authority within communities.
The exchange of cattle formed the basis of polygamous marriage arrangements.
This system operated on the basis of social power built through control over the labour of kin groups and dependants.
Their subsequent spread southwards across central Africa and southern Africa seems to coincided very closely with the known spread of iron working
Therefore, the early Iron Age farmers in the region were almost the ancestors of the Bantu speaking peoples who form the vast majority of the population of Central and Southern Africa today.
They were mix farmers cultivation, livestock herding or hunting
Their lifestyle were supported with favorable climate with fertile land, heavy rainfall and well wooded valleys and coastal valleys
The Bantu population of South Africa is divided into several ethnic groups, of which the Nguni forms a major part.
The Nguni
The Nguni group migrated along the eastern part of southern Africa in their southward move from central Africa. Some groups split off and settled along the way, while others kept going.
Thus, the following settlement pattern formed the Swazi in the north, the Zulu towards the east and the Xhosa in the south.
Owing to the fact that these people had a common origin, their languages and cultures show marked similarities.
The Xhosa
The first Xhosa tribes arrived in the 14th century in the area known as the Transkei. At first, they settled in this area but, in time, moved further southwards until they met up with the white settlers at the Fish River, in 1788.
At this point, the Xhosa had already been living in the area near the Fish River for more than a hundred years.
In their move to the Fish River, clashes with the Khoikhoi (Hottentots) often occurred but they eventually defeated the Khoikhoi.
Many of the Xhosa tribes chose to settle along the south-eastern coast of Africa. These were divided mainly into the Thembu section and the Mpondo section.
Some other Xhosa tribes such as the Fingo, Bhaca, Nhlangwini and Xesibe chose to settle in the eastern part of the Transkei.
The Zulu
While the Xhosa tribes migrated to the Transkei and the Ciskei, other Nguni tribes such as the Zulu, chose to remain in Natal.
In 1806, there were a large number of tribes in the area and there were four important and well known ones.
The Zulu tribe which, during the early nineteenth century, was only a small tribe, had settled between the Umhlatuse and the Umfolozi Rivers.
Other tribes include:
a) The Ndebele
b) The Sotho
c) The Swazi
d) Bapedi
e) The Tsonga
Bantu migration
As the Bantu speaking groups migrated southwards, they came into contact with the Khoikhoi and the San (Bushmen) who were widely dispersed over large areas of Southern Africa.
Neither the Khoikhoi nor the San were any match for the Bantu speakers and were soon forced to take refuge in the drier, more mountainous parts. Linguistic research has proved, for instance, that the Khoi along the south east coast of South Africa had earlier occupied a territory that stretched as far north as at least the Mzimvubu River.
By 1736 they had been driven so far south west that the Xesi or Keiskamma River was accepted as the 'boundary' between the Khoi and the South Nguni (Xhosa speakers), though some of the Khoi remained living as subordinates amongst the Bantu speakers.
Contact between the South Nguni and the Khoi, with each influencing the other, occurred over a very long period and led to cultural and linguistic interaction, facilitated by the fact that the cultures and the social organization of the two groups in some respects showed some similarities.
Contact occurred in several ways, of which trading and intermarriage were probably the most important
Social Formation in South Africa
In this session I seek to do three related things: to identify the dominant mode of production in the South African social formation and other possible subsidiary modes; to establish the existence or otherwise of classes in South African society; and to elucidate the development of the states.
Pre colonial modes of production
Mode of production is defined as "an articulated combination of relations and forces of production structured by the dominance of the relations of production
The relations of production, also defined as a specific mode of appropriation of surplus labour and the specific form of social distribution of the means of productions corresponding to that mode of appropriation of surplus labour.
In pre colonial Africa the mode of production characteristic of most African social formations identified are:
a) Primitive communal mode of production: Its identifying characteristics are communal appropriation of the social product and its extended or complex redistribution among the lineage members. E.g. San relations of production
b) Feudal mode of production: The mechanism for the appropriation of surplus (feudal rent) and the property relations which go with that involve extensive control over the labour process on the part of the feudal lord, and for this reason this excludes the possibility of communal production
This was experienced when some members of the community owned large number of cattle and others graze for them among the Bantus, with the land question arise the classes of land owners and labourers
In social formations such as these, the political level exists as the necessary space for the representation of the interests of the various classes, and the presence of a state apparatus is a necessary condition of the maintenance and functioning of the mechanism of appropriation of surplus labour by the ruling class
Otherwise, where social classes are absent, the state and politics do not exist and the social formation is constituted only of economic and ideological levels.
Given this definition, it is obviously important to impart some precision to our notion of class, and to see whether classes can then be identified in tributary, and particularly South African social formation.
