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KHOIKHOI -- HOTTENTOTS |
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by Wikipedia The Khoikhoi ("men of men"[1]) or Khoi, in standardised Khoekhoe/Nama orthography spelled Khoekhoe, are a historical division of the Khoisan ethnic group of southwestern Africa, closely related to the Bushmen (or San, as the Khoikhoi called them). They had lived in southern Africa since the 5th century CE[2] and, at the time of the arrival of white settlers in 1652, practised extensive pastoral agriculture in the Cape region. Name They were traditionally—and are still occasionally in colloquial language—known to white colonists as the Hottentots, a name that is nowadays generally considered offensive (e.g. by the Oxford Dictionary of South African English). The word "hottentot" meant "stutterer" in the colonists' northern dialect of Dutch, although some Dutch use the verb stotteren to describe the clicking sounds (klik being the normal onomatopoeia, parallel to English) typically used in the Khoisan languages. The word lives on, however, in the names of several African animal and plant species, such as the Hottentot Fig or Ice Plant (Carpobrotus edulis). Author and academic Alison Lurie wrote a literary criticism of L. Frank Baum for his portrayal of a race of goat-like people called the "Tottenhot" in his book Rinkitink in Oz (written 1905, published 1916). The word "Hottentot", without any shift of syllables, is used in the song "If I Were King of the Forest" in the 1939 movie adaptation of Baum's most famous work, The Wizard of Oz.[3] History "Khoikhoi social organisation was profoundly damaged and, in the end, destroyed by white colonial expansion and land seizure from the late 17th century onwards, which ended traditional Khoikhoi pastoral life. As social structures broke down, some Khoikhoi people settled on farms and became bondsmen or farmworkers; others were incorporated into existing clan and family groups of the Xhosa people. Khokhoi women were displayed in Europe in the 18th and 19th century because of their presumed sexual powers. The most notable of these was Saartjie Baartman, the so-called "Hottentot Venus". In his book Regular Gradations of Man 1799, Dr. Charles White, a historical race scientist, claimed blacks were halfway between whites and apes in the great chain of being. He used the example of Khokhoi women to show the supposedly primal sexuality of blacks. White claimed Hottentot women had overdeveloped breasts, showing a more animal nature; elongated labia minora, which could hang down to as many as four inches outside the vulva; and steatopygia, the tendency to develop large deposits of fat on the buttocks, in a specific pattern of adiposity not seen in Europeans. Culture The religious mythology of the Khoikhoi gives special significance to the moon, which may have been viewed as the physical manifestation of a supreme being associated with heaven. Tsui'goab is also believed to be the the creator and the guardian of health, while Gunab is primarily an evil being, who causes sickness or death. Recently, many Khoikhoi in Namibia have converted to Islam and make up the largest group among Namibia's Muslim community.[5] _______________ References 1&2. Khoekhoe.
Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved on 2007-01-15.
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