In reference to pre colonial South Africa, do there any existence of classes, states, politics? Or classless, stateless societies?
In Marxian theory, the separation of society into social classes arises from the social division of labour between a class of labourers who are separated from ownership of the means of production and a class of non labourers who control the means of production, and use this as the means of appropriating surplus labour.
In short, pre colonial societies :
There were absence of exploitation of man by man and the produce of labor shared
They were living a transhumance mode of life
Collective ownership of the major means of production but as the society progressed, the signs of private ownership was experienced especially among the Bantus
Low level of productive forces use of simple tools
There were division of labor
Economy and politics
After a number of centuries of gradual Iron Age development people began to move their villages away from fertile valley bottoms, riversides and coastal plains
Major economic activities were cattle keeping and agriculture which consequently led to expansion of settlements and growth of population
Subsistence economy: Khoisan mainly were producing for immediate consumption
Specializations in industries and crafts and trade also increased
Pastoralism as the way of economic life
Why cattle have been part of a 'farming complex' for the full two millennia of the southern African 'Iron Age?
It will be argued here that the use of iron technology and involvement in livestock keeping and crop cultivation were responsible for the growth of states in Southern Africa
The environment and permanent settlement led also to massive chieftainships later kingdoms in the region
State formation in Pre colonial South Africa
Among the pre colonial people of South Africa, there were a wide range of political structures.
San political organization was rudimentary. They were organized into cooperative bands of up to 100 people.
The Khoikhoi formed larger, more elaborate tribal groups whose members sometimes numbered in the thousands.
These groups were presided over by chiefs
Between the 13th and 15th centuries, the relatively powerful Bantu-speaking states on a scale larger than local chiefdoms began to emerge, in the savanna south of the Central African rainforest, and on the Zambezi river where the Monomatapa kings built the famous Great Zimbabwe complex.
Such processes of state formation occurred with increasing frequency from the 16th century onward.
They were probably due to denser population, which led to more specialized divisions of labour, including military power, while making outmigration more difficult.
Other factors were increased trade among African communities and with European, and Arab traders on the coasts; technological developments in economic activity, and new techniques in the political spiritual ritualization of royalty as the source of national strength and wealth
The Bantu had the most complex political systems organized into chiefdoms.
Some were fairly large, with populations of tens or hundreds of thousands of people.
Others were very small, consisting of a single clan or village. Bantu chiefs had more authority than their Khoikhoi counterparts. Underneath paramount chiefs there was a hierarchy of sub chiefs and administrators.
Bantu chiefdoms in South Africa tended to be fluid. Chiefdoms or kingdoms often split apart, forming new states.
On the other hand, smaller chiefdoms were sometimes incorporated into larger ones.
There are many examples of the fluid nature of Bantu kingdoms.
The Xhosa, for example, were originally ruled by a single king.
But succession disputes led them to split into three separate states. Nevertheless, all Xhosa rulers continued to recognize the ceremonial ascendancy of the original ruling family.
Another social organization was Nguni nations, the clan based on male ancestry formed the highest social unit.
Each clan was led by a chieftain.
Influential men tried to achieve independence by creating their own clan. The power of a chieftain often depended on how well he could hold his clan together.
From about 1800, the rise of the Zulu clan of the Nguni and the consequent mfecane that accompanied the expansion of the Zulus under Shaka, helped to drive a process of alliance between and consolidation among many of the smaller clans
Shaka Zulu's political organisation was efficient in integrating conquered tribes, partly due to the age regiments, where men from different villages bonded with each other.
The Nguni tribes kept similar political practises to those used by Shaka Zulu
Concluding Remarks
The first South Africans to inhabit this diverse land were Khoisan and Bantu speaking peoples.
One group of Khoisan (Khoikhoi) lived as pastoralist, raising cattle and sheep near the coast.
Others (the San) inhabited the western part of South Africa as hunter-gatherers searching for game and plants to eat.
Most Khoisan-speaking people were later killed, but their influence on the language and culture of South Africa persists.
Most modern black South Africans are descendents of various Bantu speaking peoples, such as the Xhosa (Cho-sa), Zulu, Sotho, Pedi, Tsonga and Tswana.
Though derived from the same Bantu root, their languages were different.
Their economies ranged from pastoralism (raising livestock) and agriculture to metal working and trade.
These Bantu speaking groups often lived in villages with chiefs as political leaders
Though white Europeans later identified these groups rigidly by ethnicity, their source of group identity varied
Some defined themselves by their ethnic ties or geographical location
Others, such as Xhosa, allowed anyone to belong to their group as long as they accepted the rule of the chief.
The state building in South Africa and political upheavals accompanied the process will be discussed in the next module.
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